Beginning Exercises

Reading Treble Clef - The Basics

Reading treble clef is going to be one of the first things you start on as you learn on the violin - Violin is nice, too, as we only have to learn Treble, its all we ever play in. This video goes over some of the basics of reading treble clef.

After you watch that, hopefully you have a better understanding when it comes to how to read treble clef - but where exactly on the fingerboard should you put your fingers? That's where tapes and fingering guides can come in especially handy. Ask Amber for a fingering guide or tapes that can go right on your violin. These will help you while you build that muscle memory of where your fingers need to go - Eventually, after lots of practice, you won't even have to think about where your fingers will need to go.

Beginning Scales

Once you have a greater idea of how to read treble clef, scales are a great place to start. These scales seem boring to begin with, yes, but they will greatly help with your foundation that will let you build so many techniques and skills on the violin. Practice them slowly, checking for intonation, and working on some bow control.

You will see that these scales are in different keys, which may absolutely be new to you, that's okay! The video to the right should help with reading and understanding those key signatures. 

The scale book we received in class should also be a fantastic resource for scales, and with its markings of H & L (standing for high and low fingering) it should be easy to understand while you're still getting used to how key signatures.

So, either do some practice with the scale book we received, or also use the scales using the buttons at the right.

Beginning Rhythm

Notes themselves and intonation is extremely important, but so are the rhythms associated with them. Without it, you wouldn't have music, so Rhythm is another great place to start learning. 

Breezin (The music theory website we will be using in class) is honestly probably the better place to start to understand rhythms, as they have full comprehensive courses from the most simple rhythms to painfully advanced ones, but we'll provide a few basic resources here too. This first video to the left covers the very basics of rhythm, with just quarter, whole, and half notes and rests. It gives you a good idea of what rhythm is, how its written, etc.

The video below it gives a more in depth look into the workings of rhythm. Although he's a piano teacher, he provides a very good explanation of basic rhythm that won't take too much of your time at all.

Again, these probably aren't as good as heading over to Breezin and practicing your rhythm there, but these are a good place to start.

The following website has a ton of good, very simple songs. Using those, you can combine what you've learned from scales, practicing reading treble clef, and rhythm (hopefully from both breezin and these videos) to play some of them! Take a look, listen to recordings, and see how it goes. Visit the website here.

Beginning Bow Technique

I've heard lots of people say that bow technique is one of, if not the most important things when it comes to the violin. You can have amazing left hand technique, perfect intonation, but if your bow hand doesn't have equally good technique, it still wont sound pretty. Learning how to hold your bow properly, and doing exercises to increase that flexibility in your bow hand will be incredibly helpful later on. The video at right details a great bow hold, as well as some exercises you can do to develop flexibility in your bow hand.

Bow technique is something you'll work on for probably all your violin progression, there's just so much to it! For this beginning section all we're focused on is getting a good basic bow grip and technique down, less about different styles of bowing. More will be detailed about bow technique later on and in the intermediate and advanced exercise sections.