Three Things You Must Develop Before Learning Positions on the Violin
Do you know what the three most important things you need to learn before playing in violin positions? You’re definitely going to know after reading this post. In this post, I will share with you three things you must learn before violin positions.
In order to play more advanced pieces, you have to learn violin positions but before you even do that, these are the three things you have to develop.
A good ear
First thing you must develop before learning positions on the violin, a good ear. You need to be able to know when you’re playing out of tune and when you’re playing in tune. A good ear helps you listen and make adjustments to your pitches.
When you are playing in positions, if you are unable to know if you’re playing in tune or not, you’re really wasting your position practice time.
It is a good idea to work on playing in tune in first position before you start learning other positions.
Whenever you play something out of tune, stop and play from the note before you played the note out of tune so you can discover the finger relationships and what exactly did not go well when you played that note out of tune.
Know if your finger was too low or too high. Without knowing if you’re playing the correct pitch, your violin position journey can come to an absolute halt.
What good is spending hours in the practice room if you aren’t practicing the pitches correctly.
Is mastering violin positions on your to do list?
How many times have you said to yourself…”if only I had proper violin position training…” Well, if not now, when?
This is why I created violin positions & shifting academy where you don’t have to lose time to think what to practice or search for more violin position exercises. Your technical practice is all laid out for you. All violin position books included for you to see massive improvements even if all you have is 15 minutes a day of concentrated mindful technique practice.
A proper foundation
The second skill, you must develop before learning positions on the violin, a proper foundation. If you don’t have a proper foundation, it’s going to be really, really hard to be consistent, to be comfortable, and to shift easily on the violin plus muscle memory needs a solid foundation to develop properly.
Again if your foundation is really wobbly, hours of time will be wasted in the practice room.
If you want to inspect your foundation, make sure that you have a proper violin hold, a good left hand.
Check out my video, “How to Hold the Violin Properly for Beginners and Beyond.”
You’ll find a lot of gems in that video to help you along your way.
Quick example, if you’re playing and shifting on the violin and your violin drops you see that your left hand is going to play out of tune as mine did, right? If we have this real solid foundation, it’s going to be a lot easier for your left hand to be consistent. You’ll know exactly where you need to go and your muscle memory will develop a lot better.
Ability to read notes fluently
The third skill you must develop before learning positions on the violin, knowing how to read notes. Yes, I stress this so much with my students. If you worked with me online, you know that note reading is a really huge deal. Why? Because if you’re not reading your notes and you’re only thinking numbers, those numbers don’t match up to the same notes in different positions.
As you’re moving up the violin you need to know the names of your notes and where they live on the violin, not numbers.
Never underestimate the importance of reading notes. Numbers are not notes. It is imperative to know your note names and it is a huge contributing factor on your ear to know if you’re playing that specific pitch.
If you don’t know what a B sounds like, you’re not going to know if you’re really truly playing B. If you only know B as A1 or D3 in third position, you’re not going to know if you’re in tune or not. Have fun developing these three must-haves before you start learning violin positions.
Let me know in the comments below which of these three things you’re going to start working on today.
If you’re wanting to know what are the easiest positions to play on the violin, definitely check out my video, “What Are the Easiest Positions to Play on the Violin.”
Do you feel you are ready to take on the challenge of becoming fluent in seven positions on the violin in the shortest amount of time? Take a gander at my Position Mastery Academy where I will guide you through seven positions in eight weeks.
I’ll see you there. In the meantime, I’m gonna be practicing my positions.
Ciao.
Happy Magical Practices,
Hi is they some in Dunmow that i can learn to play the Violin i have no vocal cords a am a LARYNGECTOMEE can you help me