Practicing Octaves

May 31, 2011 at 02:55 AM ·

Greetings,

the basic premise with tuning octaves is the intonation of the first finger.  Work on that alone (while keeping the fourth finger down) ubtil it is flawless. then the fourth finge rtakes care of itself.  there is however,  a secondary factor which conerns bow weight.  If you apply too much weight on one string it may distort the pitch.  Practice experimenting with forte on one string and piano on the other and similar variations.  I would also suggets thta you keep slightly more bow weight on the lower string, (its thicker) and pay most attention to thta.

Cheer,s

buri

June 1, 2011 at 11:46 PM ·

You have to get used to the fact that steps are closer the higher you go. I just practice each note really slowly until i get it in tune. Then, if you know where the notes are, you can play scales faster.

June 17, 2011 at 12:39 PM ·

 I am 67 and re-started to learn since 3 months ago.  I quit in 1995 because I found it too hard to learn.  3 months ago, the DVDs from the Academy of Music (Mrs. Seidel) got me back to my violin. Further,  I tried the fretless finger guides. It helps me.  It cost less than US$ 10.00 at :  http://www.fretlessfingerguides.com/   The fretless finger guides shows the good finger positioning.  I often close my left eye and use my right eye only as this helps me to have a broader view of the finger board and the strings.  So, I can decide where to drop my fingers. 

Cheers.

June 18, 2011 at 06:25 AM ·

Judex, Ellen is way past the stage that needs that kind of visual hints if she is practicing octaves... In fact, I don't think the "fretless finger guides" is such a good idea for beginners either.  Well, it's not bad if you just try to remember where notes are (approximately), but it's worse than finger-tapes (which, BTW, is another can of worms...) if you are trying to use it to help you play in tune. For one, there are variations in string lengths due to the fact that violin sizes are not standardized... BTW, I appreciate your enthusiasm about restarting the violin, but could you please stop cross-posting to unrelated topics? It's considered spamming... I'm sure more people would be willing to discuss fretless finger guides or strings, or whatever, if you start a new thread (New topics will need to be approved by Laurie before they will show up in the forum) or post in an on-topic thread.

June 18, 2011 at 02:40 PM ·

I agree that "first frets' and other variations are not the key to intonation. I'm an adult beginner that started in November 2010 and I used the first frets which show first position initally and after a week of having them OFF my intonation became much better. Besides if you have your right eye open you're simply looking at the marker and not listening to your instrument.

I also agree with Joyce that one only needs to give product props/info once and then the people who wanna buy will. I will also mention that I got my first fret sticker on eBay for like $3 but again I don't recommend them except to maybe mark the first finger only. That way you can't cheat by touch with typical tape, and have a marker to make reference to if you absolutely need to. It's a honor system thing though where you consciously don't look as you play as much as possible.

To answer the question, I have just now started work on octaves and my advice is repetition to help train your ear and fingers. I go through the octaves several times, first with four beats per note and then cutting it down to three, two and one. If I mess up I do it again until my playing is consisent throughout the exercise.

June 18, 2011 at 02:45 PM ·

June 20, 2011 at 05:15 PM ·

Ellen,

As Buri said, focus on the first finger while doing octaves and eventually you learn the 4th finger placement from repetition.  You may want to start a session by playing with just the first finger and concentrating on getting each shift interval correct for the first finger. Later in the session, add the 4th finger. As you know, the 4th finger interval gets shorter as you go up the scale.  There is no magic here. Its just a matter of repetition to build muscle memory. Do it daily, eventually working through all 12  keys, major and minor, over the course of a year or two.  Maybe having the right expectation will help.

June 20, 2011 at 05:38 PM ·

I think Judex is a spammer. He said the same thing in a thread regarding chin-rest placement and several others as well. He just plugs in the same piece of non-applicable advice and advertises those silly fingerboard sticker things. 

June 20, 2011 at 08:28 PM ·

Ellen,

this is ex-fellow-sufferer's advice. I have had to practice octaves daily for a very long time (over a year of Kreutzer 25) before they were in tune. But in the end they were. Now, more than thirty years later, octaves still feel safe and familiar. Patience will pay off in the end.

Some things I remember:

- first finger placement is important, as Buri already pointed out;

- during shifting, there is a moment in which you almost stop holding the violin. I my case, the direction of the scroll, somewhat out to the left, was not stable: it wanted to come in, towards the middle. Once I got that fixed -- a matter of chin and shoulder rest setup -- playing octaves became much easier.

- shifting from lower ( 3 and below) to higher (5 and above) positions requires attention: when to bring the wrist and arm around, and how much. Fourth position is in between.

- a useful exercise for me was the "mating of the worms": to have the fingers moving in opposite directions. Say you start with f'-f", and then e'-f#", f'-f", f#'-e", or you might even go to d#'-f#" or d'-f".

- it helped me to get a little angry at my teacher: "next time I'll nail them all, that will stop him pointing out false notes".

Hope this helps,

good luck,

Bart

June 21, 2011 at 07:54 AM ·

I do something simple with my students for octaves:

Ensure that your smaller intervals are in tune, and your octaves will be in tune. So as a slow-motion practice tool, finger whole step, whole step, and half step on one string, then move your second, third, and fourth finger directly over to the next higher string.

Another variation on this technique is to play your artificial harmonics (first and fourth finger), then move your fourth finger directly over to the next higher string. If your artificial harmonic is in tune, so will your octave.

If your whole and half steps are in tune, your octaves will be in tune. Obviously you have to adjust the size of those intervals as you move further up the neck, but that's the nature of the instrument.

Good luck. :)