I have noticed on my daugher's violin that her teacher has put masking type tape so she learns where to put her fingers. On the surface I thought this to be a good idea that might help me. I am going to start learning the violin and was wondering if I should do the same. I looked round the internet and see there are varying opinions on this. so, I just wanted to ask:

1.. is it a good idea?

2. is there a special type of tape?

3. where do you put the tape? my daughter's violin is a 3/4, mine is a 4/4 so I wasn't sure if the tape should be the same distance from the far end given the slight difference in sizes.

Any advice is very welcome.

thanks

Elizabeth

O I hate that practice. The child needs to learn to LISTEN to the sound, not to WATCH for it.

If you really insist on putting it on, the only place to do so is where it sounds right.

Liz

Is that the violin equivalent of sticking the note names on the piano keys?......

So, I'll be ex-communicated if I put marks on my cello, huh???

No, I wouldn't - honest! Not even for the first week.

Students (of any age) will never learn to LISTEN if tape or sticky spots are placed on the fingerboard. You must learn to HEAR the notes, otherwise you will forever be playing with your eyes as opposed to your ears. In addition the strings need to be in tune for all the other 'stopped' notes to be in tune - placing you fingers on the marks still won't make you play in tune if the strings are out of tune.

Far better to play the notes and then check them on a keyboard or piano, so that your ear develops and your hand develops a feel for the note positions on the fingerboard. Muscle memory combined with well-trained ears is the only reliable method of playing a bowed string instrument.

I've found a chromatic tuner helps me - I play a piece a few times to get some confidence with the sound of it, then play it with the chromatic tuner, to check the notes, a few times, then let muscle memory take over again from there (if that makes sense). For me it's a bit like training my ear to hear it properly.

Now that my intonation is starting to get a bit better I've started to notice that my cello rings more fully - a lovely full round sound - when I'm exactly on the note. I've tuned into that sound and am starting to listen for that now. I woud imagine the violin has a similar in tune resonance that you can hear when it's exactly right?

Yes, I think so, especially on certain notes.

I love playing G on the D string, D on the A string, etc, cos they sound gorgeous

I never had tape on my violin and viewed somewhat dubatively the pieces of tape which my daughter's cello teacher put on her cello.

However, I have recently changed my opinion. Initially, (she was six and a half at the time) if she remembered she would look and put her fingers on the tape before she started to play but, unless she was reminded, she often forgot and it didn't seem to bother her if her hand was way off the tape when she was playing. In fact, there was a long period when I wondered if she could acutally hear when she was out of tune. I also worried about her holding the cello almost at arm's length in order to be able to look at her fingers.

When she was about eight she suddenly started to look systematically at where she put her fingers before she started and I think she found it very reassuring to have the tape to know where to put them. Now (age eight and a half) she starts playing (without looking) and if she hears that the note is wrong she then looks at her fingers and checks with the tape. She is just (about two weeks ago) starting to experiment with moving them without looking but she is still hesitant about whether she should go up or down to get what she wants.

So, after this long ramble, I think for young children lacking in self-confidence it is sometimes a good idea.

I hate the idea of tape on the fingerboard, sometimes very rarely I will put dots on the fingerboard to help students find the notes for shifts but I encourage all students to use their ears. In the very early stages I use a dot for the 1st finger which is removed as soon as it can be. I teach violin !! When I started teaching my son at 5 I never ever used anything except his ears.

However after saying all this, the other son who plays cello has dots on his cello for the different positions up the fingerboard he has 3 dots for 5th and 7th and something even higher!! It is more help for me then him as he doesnt really use them.

I think they are very useful at first actually. When I started I had know knowledge of music, so although yes I was 'watching' for the notes, you'd be more unlikely to get tuning problems in the future- you're fingers will automatically go where they are meant too

I think the tuner idea is a very good one - it's certainly dramatically helped one of my adult pupils who used to be what's commonly called 'tone deaf' and I was secretly in despair about her ability ever to play in tune.

She now uses her tuner for scales and her intonation has improved so much. She now always knows when she's out of tune and corrects herself straight away. It's very difficult to train the students who refuse to sing to play in tune and I think for these people the electronic tuner could be a very good solution. The only problem is persuading the school-based children to get their parents to buy them, although I believe the cheapest ones are about £10.

Tape - I agree it's a bad thing but guiltily admit to having used it in the past myself out of sheer desperation - just one for first finger and one for third. But I hated myself for doing it and agree with everyone above that it trains the student to look rather than listen. A tuner acts as a guide but it also really does help to train your ear, which is what we want for our students. I do understand why teachers are sometimes driven to using tape - some pupils have no sense of intonation whatsoever; they can only growl rather than sing and the ability to sing in tune is a far-off dream for them, unless they're lucky enough to get Kodaly lessons. In reality violin was probably an unwise choice for these people, but if they are determined to play violin and then claim to love it, what can you do? Let them play out of tune? Fight a losing battle by continually pointing out that they're out of tune but they stll don't get it bcause they just don't hear it no matter what you do?

No, you persuade them to invest in a tuner!

Violinia

I'm not a violinist, but I feel uneasy about this idea. Firstly if the tape is put in the wrong place, it gets pupils used to poor tuning. Secondly it give's them something to concentrate on that isn't aural feed-back from your instrument.

I pulled off some tape on small son's violin. It would have encouraged him to play flat!

I think the temptation is there because how many instruments have no guide as to where to put your fingers? Actually very few - the stringed instrument family (but not the fretted guitar or mandolin). The trombone. The human voice. But pretty much everything else doesn't actually require an acutely good musical ear for you to be able to play it in tune! The piano, flute, saxophone, trumpet etc etc etc all have designated places for your fingers so when the players of these instruments come down hard on violinists who play the odd out of tune note I'd like to see them have a go! Especially pianists - because guitarists have to tune their guitars and flute and sax players do have the intonation-altering breath factor. But pianists - they just put their finger on the note and as long as the piano tuner's done his job properly the note's in tune (they just have 10 fingers to worry about at once instead! ).

Recent developments in technology have enabled researchers to analyse a performance of the world-class David Oistrakh, in which it was observed that he was continually making lightning-fast micro-adjustments to his intonation. In other words, his fingers would often hit slightly the wrong spot but he would adjust so quickly that no one would consciously notice. I think only Heifetz never had to do this! Or maybe he did? It would be interesting if the sound researchers had a look at his playing too.

So what I'm saying is - even some of the best players don't always hit the exact right spot straight away, but they do know it, and instantly adjust.

Anyway I'm off out to buy a few tuners in the hope I can sell them on to the pupils who struggle with intonation. Interesting that it's always the ones who don't sing - the lack of singing in schools seems to be having knock-on effects in areas other than singing. The trouble is, these kids who don't sing - will they sing to their babies when they grow up to be mothers? Probably not - and so it goes on.

But on a more positive note - thank goodness community choirs are on the rise.

Violinia

I think a tuner is a good idea for older children and adults - I used a tuner a lot when I started the oboe to check on intonation - but I'm not sure about young children as they are quite fiddly to use. Also, as far as my daughter is concerned, although I bought the tuner in France, it has the English letter names rather than the French Do, Ré etc. which she is familiar with.

More to the point: if you can already read music, you have some idea of what the note ought to sound like but what about the child who is learning to read music and play a violin/cello at the same time? My daughter started with a tutor book in German (we live in France) and it had no well-known tunes in it (at least not for English or French people). Her teacher would play through a piece once at the end of the lesson and she was supposed to go away and practice it. By the next day she had completely forgotten what it was supposed to sound like. She could have played it completely out of tune and would have had no idea that she was doing so. The tape on the cello at least meant that she had some chance of producing the correct note. This year she has been given a book with nursery rhymes in to use beside the tutor book and it is amazing how much more in tune each note is when she knows the tune.

Before she started the cello, she did a year of Kodaly inspired music classes in which they did things like stretching up tall for high notes and crouching down for low notes. I think this is responsible for some of her present confusion about where to move her fingers to get the note in tune. She hears the note is too high (and says so) but to get it lower, moves her fingers down towards the ground (ie down the fingerboard), only of course on the cello this makes the note go even higher.

Finally, I agree totally with the importance of singing. This year she has been attending a singing class instead of a written theory class and I have noticed that she now sings under her breath while she is playing and that her intonation has improved considerably since she started doing this.

I think for a young beginner with no musical knowledge it is a good idea because everyone has to start somewhere. You then gradually learn to listen. I started off with little purple stars on my violin, and then the 2nd finger one came was taken off, and when i did my grade 2 i only had a first finger marker on because i could work out the others from that. I had got to the stage where i didn't need any markers and was doinf it by ear, until my music teacher at school (who is a woodwind player and has NO idea about strings) thought it would be cool to put little smily faces and things on as markers. some people!

Oh no .... now I am imagining little children all over the world getting to work with their lovely felt tips!!! Point made!!!

Thanks to all who replied ..... I promise I am going to try to learn WITHOUT the tape. I do have a tuner so i'll give that a go.


Elizabeth

I am not a violin teacher, but I would say that this is definitely a better process - eventually your fingers start to recall where they are meant to be.

I was brought up with 'sticky dots' on the fingerboard and have just realised, reading this post, that I have never consciously reflected on the fact they may not be a good idea. I automatically put dots on my two pupils' fingerboards in my first lessons with them. Hmmm, I think it might do the more advanced one of them good if they were removed. One problem I have noticed with the dots is that sometimes pupil 1's first finger goes down on the point she thinks the spot is but is in fact much too sharp. But because she doesn't necessarily listen, just thinks she is in the right place, she doesn't do anything to correct it.

Hmmm. Just decided I will remove the dots. Thanks for waking me up to this!

How about a tape of the pieces? A much better way to find out how the music is meant to sound.

The whole process of watching the dots on the fingerboard while also simultaneously watching the dots on the music is a totally unumusical activity. It's about 'matching dots' rather than letting the ears be a guide. No wonder people taught in this way find the aural tests so difficult - it's because they're not learning aural skills alongside violin technique.

My very first violin teacher made pencil marks on the fingerboard. My subsequent and long-term (Hungarian) violin teacher spotted the dots and howled in disbelief. They were immediately rubbed out and I never saw a marked fingerboard again; my ears had to be the guide after that. Marking fingerboards is apparently unknown in Hungary - yet they don't seem to have a problem producing violinists who can play in tune.

Violinia

I would have preferred a tape of the pieces too. In fact, I would really have liked her to have a suzuki teacher and to have learnt to play by ear but there isn't one where we live.

Umm,...i did...then the white on the black really annoyed me but im fine with hearing the sound now. and i used the tape for quite a while...

Well, for me I used little dots which my teacher stuck on, they are good for grade1 but for grade 2 you're not really allowed to have stickers, but stickers do help for educational wise ...!

I have dots on my cello. I originaly had red and yellow dots for my first and third finger but they have now been replased by black dots. I don't really use them anyway.

Interestingly since posting this I have made an observation. My kids have a Barney (yeah, the purple dinosaur) video on making music and they have loads of children playing different instruments to the tune of "Twinkle twinkle"...... I have watched it loads of times but this week I just happened to observe that all the string instruments had tape on them .....

....... and then I caught myself saying out loud "tut tut, just look at all that tape" !!!!!! (yes, me who knows nothing!!!)

elizabeth

That's really depressing. Withotu wanting to ruffle any feathers I can't help feeling it's something to do with England. I very much doubt any self-respecting continental European would be seen dead putting tape on their pupils' violins - the culture over there has always been far more musical.

On the same subject I was bemused to see a Korean child with tape on her violin - she had previously been learning from Suzuki books, though whether she was being taught with the traditional Suzuki method I have no idea.

Do Suzuki children have tape on their instruments, anyone?

Violinia

I've just registered to participate in the forums after reading so many interesting discussions.

I notice that many of the participants are very against the use of tape/spots on string instruments for beginners but would like add a different viewpoint. My daughter's first cello teacher put spots for her fingers in first postion when she began learning at the age of six. My daughter found it helpful although I have to say I did encourage her to put her fingers down without looking and listen before she checked against the spots. She is now 16, taking her diploma this term and most people comment on her excellent intonation.

My own string teachers did not use tape/spots, but I shared a school cello with a pupil of another teacher who used sellotape on the back of the fingerboard to show where the thumb should be in the various postions. We had different size hands and played in very different ways, but it certainly paid off for my friend as she now has an international career and teaches at one of the London Conservatoires.

So, perhaps the answer is that it can work very well, but only if used in very close conjunction with listening very carefully!

Celloma

Sorry to disillusion you Violinia but, as I think you know, we are in France and my daughter's French cello teachers (she has had two as the first one was on maternity leave last year) have both put tape on her cello. (She changed cello size which is why they both got to put tape on).

I also know from other parents that the violin teacher in the conservatoire also uses tape for her pupils.

On the plus side for English children's TV my children have some taped episodes of Tweenies about music. On the one devoted to stringed instruments, none of the players have tape on any of their instruments.(Admittedly they are probably older than on the Barney programme and they play well).

Violinia, I am a Suzuki student in Singapore. I'm currently in Book 2. Both my first teacher (I stopped so I had to relearn everything with my current teacher) and current teacher placed tapes on the fingerboard. My teacher recently told me that he wants me to practice without looking at the fingerboard. I think the tape is good cuz you know where to place your fingers but after awhile, you will try not to look at the fingerboard and the notes as it's very tiring for the eyes. He wants to take the stickers off soon I think, as some of the tapes have shifted and I don't press my fingers on the tapes now cuz they're off so I just press on the correct position though I need to correct my first position. Too high. Heeh. Most Suzuki students would probably have tapes because the first 3 or 4 books train the student to play by ear instead of reading the notes. At least, that's what printed in the books.

Just found this discussion as many may know i am going for my first lesson on saturday.

I have practiced a bit myself using a tuner to make sure my note are in tune in first position they mostly are which i am really really pleased about i think i have got a good ear and i seem to know if i'm in tune or not (without the tuner) should i let my teacher use sticky dots?

OK, I stand corrected - they use it (tape) or them (dots) in France and in Singapore! Does anybody know of any country where they don't use it/them?

Frankly I'm appalled that using guides seems to be so standard these days. Tape or dots were anathema to my teacher - she was horrified that my first teacher (one lesson only) made pencil marks on the neck, and rubbed them out immediately.

I think it all comes down to singing - the more a student sings or has been sung to when little (preferably both) the easier it is for them to play in tune without external help. Perhaps we just want everythign too quickly these days...

I know a teacher in the US who uses a method called 'Adventures in Violinland'. It proceeds very, very slowly and involves lots of singing in solfah and placing fingers very carefully, matching the note to the sung solfah name. It takes ages to get to playing proper pieces, but the foundation is very firmly lid for an excellent technique and perfectly in-tune playing. But how many kids/parents would be patient enough for that?

Violinia

Actually, not all teachers in France use tape. My teacher (who also teaches at the conservatoire) is horrified at the prospect (I jokingly mentioned using a dot for seventh position once to receive the response 'I don't allow my five year olds to have dots, so you're certainly not getting one. dots indeed, why not a violin that plays itself') Admittedly, he's a bit of perfectionist and more than a little stuck in his ways, but he would NEVER use sticky tape or dots on a stringed instrument. I'll ask him next week if any of the other string teachers do it.

My experience of music in France has been that children are encouraged to learn solfège then to practise the pieces in solfège first with no instrument (this is certainly how I was taught piano as a child) and then to play them through afterwards. My violin teacher still uses this approach on difficult passages and places a huge emphasis on solfège and sight singing.

Allan

[quote name='rosfrog' date='May 4 2006, 08:58 AM' post='315486']

Actually, not all teachers in France use tape. My teacher (who also teaches at the conservatoire) is horrified at the prospect (I jokingly mentioned using a dot for seventh position once to receive the response 'I don't allow my five year olds to have dots, so you're certainly not getting one. dots indeed, why not a violin that plays itself') Admittedly, he's a bit of perfectionist and more than a little stuck in his ways, but he would NEVER use sticky tape or dots on a stringed instrument. I'll ask him next week if any of the other string teachers do it.
[/quote]

I think this shows the dangers of generalisation - string teachers teach in different ways in every country. There are good and bad teachers in France just as there are in England.

When my younger daughter had an abortive attempt at learning the violin I was asked to buy the second volume of a méthode originally published in the 1930s. The preface stated that the first position was introduced systematically only in the second volume after at least one year's study. The first volume was/is (if it is still in print) apparently devoted to avoiding any one position so that the students would not get into the habit of having fixed positions for their fingers. (Personally I would have found this very confusing).

The teacher my daughter had was obviously not using this méthode as it was initially intended. Not only was she starting with the 2nd volume but, by adding tapes, was fixing "à jamais" a position for the fingers.

[/quote]

My experience of music in France has been that children are encouraged to learn solfège then to practise the pieces in solfège first with no instrument (this is certainly how I was taught piano as a child) and then to play them through afterwards. My violin teacher still uses this approach on difficult passages and places a huge emphasis on solfège and sight singing.

Allan
[/quote]

In the conservatoire where I and my cello-playing daughter go this used to be the case but changed about ten years ago and I thought it was a general reform throughout France (it was when they introduced the idea of "cycles" and got rid of the names like "cours préparatoire, cours élémentaire etc). The solfège is still taught separately and, as I have said elsewhere, the pupils regard it as something separate from the instrument. My daughter learnt mainly the treble clef in her first year of solfège - not a lot of help for reading cello music!

Perhaps it was a general reform that people then completely ignored because the rules are for someone else (those living in France will understand this in a deep, hilarious and sometimes painful way!).

I'm not taught solfège any more, but I still have to use it when preparing pieces, especially if there are any difficult passages - it's odd I suppose but it was standard practise when I was a kid (I can still remember the upside down T shape giving me nightmares!)

Allan

I had never thought of it like this before but you are exactly right. This is what is so infuriating about some things here.
Maybe my conservatoire has accepted the reform because it is only a "conservatoire municipale" and so not as potentially prestigious as yours.



I am intrigued by the "upside down T shape." I don't do solfège and (as you have probably gathered) I don't think much of what my daughter has done in her solfège class but there has never been any question of a T, upside down or otherwise.

If you'd ever seen the Conservatory at Nantes you wouldn't use the word prestigious in the same sentence! ("what do you mean it needs a facelift? We had it done in 1964 and grey is such a nice colour - it goes with everything")

The upside down T shape is part of the hand signal used to count measures in four in solfège (up beat diagonal going up, one - straight down, two - to the left , three - to the right, four - diagonal) - many teachers still insist on the student doing this whilst sight singing so that they can see that the student is counting correctly and not relying on 'natural rhythm' (heaven forbit something should be 'hors gabarit' the country might fall apart).

Allan

Conducting wise?

Mine is in a former convent so old stone outside and they have painted it with quite bright colours inside. The instrument teaching classrooms are the old nun's cells. This is why most of them don't have a piano - they are just too small.



Isn't this just the standard way that a conductor beats time ? I remember the aural tests in the earlier grades used to ask you to beat time this way.



You are dead right again! Both my daughters (in different ways) are "hors gabarit" and I am appalled by the way the French school system treats them.

That's what I thought!

Sorry for showing my ignorance, but what does "hors gabarit" mean? I could have a guess but I'm tired and all the definitions I could come up with for "gabarit" were in French and didn't seem to make sense - assuming it's colloquial?

Sorry, I suppose we shouldn't really be writing French to each other on an English forum; it's just the French seems to sum it up better than the English. "gabarit" is a calibre or gauge or template, i.e. something that is a standard size or shape. "Hors gabarit" is an expression which means something that is not the standard size. It is not only colloquial - you sometimes see road signs for very large trucks which are "hors gabarit" but when used about people it means anyone who deviates from what is considered "the norm."

Ahhh right! From context I guessed that must be what it meant, but while "hors" was familiar, "gabarit" was not, and my tired brain couldn't decipher the French definitions - actually, even if I could have done, I'm not sure it would have helped.

Thanks!

You're right - the upside down t thing is used by conductors to beat time - but when I was a wee chiddler in France, my addled brain couldn't bear the hassle of beating the shape and trying to sight sing at the same time (especially as teachers would frequently say things like - the hand shape is good, but the pitch as a bit off, try again - there, now the pitch is better but be careful of the rhythm.... aaarrghhhh! I'm seven for goodness sake!)

Allan
scarred for life by solfège

Having read what people have said, I agree about learning to listen. I used a tuner a lot to tune my violin, my teacher then suggested that I tune with out using the tuner. When I had tuned I checked the my tuning against the tuner.

The next stage was, once the A string was tuned drag the D string at the same time. as they are a perfect 5th the 2 strings will harmonise and not clash, the same with the D and G, and A and E. I do find this difficult.

What I do find easier is checking octives. If I play the G with my third or first finger on the D string I can check if it is in tune by playing the open G next to it, the same for the D on the A string play the open D and the A on the E string. This would eliminate putting tapes for those notes.

Oh dear!

We learned to beat time right from the start so I don't find the regular ones hard, but I have never studied solfege.

"solfege" is really just music theory and aural work (so you have studied it) but both are taught together and completely separately from the instrument in France. Until the reform (which I mentioned in an earlier post) children used to have to do a year's solfege before they learnt an instrument. I know a number of people who vehemently hate "solfege" and who never even got to touch an instrument!

Oh my gosh. If only that were true!

Piano, okay, and I don't know much about the flute, but the trumpet can sound very out of tune if the embouchure is not correct. The reed instruments all possess inherent flaws which require compensating with changes in the embouchure depending on the register being played. The clarinet can go from sounding flat to very sharp and you have to tighten/loosen the lips in order to change the pitch.

Better not even mention oboe reeds!

In a way it's easier with strings because you're dealing with a simple one-dimensional vibrating string rather than a complex 'wind tunnel' with register keys and all the other variables.

To be fair, yes, at the beginning you don't require as much as an ear as you do for the violin. But once you start to take it seriously and play in ensemble, then the woodwinds and brass have to - in my opinion - train their musical ear much more.

Also, unlike the strings, they're not numerous enough to hide.

Steve

Agggh! That's just brought back to me all the things that irritated me when I was in France. Whenever I questioned why something was the way it was, even if it was totally ridiculous, I used to get the answer "Parce que c'est comme ca!" (Cos it's like that!). Never any attempt to justify or explain, just a blind acceptance.

At first I didn't take lessons there because most small local music schools insisted that I do the solfege class as well, even though I just wanted private lessons. In the end I got some piano lessons in our local school and just refused to put my name down for the obligatory solfege class. I got away with it because I was 'L'etranger' but I wonder how many people were put off continuing because of those boring sessions.

One good point about the system: the cost of courses depended on the family's income, so kids from poor families got them almost free. I don't know if it's still like that.

Steve