June 2014

The First Notes and Scales You Learn on the Violin (why those sharps?)

June 27, 2014 05:43

Peter asks...

Hi Zlata :)
I have a question connected with reading scales.
I've learned for example G, D, A - major scales and each of this scales has 1,2,3 sharp keys/notes at the beginning of the piece.
I know how to play each scale but how do I learn to read/understand how to place my fingers by reading the keys.
Could you give me some examples or tutorial?

This is very broad subject and if I would explain everything I know about, it would be an extended DVD box. Maybe I will create that in the future, but in this short video I will highlight the most important aspects.

When you start playing the violin, you learn the first ‘frame’: first finger, a high second finger, a third finger next to the second finger and a fourth finger. Watch the video to see how this looks like.

With this fingering you can play a one octave major scale starting on the open G, D and A string.

Here are the fingerings for these three scales...

G major:
0 1 2 3 0 1 2 3 3 2 1 0 3 2 1 0
G D G

D major:
0 1 2 3 0 1 2 3 3 2 1 0 3 2 1 0
D A D

A major:
0 1 2 3 0 1 2 3 3 2 1 0 3 2 1 0
A E A

You might be wondering why you see al those sharps, while you are just learning the first frame.

The reason is that your violin is tuned in fifths, so learning the first frame on every string we have to take notice of this.

The system of Western music is based on octaves. All the sharps and flats are based on the C major scale. The C major scale is the only major scale without sharps and flats.

C major simply goes like this: CDEFGABC and there we have a one octave scale.

This scale progresses with jumps between each note. See the first picture for an overview of these jumps: half notes and whole notes: tones and semitones.

If you want to play this exact sequence starting from another note, we will have to add some sharps and flats.

In the second picture you can see an overview of the first frame on the violin and how these notes are named.

In the video I go through all the fingers of the first frame and why they are named the way they are named.

I hope I have made this system a little bit clearer for you. Perhaps watch this video a couple of times and play the three scales together with me to understand everything I say in depth.

Also watch my video ‘Learn to read notes quick and dirty’.

Is this useful to you? Please let me know in the comments below!

Love,

Zlata

PS: Do you have questions or struggles on violin or viola playing? Post a comment below or send an e-mail to info@violinlounge.com and I might dedicate a Violin Lounge TV episode to answering your question!

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How To Rosin Your Violin or Viola Bow

June 19, 2014 01:03

This video is about how to rosin your bow.

It’s personal how often and how much you rosin your bow. Some people rosin a little, but often. Some people rosin a lot when they do, but they don’t rosin often. Some people (like me) like to rosin just a little bit, others like to have a lot of rosin on their bow.

There are some things that are important when rosining your bow:

Lots of people play most of the time in the middle of the bow, but they mostly rosin the extreme tip and the extreme frog. Rosin the part of the bow with which you play the most.

Rosin against your thumb when rosining at the frog, so the rosin will not break when it hits the frog.

Don’t forget to rosin the sides of the hair. This will come in handy as you play with your bow a little pivoted.

Rosin with little strokes and smooth it out with some long strokes in the end.

You can see how much rosin there is on your bow hair as the hair becomes white.

Just try out what effect a different way of rosining has on the response of the bow and the sound you make. I’d like to use as little rosin as possible as long as the response of my bow is ok. Using a lot or too much rosin makes your violin sound shrill. Besides that the rosin gets on your strings a lot and you will hear the scraping sound of rosin over rosin.

Now I’d like to hear from you!

What’s your favorite brand and type of rosin?

Do you have additional tips on how to rosin your bow?

Share them in the comments!

Love,

Zlata

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How To Play Fast Notes Rhythmically

June 12, 2014 04:52

Dear Zlata,
Thanks for these videos! I think a video about how to play consistently throughout the song. Sometimes especially with eighth notes I trip up and not all of them are the same length when you play them. I get this and my fingers aren't in rhythm and it almost sounds like I'm playing swing instead of just eighth notes. I think other people have this too. My piano teacher has talked to me about keeping my fingers in the same rhythm and keep the notes consistent but I still struggle so I don't know if this would make a good video but it's just a suggestion.
Maddie

First of all: there is no point in endless repetition.

I will share with you some strategies to practice fast pieces efficient, effective, fun and creative.

Practice the eight notes in groups of four.

Play four notes really fast, but take a pauze before you play the next four.

Repeat the first two steps with batteries of two, three, eight etc.

Try to find the two notes that make it difficult, the notes that make you trip. Find the cause if your trip.

Do it wrong by purpose (for example: play in swing), so you store the notes in your finger memory.

Play rhythmical variations, as much different variations as you can think of.

Don’t repeat the same thing over and over and over again, but be creative.

I’m sure these exercises will be helpful to you. Let me know what your results are.

Is this useful to you? Please let me know in the comments below!

Love,

Zlata

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How To (and why?) Replace the Tailpiece of Your Violin or Viola

June 4, 2014 07:00

In this weeks video I’m going to teach you how to replace the tailpiece of your violin or viola. But first...

Why should you replace the tailpiece of your violin or viola?

If your tailpiece is broken (duuuuh)

If you want a tailpiece with four integrated finetuners.

Let’s go a little deeper into the second point. Why would you want a tailpiece with four integrated finetuners?

Perhaps your tailpiece is made of wood and you use loose fine tuners (not integrated). This means you can take the finetuners of the tailpiece and use none, one, two, three or four finetuners. Tuning is easier and faster when you have four finetuners.

If you put four loose metal finetuners on a wooden tailpiece, the tailpiece will become heavy. It’s not good for the tone of your violin to have an heavy tailpiece.

However... we want a good tone AND four finetuners. To achieve this you should consider a tailpiece made out of composite material with four integrated finetuners. I have bad experiences with Chinese made tailpieces (they break quickly and don’t tune easily), so get yourself some German quality (click here to buy what I recommend) by Wittner, a Deutsch Qualitätswerkzeug ;).

It’s not so difficult to replace the tailpiece yourself. Just follow these steps and watch the video before you start.