Yep

There is a tabbing system. Hardly any tabs available though. Too bad, learning to read music well is important.

Tabs?

I'm curious to see if there are 'tabs' available for the violin. If there are, I will be able to play a lot of songs really fast. It does nothing for my reading skill, because I'm already a decent tab reader from playing guitar. I'll do some research.

Pennywhistle

I bought a Tin whistle\penny whistle recently. It was a whopping 5 dollars, and there were 2 types, c major and d major. I got the C major one because it's easier to play with most instruments. D major would have been the better choice, because violins have an easier time in D major than C major.

Singing

I've been working on my singing over the last few hours. Pretty gay sounding, but it really helps if you have a bad ear. I've done a lot of guitar\violin\flute tuning over the past couple of years so my ear isn't bad, but the more I play music the more I realize how much more accurate I can get.

I've been doing major arpeggios starting as low as I can, then working up to where I can't quite hit the highest note. I've also been singing the first five notes of the major scale (do re me fa so fa me re do) and then going up by a half step each time. I also do some simple songs which is kind of fun.

So.. You might ask how this relates to playing violin. Well, with violin, it is really hard to make sure you are hitting the right note. If you don't have tape on your violin to show where your fingers go, you are probably relying on your ear to tell you if you're hitting the right note. That's why singing relates so much; if you can match your voice to the right pitch, you can probably match your violin to the right pitch. It helps if this takes little effort too. I'm still working on this on violin, but I'm sure it is going to take some time. My third finger is especially tricky to get right for some reason.. I hope this helps.

Oh, and I broke another hair on my crappy bow.

Broken Hairs: 2

Bridge

The bridge is the piece of wood(usually) that keeps the strings up. It's in between the f-holes. recently, something happened to mine and it got crooked and my strings all went flat. I asked a friend, and I was told that it isn't uncommon for that to happen, and to just carefully push it back. It was pretty easy putting it back, too.

So if this somehow happens to you, push the part that the strings rest back to where it was, try to get a 90 degree angle with the violin. Be sure to tune after this.

Broken Hairs

I plan on posting here for a while, so I might as well start a broken-hair counter. Hopefully the amount will go down as I get a little more used to the violin. Try your best to keep your bow centered with your bridge. That is the piece of material that props your strings up, right by the sound holes.

Oh, under the bridge is a rod that keeps the wood from caving in. A friend of mine called it the tuning rod, but I'm not sure if that's what it is really called. Check it out, try to shine light through the opposite sound hole that you are looking in and mess around with angles until you find it.

Hairs Broken: 1

Major Scales and Fifths

I'm doing well with my basic major scales. I know my minors a bit well, but not too well. I put in about an hour and a half of practice today and I can tell that my skills are improving. That rosin really had a dramatic effect. I also recently started remembering to loosen my bow before I put it away, I guess it will warp if you don't. The hair looks funny when it goes limp.

Also, I noticed that the metal coils on my bow are almost loose. They are movable pretty easily, and sometimes they go over each other which is kind of weird.


Practicing major scales really helps. Try to get as close to the correct note as you can though, my main problem is that my third finger gets out of key sometimes, and it sounds really bad.


Time for some theory! This is still useful even if you don't play violin. Piano references will be common.

The three open major keys you ca play are G major, D major, and A major.

G major has one sharp in it. F#
D major has two sharps in it. F# and C#.
A major has three sharps in it. F#, C# and G#

On the piano, sharps or flats are the black keys on the piano. The notes E and B do not have a sharp note, they go straight to F and C respectively. F and C do not have a flat, they go straight to E and B respectively. If you want to get technical, F flat could be E, but it is never referred to like that.

# = Sharp note
b = Flat note.
For example, Bb would be B-flat. A# would be A-sharp.

A# and Bb are the same note, but it has two different names which are used depending on which key you are in. When you go up from an A note by one semitone, you get an A#. When you go down from a B note by one semitone, you get a Bb. You can choose the note name by either preference, or by reference to the previous note. If you moving down a scale, calling a note flat is most common. When going up, sharp is more common.


Hopefully this isn't too dense. One more little bit of information you really should know.

If you go from the thickest string on a violin to the next string(the G to the D), you have a fifth. This means that in the G major OR G minor scale, the fifth note you will play is going to be a D. Fifths are common in chords, and knowing your fifths is really useful. I will eventually get into that later, but for now just know that from one string to the next smaller string is a fifth.

If you know the Do-re-mi-fa-so-la-ti-do' thing, that is the major scale. Sing that. When you get to 'so', that is the fifth of Do. This is called solfege.

Hopefully some people who read this will find this useful.


My to do list:
Get a shoulder rest
Get a Cleaning cloth
Write an article about the Circle of Fifths

Rosin Revelation

Ok. I just spent 3 minutes putting rosin on my bow. It sounds so much better. I would suggest putting rosin on your bow for at least 5 minutes if you have never put it on. Don't go too fast, I almost broke a hair while I was doing it. I was actually putting it on pretty slow, but still. I don't really want to ever re-hair my bow, I'd rather just buy a better one when it's time. I'll have to do it eventually.

I'm really glad I did that, I was sounding really bad before it.

My to do list:

Get a shoulder rest

Get a cleaning cloth

Some basics

I think anybody interested in playing violin should know a few basic things.

A violin has four strings, from the lowest note to the highest note they are G, D, A, E. It's like the lowest strings on a guitar, except backwards, which was extremely awkward at first.

Guitarists, if you want to get used to what notes on a violin feels like, lower your low E string to a D. This is drop D tuning, if you didn't know. Mess around playing single notes for a while. Try figuring out the Major scale. This really helped me get used to the violin's notes. I won't go too far into depth about that because it's not very related to the violin.

You're also going to need to know how to tune a violin. The pegs at the top are pretty hard to work with at first, because they are held in by friction and pressure against the hole they go in. They tend to go out of tune very often, so make sure to push those pegs in when tuning. If you have a guitar tuner, you probably know how to use it by now. You turn it on, then play the string to see if it's in tune. If it isn't, you twist the peg and try to get it as close to the proper note as you can. The fine tuners are located at the opposite side of the tuning pegs. Turn them to get as close to perfectly tuned as you can.

Keep in mind that when you bow your violin, it is putting tension on the strings and will make it sharp. It is best to tune your violin while bowing, not plucking the strings.

Rosin made confused me at first.. I didn't know what it was for or why it worked.. I didn't know why it was put on the bow. I still don't know why, but I put it on. I know that it's supposed to be put on slowly, and too much is bad... That's about all I know about Rosin. It still confuses me.

I haven't even gotten into playing notes yet. Too bad.

Who I Am

My name is Grapebox. I play a little guitar, bass, piano, and flute. I am teaching myself to play the violin, and would like to help out anybody who can use it.

I know enough about music in general, so expect some music theory to come out of here as well. If I figure something out something I hadn't known before, readers of this blog will be the first to know.