How to Play Eighth Notes on the Violin
Struggling with counting? Are eighth notes a bit evasive for you? In this post, discover how to play eighth notes on the violin. In order to understand eighth notes, you kind of need to know a little bit about the quarter note. What you will need for today’s eighth-note study is a metronome and your violin.
Set your metronome to 80. Every click will be our quarter note. It may help to use word association and in this case, let’s call our quarter notes blues.
Rhythm lives in our right hand
We all can tap to music, tap our feet to the music, snap and clap to music. In general, it’s really natural for us to feel and groove with the beat of the music. As violinists, we want to feel that beat in our right hand.
As we apply this to the violin, we feel every down and every up with the click. You can even take your violin bow and “air bow” these rhythms without putting it to the violin.
Want to see the rhythms written out on the page? Rhythm Studies E-Book is perfect for all violin newbies and beginners wanting to start to learn how to read music and implement rhythms in their violin journey.
Perfect for notereading, simple rhythm recognition and improving rhythm while playing.
Suzuki Twinkle Rhythms included.
All exercises are on open strings only emphasizing rhythm and tone study without being complicated with the left hand.
Two eighth notes live in one quarter note
Now that the quarter note concept is understood, we have built a foundation to understand eighth notes.
Eighth notes have a little flag when you see only one on a page. When you see two, they are beamed together. Two eighth notes live in a quarter note. We called the quarter note blue and let’s call the eighth notes jello.
If you’re struggling a little bit with those eighth notes you can just clap it out. Take your trusty little metronome and clap two claps per click. Just like playing the radio, listening to music, you want to groove with it. You want to become one with it. Two claps per click and voila you’re clapping eighth notes.
How to play eighth notes on the violin
Let’s apply this to the violin. Get your metronome going and start with playing quarter notes with the metronome. Then we are simply going to divide it in two in order to play eighth notes with the metronome. Remember the pulse is in your right hand. We will feel every down bow with a click.
- Play quarter notes with the metronome
- Play eight notes feeling every down bow with the click
- Play one quarter note followed by two eighth notes i.e blue jello
Have a lot of fun playing your eighth notes.
Let us know in the comments below your eighth note breakthrough!
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