Do you need help fingering violin music? Our Violinonline.com ColorAll Violin Fingering Chart will help you learn which finger to use with violin notes. Free Violin Chord Charts sheet music pieces to download from 8notes.com.
Below, we will walk you through how to read violin notes and then test your knowledge with a quick quiz. How to Read Violin Notes: Step by Step The StaffLet’s start with the staff. The staff is the set of five horizontal lines on which notes are placed in standard violin sheet music.There are seven notes of which all music is based: A, B, C, D, E, F and G. Once you get to G, you would start back over with A and the cycle would repeat again, getting higher in pitch as you go up the staff.There are also multiple pitches that correspond with the same letter in music. For instance, there are several different A’s on the violin. They are just in varying forms of higher or lower pitches. The Notes on the LinesThe easiest way to learn notes is to divide the staff up into lines and spaces.These are the notes that fall on the lines of the staff, meaning the notes directly on top of the lines, with the lines intersecting them.Starting from the bottom line, begin to memorize each note going up the top line.
One popular mnemonic device you may have heard is “Every Good Boy Does Fine.” Another is “Elivs’ Guitar Broke Down Friday.”These devices can be really handy to help you memorize the notes! You can also start with a beginner violin book, such as, which will give you some great exercises to help you memorize and learn these notes. The Notes on the SpacesNext, there are the violin music notes that fall in between the lines – on the spaces:Another great mnemonic device applies here.
If you look at the notes starting from the bottom note up to the top note, you will see that the letters spell F-A-C-E. And that of course rhymes with space. It’s quite catchy and memorable: “Face is in the space!”Whenever you’re practicing or working from an exercise book make sure to keep these mnemonic devices in mind. If you forget the name of a note, first determine whether the note falls on a space or a line.Then take your finger or a pencil and point to each note from the bottom on up, while saying aloud the corresponding mnemonic device to refresh your memory.
See, learning how to read violin notes isn’t that hard after all!RELATED: Ledger LinesIn the G scale chart above, you’ll notice that there are other notes that fall below the staff (lower in pitch) and above the staff (higher in pitch.)In order to place these violin music notes, we use small lines or dashes called “ledger lines.” The notes can fall on the lines or in the spaces between them just like the five lines of the staff.To read these notes you can use the ones on the staff that you already know as a reference point to figure them out. Important Symbols on the StaffA very important part of learning how to read violin notes is memorizing the different symbols you might come across on the staff. If you look over some violin sheet music or an exercise book, you’ll notice some new symbols at the beginning of each staff line.The Treble ClefNotice the fancy swirly symbol you see on your violin beginner book or sheet music. Clef symbols are reference points that name a specific note on the staff from which the names of all the other notes are based.Lower pitched instruments use other clefs with different reference points, such as bass or alto clef. But in violin (as well as higher pitched instruments such as flute and trumpet) we use the treble clef.The main thing a beginner should take from this is that if you’re looking at sheet music with a treble clef on it, it signifies that the music is most likely suitable to be played on the violin. Key SignatureNext, you’ll see the key signature, which is very important to pay attention to because it will tell you whether or not you have any flat or sharp notes in the song. A flat note (i.e.
B flat) is a half-step lower in pitch than the base note (B) and is signified by this symbol: ♭. A sharp note (i.e. C sharp) is a half-step higher in pitch than the base note (C) and is signified by this symbol: #If you see a flat symbol in the key signature, look at the line or space that is striking through the center of the symbol and determine which note corresponds to the line or space.Now throughout the duration of the piece (whether it’s a higher or lower version of that note) you will be playing the flat version of that note.The same goes for when you see a sharp symbol in the key signature. Take a close look at the sharp symbol and notice that there is a little skewed square right in the middle of the symbol.Whichever note corresponds to the line or space that the square forms around will be the note that will become sharp throughout the piece.Sometimes there will be multiple sharps or a combination of sharps and flats. If you don’t see any sharps or flats in your key signature, you can just assume that all the notes in the piece are going to be your normal or “natural” notes.Any notes that are not mentioned in the key signature are assumed to be natural notes as well.
Time SignatureNext in line is the time signature. The time signature lets you know how to count a piece or how many beats are in each measure.The staff is divided by vertical lines into segments called “measures,” which will contain a certain amount of beats depending on what your time signature says.The top number in the time signature tells you how many beats are in each measure. Once the allotted amount of beats have been counted out it’s time to move on to the next measure and start the counting over again.The bottom number describes the length of the beat.
Description:In the 144 Notes and, acoustic and electric violins are the same. The lowest note that can be played on the violin with standard tuning is 3G.
The highest note that can be played is not so well defined, because it depends on the length of the fingerboard and the skill of the violinist. By the skill we mean; expert violinists know how to use something called harmonics to achieve really high. However, on most violins the highest note that can be played on fingerboard is somewhere between 7C and 8C. For example, let’s look at the violin at the top that goes to 7A:The pitch range goes from 3G to 7A which means 51 different notes. Open strings are tuned to (from thickest to thinnest): 3G, 4D, 4A, 5E. So the violin is primary tuned in “perfect fifths”, that mean 7 different notes (pitches) before note repeat itself on other string.
So on the violins many notes are repeated. The difference between repeated note(s) on different string(s) is only in. For example; the note 4B repeats itself three times.
All this three notes have the same pitch, but with different timbre.Let’s observe the positions of some notes:. Notes 3G, 3G♯, 3A, 3A♯, 3B, 4C and 4C♯ on the left side (the thickest string) appear only once, just like the notes 7D♯, 7E, 7F, 7F♯, 7G, 7G♯ and 7A on the right side (the thinnest string). The first repeated “bass” note is 4D and the last repeated note on the tweet side is 7D.
The most repeated notes are 5E, 5F, 5F♯, 5G, 5G♯, 5A, 5A♯, 5B and 6C. Each of them can be played from four different locations.Caution: circumstances can change when we change the tuning and/or we have the violin with shorter or longer fingerboard. I used 8 notes less when designing the 144 Notes application.Location of the notes:Most violins have no frets, so how to find exact location of the notes? The most easy and less precise way is of course to compare your violin with the one drawn above. If you’re at luck you’ve got perfect match:).On a tuned violin you can find some notes quite easily. Like the 4D note on thickest string for example.
You can do that by putting finger on thickest string on place, that is close to the drawn 4D note on the image above. Play it and observe the string near it. If the string near vibrates even if you don’t touch it (you can see it by naked eye), you’d found the location of the 4D note. If it doesn’t, try to slide finger little higher up the thickest string or little lower (while playing it). The string near is tuned to 4D note and starts to vibrate when anyone near plays the same note, even if it’s played on different instrument. The reason for that is called resonance frequency. By knowing the location of the 4D note, you also know that notes vertically up (on other three strings) should be 4A, 5E and 5B.
And you get the approximate mismatch of your violin to the drawn one.The easiest way to get location of all notes on your violin is to use application for smartphone called.The other longer way is to use. You’ll need to measure “Scale Length” of your violin. It doesn’t matter what unit you use (meter or inch).
The notes are exactly at locations where the fret wires would be.It’s good to mention that in the 144 Notes application we didn’t use 1:1 ratio, but same spacing for every note – by this the notes are more easily accessible and easier to read. And they also go nice along with the other instruments. This shouldn’t be a problem, you’ll get used to it quickly.Which of repeated notes to choose?Well, this is not an easy question. It depends on many things, especially on what would you like to achieve. Most people use notes that are physically closer together with the combination of open strings. Same note (pitch) played further from pegbox on thicker string gives timbre that contains more bass in it.
So if you want a song (or just a note) to sound more “deep”, you play it there. If you want more neutral timbre you play it in the middle on the middle strings. And if you want more sharp timbre, you play it on thinner string closer to the pegbox. It’s up to you.