Tuesday, August 4, 2009

The Fundamentals Of How To Play The Violin

By Ned Dagostino

People come up with lots of excuses when they try to talk themselves out of learning an instrument they have always wanted to play. If you love the violin, perhaps you've told yourself that it's too difficult. Or maybe you think you're too old. The truth is that you really can learn how to play the violin no matter what your circumstances.

Find a good teacher you can take private lessons from, or you may know of a relative or friend who plays the violin and who could start you out. The first thing you're going to need to learn is how to hold the violin. If you hold it wrong, you'll be very uncomfortable and may even eventually suffer stress injuries from trying to play the violin the wrong way. To hold the violin properly, you position your left arm underneath the body of the violin and then grasp the neck of the instrument with your left hand, curving your fingers over the neck as you do so. Your hand and fingers will be positioned over the strings and the violin's chin rest should be between your left shoulder and your chin. You hold the bow in your right hand and a bow or pluck the strings with that hand.

Once you've learned to hold the violin properly, you can begin to learn how to finger notes on the violin. Unlike guitars, violins do not have frets. Instead, violin players literally play "by ear" until they know exactly where each note falls on the fingerboard.

You'll first be taught the four main positions on the violin. Those first position is at the end of the neck and will give you the low notes. The last of the four positions is close to your face and will give you higher notes. The four strings are tuned to G, D. A, and E. Play the strings "open" (with no fingers pressing on the strings) and these are the notes you will hear. Press you fingers on the strings at different locations and you will hear different notes.

You play notes either by plucking them (called " pizzicato") or by drawing the bow across the strings in a long steady stroke.

In addition to learning how to play the violin, you'll also need to learn how to read music. If you don't know how to read music before you learn how to play, you can begin by studying music in a more basic fashion either by taking classes, having someone versed in music teach you, or studying on your own to a certain degree by going online and searching out various tutorials.

Understand going in that the violin is not an easy instrument to learn. It will take plenty of practice on your part before you are really good. But that's OK, it's worth it because it's a fun instrument with a beautiful sound.

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