Hi - I'm working on 'Charade' from Time Tunes for Viola bk 1 (it's on the grade two list)

The last note is a chord with an open a string and a harmonic - the note is an E which sits on 2 ledger lines above the stave, and its a diamond shape. I've looked in all the books I have but I can't find it anywhere - and I don't have a lesson for a fortnight.

Please can anyone help!

Many thanks

I'm not a viola player and have never learned harmonics on the violin, but from my limited knowledge of harmonics, I'd guess it would be the 2nd harmonic on the A string, so you would place your finger a third of the distance between the peg end of the string and the bridge.

EDIT: I've just tried it out on my violin and it seems to work. The harmonic is roughly where you would normally play E with your 4th finger. (Which makes sense when you think about it, given that it's just the other half of the string vibrating, which would be half as long...)

Anyway, it works.

Thanks for your answer - however, it is written with an open A string as part of the chord - so I can't play the harmonic and the open A at the same time, can I? Or is there a way to do this?

I don't think the A is to be played. One way of notating harmonics is to give you one notehead to tell you which string to choose (or where to stop a string normally) and the other (diamond) notehead to tell where to damp the string. I would be surprised to find chords at Grade 2, but I'm not a teacher, so others may know different. If mine is the correct interpretation, then the sounded note will be an octave higher than the pitch that you would get if you stopped the string fully at the position of the diamond, so in this case you damp the lowest E on the A string and get the E above top C. Does that note go well with the ones before it?

Hi - the piece is in A minor. The last few bars have a double-stopped D and C, then an A (marked open string) then this is tied to an A with the harmonic marked above, so what you say about the string that has the harmonic on it being written would make sense.

This piece, as well as having some double stopping, also has some parts of it fingered for 3rd position (which you don't usually find in grade 2!) - but we're ignoring that at the moment and playing it in first!

Many thanks for your help - I was ignoring the harmonic for the time being, but i would like to get it right!

In which case, if it is tied, you play it as an A, then for the note after the tie you add the harmonic. Its most likely a slur instead of a tie, but you can really tell.