Violin For Dummies

Introduction 1 About This Book 1 Foolish Assumptions 2 Icons Used in This Book 2 Beyond the Book 3 Where to Go from Here 3 Part 1: So You Want to Play the Violin 5 Chapter 1: Introducing the Violin 7 Meeting the String Family 7 Tuning up 8 Holding on 9 Bowing Out Some Sounds 9 Looking closely at the bow 9 Using both your hands 10 Making Music with or without Notation 10 Knowing the notes 11 Getting rhythm 11 Digging Deeper into Music 11 Scales and key signatures 11 Harmony 12 Playing with Style 12 Dazzling technique 12 Multicultural music 13 Having Your Own Violin 13 Chapter 2: Getting Started with the Violin 15 Examining the Violin 16 How Violins Work 19 String vibration and string length 19 Using both hands to make a sound 19 How the bow helps 20 Unpacking Your Violin and Putting It Away Safely 21 Taking the violin out of its case 21 Putting the violin away 22 Protecting your violin 23 Getting Your Violin in Tune 23 Working the pegs and fine tuners 24 Tuning with the piano 28 Using an electronic tuner 29 Getting close with a pitch pipe 31 Finding A with a tuning fork 32 Troubleshooting Guide to Dealing with Pegs and Fine Tuners 33 Peg problems 33 Fine tuner problems 35 Chapter 3: Holding Up Well 37 Understanding the Importance of a Good Violin Hold 37 When standing 38 When sitting 41 Reading from a Music Stand 42 Finding a Good Fit: Chinrests and Shoulder Rests 43 Chinrests 43 Shoulder rests 46 Fixing Common Problems with the Violin Hold 48 Keeping the scroll afloat 48 Watching the horizontal angle 48 Keeping your elbow under 49 Relaxing the shoulder 50 Part 2: Getting Started: The Basics 51 Chapter 4: Taking a Bow 53 Saying Hello to the Bow 54 Treating Your Bow Well 55 Tightening and loosening the horsehair 56 Using rosin on the bow 57 Getting to Grips with Your Bow Hold 59 The famous diva method 59 The hidden treasures method 60 Conquering common problems with the bow hold 62 Putting Bow to Strings 62 Bowing on different strings 63 Understanding bowing symbols 65 Playing Your First Concert 65 Bowing in the Styles of Mr Smooth and Mr Clean 67 Chapter 5: Getting the Left Hand Right 69 Shaping Up Your Arm and Fingers 69 Getting your arm in shape 70 Taking your fingers to tap dancing class 71 Framing your left hand 72 Relaxing your thumb 74 Putting Your Fingers on the Strings 74 Getting groovy fingertips 74 Counting your fingers 75 Knowing which finger to use for what note 76 Lifting and placing your fingers 76 Taping Training Wheels on the Fingerboard 76 Preparing Your Pizzicato 80 Putting Finger 2 to Work 82 Chapter 6: All Together Now 87 All Together Now: Putting Both Hands to Work 87 Getting into playing position 88 Practicing with hands together 88 Crossing Over to a Different String 91 Changing strings with the bow 91 Moving your fingers to different strings 95 Playing Music with Both Hands 98 Warming up to the task 98 Topping the charts: Two simple songs 100 Expanding Your Bow Strokes 101 Using more bow, gradually 102 Preparing to play Pachelbel 102 Part 3: Reading Music for the Violin 105 Chapter 7: Translating Five Lines onto Four Strings 107 Lining Up the Music 107 Setting the pitch with the clef 108 Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge (and so do girls!) 110 Climbing the ledger lines 110 Naming Your Notes, String by String 111 17 basic notes 112 A string 112 E string 113 D string 114 G string 115 Meeting the Sharps, Flats, and Naturals 116 Identifying sharps, flats, and naturals 116 Playing sharps and flats 117 Playing Music by Reading the Notes 118 Getting Louder or Softer — Dynamite Dynamics! 119 Playing loudly 120 Making soft sounds 121 Adding crescendo and diminuendo 121 Chapter 8: Making Rhythm Count 125 Dissecting a Musical Note 126 Adding Up the Value of Notes 127 Whole notes 127 Half notes 128 Quarter notes 129 Eighth notes 130 Sixteenth notes 131 Triplets 131 Counting In-Between Notes 132 Dotted half notes 133 Dotted quarter notes 133 Taking a Rest 134 You’ve Got Rhythm: Pieces to Play! 135 Chapter 9: Measuring Up: A Guide to Meter 139 Keeping Measure of the Beats 140 Counting Beats: Time Signatures 141 Tapping into the beat 142 Counting rests 143 Emphasizing the right beat 144 Regulating Your Speed with a Metronome 145 Mechanical metronomes 145 Electronic metronomes 147 Making friends with your metronome 148 Making Music in 4/4 Meter 150 Counting and Playing in Threes 151 Doing (Just About) Everything Else from Fours and Threes 153 2/4 time 153 6/8 time 155 Getting Up to Speed: What Those Tempo Markings Mean 156 Time for Some Songs 157 Part 4: Musicianship and Harmony 161 Chapter 10: Weighing In on Scales 163 Climbing Up and Down 163 Marching through the Major Scales 164 Building major scales 165 Major scales you need to know 166 A major scale 167 G major scale, upper octave 170 G major scale, two octaves 171 E major scale 172 A major scale, two octaves 175 F major scale 176 Casting Light on Those Minor Scales 177 Building a minor scale 177 Playing A melodic minor scale 178 Playing A harmonic minor scale 179 Meeting Other Scales in Brief 180 Natural minor scales 181 Pentatonic scales 181 Chromatic scales 181 Harping On about Arpeggios 183 A major arpeggio 183 A minor arpeggio 184 Major (and Minor) Achievements 184 Chapter 11: Cracking Key Signatures 187 The Keys to Reading Music 187 Getting keyed up about key signatures 187 Reading the key signatures for major keys 188 Keeping order 190 Unlocking the Music with the Right Key 190 Finding the Minor Key for Each Major 191 Forming the relative minor 191 Recognizing minor keys when reading music 192 Having the Last Dance 192 Chapter 12: Making Sweet Music Together: Harmony 195 Combining Notes with Chords and Harmony 196 Playing in the Big Leagues: Major Chords 197 Finding the primary triads 197 Breaking out in chords 198 Unearthing the Minor Chords 200 Making the Most of Major and Minor Chords 201 Meeting the Bossy Chords: Dominant 7ths 202 Harmonizing in Thirds and Sixths 203 Part 5: Taking It Up a Notch: Techniques and Styles 205 Chapter 13: Becoming Fluent in the Language of Bowing 207 Fitting Two or More Notes into One Stroke: Slurred legato 208 Changing bow direction smoothly 209 Starting to slur two notes 210 Slurring across strings 214 Playing three notes in a bow stroke 217 Fitting four notes in a bow stroke 220 Planning Bow Division 221 Deciding how much bow to use on a note or measure 222 Doing the math: Dividing the bow by note values 223 Dividing the bow strokes in anticipation of the next note 224 Adjusting the amounts of bow for dynamics 224 Mais Oui, Maestro: Taking On Ze Accents 225 Accenting the positive 226 Hammering it out: Martelé 227 Meeting the Fanciest Bowings 230 Slurred staccato 230 Meet the off-the-string family 231 Chapter 14: Putting Your Finger on It 237 Two Notes Are Better Than One: Easy Double Stops 237 Preparing your bow for double stops 238 Going from one string to two and back again 240 Ballet dancing with your fingers on the lower string 243 Playing double stops where both notes use fingers 244 Playing double stops galore 245 Pulling Out All the Stops: Three- and Four-Note Chords 246 Three-note chords 247 Four-note chords 248 A grand finale with chords 249 Getting into the First Four Positions 250 Finding first position 250 Smoothing out the second position 251 Putting second position to work 252 Playing in third position 254 Venturing forth in fourth position 256 Knowing what position you’re in 259 Changing Position 259 Easing into shifting positions 260 Getting to know the four kinds of shifts 262 Changing position to go to a different string 268 Playing a shifty song 269 All Aquiver: Vibrato 270 Getting started with vibrato 271 Good vibrations: Using your vibrato in a real song 275 Tapping into Trills 276 Building speed of repetition 276 Speeding from finger to finger 277 Trilling techniques 278 Chapter 15: Playing with Style 281 Fiddling Around with Country Music 281 Familiarizing yourself with fiddle music 282 Sounding like a fiddler 285 Fiddling your way to songs 288 Grooving to Jazz 290 Getting the jazz sound 290 Listening to some jazz violin 293 Jazzing up your violin 294 Enchanting with Gypsy Violin 296 Romancing the violin 296 Listening to some great gypsy violin 301 Playing in the gypsy style 302 Part 6: Getting Into Gear, Staying In Gear 305 Chapter 16: Finding the Right Violin and Bow for You 307 Picking a Violin That’s Right for You 308 The price is right 308 Tip-top condition 310 Old news 311 Sound advice 312 All about appearance 313 Sizing Up the Violin 314 Buying the Best Bow 315 What bows are made of 316 How the bow feels 316 Buying or Renting Your Violin 318 Buying 318 Renting 320 Renting to buy 321 Finding Your Violin 321 Getting Plugged into Electric Violins 323 Acoustic pickups 324 Electric violins 325 Chapter 17: Protecting Your Assets: Violin Care and Maintenance 327 Cleaning Up 328 Daily dusting 328 Cleaning the strings 329 Polishing the wood 330 Changing Strings 331 Taking off the old strings 332 Prepping the pegs and string 334 Putting on strings attached at the tailpiece 335 Putting on strings attached to fine tuners 336 Tightening the strings 337 Protecting Your Violin 338 Practicing safety at rehearsals 339 Traveling with your violin 339 Upgrading Your Case 341 The makings of a good case 341 Testing a case 344 Looking at extra features 344 Changing Chinrests 345 Taking off the old chinrest 345 Attaching the new chinrest 346 Rehairing the Bow 347 Finding Useful Accessories 348 Necessities 348 Extras 349 Part 7: The Part of Tens 353 Chapter 18: Ten Top Performers — and Their Recordings 355 Niccolò Paganini (1782–1840) 355 Fritz Kreisler (1875–1962) 356 Jascha Heifetz (1899–1987) 357 Stéphane Grappelli (1908–1997) 357 David Oistrakh (1908–1974) 358 Yehudi Menuhin (1916–1999) 358 Itzhak Perlman (1945–) 359 Nigel Kennedy (1956–) 360 Natalie MacMaster (1973–) 360 Rachel Barton Pine (1974–) 360 Chapter 19: Ten Ways to Go Beyond This Book 363 Subscribing to a Magazine 363 Attending Concerts 364 Joining a Community Orchestra 365 Going to Summer Camps 366 Playing in Small Groups 367 Participating in Festivals 368 Local music festivals (competitive and noncompetitive) 368 International music festivals 369 Building a Music Collection 369 Watching and Collecting Videos and DVDs 370 Visiting Competitions 371 Performing at Hospitals and Seniors’ Homes 372 Chapter 20: Ten (Or So) Tips on Finding a Teacher 373 Networking 373 Calling the Local Orchestra 375 Inquiring at Music Schools 375 Checking Out Community Colleges 376 Asking at the University 377 Hearing Students Play 378 Asking at the Music Store 379 Mentioning Your Quest Everywhere 379 Checking Out Violin Lessons on the Internet 380 Looking for a Good Gut Feeling before You Start 380 Meeting a Teacher for the First Time 382 Auditioning 382 Planning lessons 382 Making business arrangements 383 Appendix: Audio Tracks and Video Clips 385 What You Find on the Audio Tracks 385 Looking at What’s in the Video Clips 391 Customer Care 394 Index 395