Three Beginner Violin Scales
If you’re a violinist who wants to play in tune, you have to be playing scales. In this violin lesson video, I’m going to teach you how to play three beginner violin scales and different practice techniques that you can apply to make those scales even better.
In this post, discover how to play an A major scale, D major scale, and G major scale on the violin by using finger patterns. It’s super simple. It’s the same formula across the board for all those three scales.
Before we get started, make sure your violin is completely in tune because there’s no sense in practicing on an out of tune violin.
A Major Scale
Finger pattern is two and three touching. The first finger sits in its normal spot, two and three are touching on both the A and the E strings.
The notes are:
Open A, B, C#, D, E, F#, G# A.
When you play anything on the violin, you want to make sure your left hand is completely balanced, comfortable, relaxed and facing the fingerboard.
So the way to check that out is just go ahead and place your third finger on the A string make sure you have a beautiful ring on that D. It’s ringing because it’s vibrating your D string and you can even play it with your D string to make sure that it’s in tune.
Another reason I want you to test the three is that your left hand naturally faces the fingerboard when you play that third finger. This simple preparation also helps support the fourth finger to be rounded and ready to go.
The danger of starting with the first finger is that the hand flips out which is not a proper left hand and does not support the fourth finger. You want to make sure your left hand is facing the fingerboard, at all times.
After setting up your third finger and a balanced left hand give the scale a go again.
The space between one and two is a whole step A to B. Two and three touch which is a half step, C# to D followed by open E to a norma 1 F# and again two and three touch (G# A)and this three you can check with your open A. That’s your a major scale.
A. E
0-1-23, 0-1-23
Practice this and think your note names not just the finger numbers. It’s very important in the violin that you think your note names and not just numbers because when you start cruising up the instrument playing in different positions while thinking numbers, you’re going to get pretty confused because those same notes can be played with different fingers.
Want to see the notes on the page?
“Violin Scales for the Beginning Violinist” is a 31 page E-Book featuring one octave A Major, D Major, G Major lower and upper octaves and G Major two octave scales. Also includes “Walking,” whole step half step exercises and “Skipping,” broken third exercises followed by a broken third challenge.
All exercises walk you through the scales rhythmically fostering an effortless and extremely efficient note reading experience.
A Major Scale
Finger pattern is two and three touching. The first finger sits in its normal spot, two and three are touching on both the A and the E strings.
The notes are:
Open A, B, C#, D, E, F#, G# A.
When you play anything on the violin, you want to make sure your left hand is completely balanced, comfortable, relaxed and facing the fingerboard.
So the way to check that out is just go ahead and place your third finger on the A string make sure you have a beautiful ring on that D. It’s ringing because it’s vibrating your D string and you can even play it with your D string to make sure that it’s in tune.
Another reason I want you to test the three is that your left hand naturally faces the fingerboard when you play that third finger. This simple preparation also helps support the fourth finger to be rounded and ready to go.
The danger of starting with the first finger is that the hand flips out which is not a proper left hand and does not support the fourth finger. You want to make sure your left hand is facing the fingerboard, at all times.
After setting up your third finger and a balanced left hand give the scale a go again.
The space between one and two is a whole step A to B. Two and three touch which is a half step, C# to D followed by open E to a norma 1 F# and again two and three touch (G# A)and this three you can check with your open A. That’s your a major scale.
A. E
0-1-23, 0-1-23
Practice this and think your note names not just the finger numbers. It’s very important in the violin that you think your note names and not just numbers because when you start cruising up the instrument playing in different positions while thinking numbers, you’re going to get pretty confused because those same notes can be played with different fingers.
D and G Major Scales
D Major scale is the exact same finger pattern all we’re doing is starting on the D string. Our note names are: D, E, F#, G, A, B, C#, D.
G Major scale is the exact same finger pattern but moving it over to the G string.
Our notes are: G A, B, C,D, E, F#, G
It’s the same finger pattern on all strings two and three touching.
Those are your three beginner violin skills using a simple formula and now you can start practicing them.
Practice Tips
- Strive to play everything perfectly in tune. Now we’re not machines or robots and even the best violinist in the world of all time can play a note out of tune. However, we want to strive to be able to play every single note in tune. How to do that in your practice sessions? Play freely and when you do hear a note out of tune, stop and practice from the note before.
- Apply different bowings to your scales. Start with long straight whole bows, frog to tip. 2 and 4 note slurs. Slur the whole scale.
- Rhythms are so, so great to apply to scales. So you could play long short. or short long.
Tons of fun to practice scales.
Now you have three beginner violin scales to start practicing.
Let us know in the comments below that you have implemented these scales into your practice session.
Trackbacks & Pingbacks
[…] learn the two-octave A major scale, you must learn the one octave A major scale. Head on over to my Beginner Violin Scales post if you need to have a refresher course on the one octave A major […]
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