How to Play the Violin

Transcript The order of sharps and flats on the violin. The order of sharps on the violin are F, C, G, D, A, E, B. And they’re in a circle of fifths. So five from the F: F, G, A, B, C. So, then that’s five notes from the F. If you’re starting on the …

Transcript How do you find good violin music for practicing? Obviously it depends on your level. It depends on whether you have a teacher, or if you’re just doing it yourself, but mostly on your level. Hopefully you have a teacher who’s guiding you in the right direction. When you’re choosing music to practice the …

Transcript So, there’s a lot of different, beautiful, sad music for the violin. Here’s one of them. This is ‘Meditation on a Theme’ from Thais by Massenet. That’s the beginning of a beautiful, sad piece, that you can play at all different kinds of events on the violin, and it’s so beautiful.

Transcript So let’s talk about good violin songs for beginners. The way I was started when I was a little girl; I started on the Suzuki method which is a very popular method to begin children on playing the violin. What it is is specific songs in books. And there’s book one, book two, book …

Transcript The difference between a violin and a viola, is that they do have different strings. The violin has the E, A, D and G string. The viola does not have the E string, but it does have the C string. So, it goes A, D, G, C is the lowest string; whereas, A is …

Transcript The Canon in D is very popular piece played by quartets, at weddings and things like that. I’m going to teach you just the very beginning in 1st position, a very easy part of playing Canon in D so you can learn it at home. You put your first finger on F#, in 1st …

Transcript Okay, so once you know where to place your hand on the left hander’s which is what we touched on in a previous video, then you need to think about where does your arm fall when you’re playing. It depends, that’s the answer. Because it depends whether your fingers are on the E string, …

Transcript Okay. So now, I’m going to teach you how to hold the bow properly. When you’re teaching a beginner, you want to first hold the bow so that the hair is facing you, and the bow is vertical and the tip is facing the ceiling. So this is what it looks like. This way, …

Transcript So, now I’m gonna play the D major scale, two to a bow. The D major scale, as you can see, that was a three octave D major scale. That goes up pretty high on the E string. So it’s one of the more difficult ones. And if you get really good at the …

Transcript 3/4 time in the violin is a really great meter, because it’s like a dance. One, two, three. One, two, three. One, two, three. One, two, three. And as you can tell, the big beat falls on the one, the first beat. One, two, three. One, two, three. One, two, three. One, two, three. …

Transcript Okay. Now, I would like to show you about bow direction, and bow arm movement. In previous segments, we touched upon drawing the bow in open strings, and we said that it was very important to curl our fingers on the bow arm. And then we also said it was very important to stay …

Transcript So now I’m going to talk about vibrato. First you need to set up your left hand position the right way. Now we spoke about how to set up your left hand in the first position but now we need to talk about the left hand positioning in the third position because that’s where …

Transcript Okay. So now, I’m going to teach you about right hand, finger exercises. Once you have mastered your bow grip, then you need some flexibility in your fingers so that when you are moving the bow on the violin, your fingers are nice and relaxed, and they can balance at different points on the …

Transcript The A string is the most important string on the violin. All the strings are important, but the A string is the note that you tune to. So, when an orchestra is tuning, the oboe gives an A to the concert master. That’s the A. Here’s an example of a piece on the A …

Transcript Let’s talk a little bit about finger strike. And what that is, is on the left hand when you’re playing the violin with your fingers, there’s different ways to put your fingers down. It’s important at some point to learn about articulation. And what that means is the clearness that the note strikes the …

Transcript There’s lots of different bow strokes when you play the violin. There’s legato, there’s staccato, there’s sautille, there’s martele ; I’ll explain some of them. Here’s legato strokes. I’ll do it in a scale so you can really see. That’s just really smooth bow changes. You’re going from a down bow to an up …

Transcript Okay, so now we’re going to talk about applying fingering tapes for young beginner violinists. What they’re used for when, you know, a child first starts the violin, it’s very difficult to know where to put your fingers, your left hand fingers, on the instrument. Because, as you can see, if I took off …

Transcript So, the E string on the violin is the highest string and it’s the sweetest string. And there’s lots of different pieces that have the E string. I’m gonna play, just very beginning of, the Mozart Concerto No. 5. And it starts on the E string. So, I hope you could tell how sweet …

Transcript So now I’m going to teach you how to loosen and tighten your bow properly, and then also how to rosin your bow. When you’re loosening and tightening your bow, this is the screw that you use. And when you loosen your bow, you want it to be about that loose. Not too loose. …

Transcript Okay. So now I’m going to teach you how to place your left hand on your violin. In a previous video, I spoke about how to place your violin on your shoulder the proper way. So once your violin is up and looks beautiful and it’s just in the right position, you put up …

Transcript When you need to replace your strings on the violin either because you’ll see part of the string is unraveling, or the sound is not as ringy, or it’s been several months since you changed it last, it’s time to change your strings. Right here this is the kind of string I use. I …

Transcript Now we’re going to talk about where all the Gs are on the violin, all the Bs and all the As. First the Gs. Here’s the lowest G. That’s the open G. Then you have third finger on D string, that’s the next G. Then you have second finger on E string. Those are …

Transcript So, the C natural on the violin is sort of like the sad C, because when you first learn to play the violin, you usually learn to play C sharp, like this. You have open A. First finger on A is B. And then you have C sharp, second finger. But, if you’re then …

Transcript Sometimes you’re going to need to be able to use all of the strings sort of like a roll. In order to do that, you need your elbow to swing back and forth and it is sort of like a child on a swing going back and forth, back and forth. And this is …

Transcript Okay. So, now I’m going to show you the importance of bowing open strings. As a beginner, but also as you get more advanced, it’s every important to always go back to open strings. And make sure you’re doing everything right in terms of sound and bow division so that you have the optimum …

Transcript We’re going to talk now about bow weight distribution. What that means is, you know, it’s very difficult to make a beautiful sound, a constant sustained sound, on your instrument unless you use the right distribution of your arm and your hand on the bow. Because the bow is not equal in weight. The …

Transcript The other think you also want to do with open strings to make sure that your sound is very sustained and even is to put the metronome on. I love practice tempo of 60 to the quarter note. Okay. So now I have the metronome on. And what I do is I try to …

Transcript Okay. So, now I’m gonna teach you how to tune your strings. You always start with the A string first. And then, you can either take your tuning fork or your metronome, which should probably have a tuner on it to tune your violin as well. And you find the A. And you match …

Transcript Okay, so when you’re thinking about choosing strings for your violin, there’s a lot of different strings on the market. What, in general, you wanna look for, is something that matches your violin sound. And when I say that, you want something that’s gonna bring out the warmth in your violin, that’s going to …

Transcript So now we’ll talk about shifting. It’s a very important part of playing. There’s shifting everywhere on the violin. First position, second position, third position, fourth position, fifth position, sixth position, seventh position, it goes all the way up. And this is an example of shifting. So I’ve shifted all the way up to …

Transcript Violin concertos are a very important part of the overall violin repertoire and they’re probably the most famous of all the violin repertoire. There’s Back concertos, Mendelson concerto, that’s a very, very popular one in e minor. There’s Brooke concertos very popular. And also Cavalesky, Catchetarian . There’s lots of them. Sansong concerto, Devoirak …

Transcript Chords on the violin are a lot of fun to play. They are in a lot of different places. A chord is when you’re playing two or more notes on the violin together. And that means that you’re crossing strings, you’re using more than one string. Double stops are chords as well. That’s when …

Transcript So now we’re going to talk about slurs on the violin. A slur, by definition, is when you join two or more notes in one bow. So, for instance, this is a G and an A, but they’re separate bows. And now I’m going to slur the two of them together. I make both …

Transcript Holding the violin, for a beginner, is one of the most important things to learn when you are first learning how to play. I feel it is one of the mistakes that is made sometimes where children learn to hold the violin with their hand. Really they should be learning how to hold the …

Transcript Here’s the D string on the violin. One of my favorite pieces on the violin is called the “Bach Double”. And it is played by two violins and orchestra. The second violin enters with that famous entrance on the D string. And so that’s one of the reasons I love the D string, because …

Transcript Now we’re going to talk about finger patterns in the left hand when you’re playing the violin. As I mentioned in the previous segments about Schradieck being a wonderful etude exercise and it should be part of every student’s study repertoire, we spoke about Schradieck in terms of the left hand strike in a …

Transcript As you reach a higher level, you’ll be studying octaves. What are octaves? After you’ve done your scales, after you’ve done thirds and sixths, you have what is called octaves. Octaves are the same note, but eight notes away. So, if you have an A here, you have the same A on the G …

Transcript Proper violin maintenance. It’s important to take good care of your instrument. Most violins are worth a good amount of money, and also because, they will sound best and look best if they’re taken good care of. So they do need to be taken care of in different ways. Every day, after you practice, …

Transcript Okay, so, you don’t always have access to your violin or your bow. So, instead of using your bow to practice your bow grip, you can use a pencil; whether you’re in school or at work. So, you take a pencil and you pretend you’re holding a cup. And you put the thumb and …

Transcript This is the G string on the violin. It’s the lowest string on the violin. And that’s actually the lowest note you can play on the violin. One of my favorite pieces that starts on the G string, nice and strong, is called Zigeunerweisen by Sarasate. It’s nice and powerful, the G string. Here’s …

Transcript So, when you’re a violinist, or any other musician for that matter, it’s very important to practice your scales every day at home. A lot of people say they don’t have time to practice the scales. They only have a certain amount of time and they have to work on their solo pieces, or …

Transcript Now we’re going to talk a little bit about bow divisions and rhythms. A good way to demonstrate bow divisions is in a scale. I always put my metronome at sixty when I practice my scales, and I work from a slow tempo up to a faster tempo. But, the metronome always stays at …

Transcript So,now we can talk about bow speed and bow pressure. It’s very important to practice the different kinds of speeds. It also is important to relate them to different note lengths. In other words, if you’re playing a half note, which is two beats, then your bow is going to go slower than if …

Transcript OK. So now I’m going to teach you the different parts of the violin and the bow. We’ll start with the violin first. When you’re a beginner, it’s very important to know all the different parts of the instrument, so that you know your violin a little bit better. You know what each thing …

Transcript So when your child first tells you they’d like to start playing the violin, you may not want to make the full investment to spend up to sometimes 250 dollars on an instrument that they may not even like or might grow out of pretty quickly. So it’s very, very popular to rent an …

Transcript And now, I’m gonna teach you how to pick a bow for your beginning violin. Again, this is a sixteenth size violin. And usually, more times than not, you’re gonna get a bow that it comes with the violin. So, if it’s a sixteenth size violin, it’s a sixteenth size bow that comes with …

Transcript So, now I’m gonna teach you how to choose a violin for beginners. The first thing you have to think about, is the sizing with the arm. Now, I’m gonna show you on my violin. This is actually a 16th size and great for beginners, like, from 3 years old to 5 years old. …

Transcript So, now I’m going to teach you about shoulder rests and how to place them as well. There’s so many different shoulder rests that you can use. And, when you’re choosing for, especially a beginner, less is more. Now, rarely do you use nothing, because it’s very slippery on the back of the instrument. …