Hey all,
I posted a message on the general forum ages ago asking for suggestions of a second instrument to take up. Well I decided on violin and have just bought myself one. As for books, Ive bought Eta Cohen books one and two and a tune a day book 1. Anyway, I was looking for tips from more experienced players on bowing, and anything else you can help me with!!

Thanks in advance

Hi, hope you are enjoying the violin! It's great fun learning new instruments.

I'm teaching myself so am no expert, but one tip - make sure you are keeping your bow parallel with the bridge as you play.

Hope you're enjoying yourself. Tip: learn how to hold the bow properly, it can be really hard!

Good luck, the violin is a lovely instrument to learn (but not as lovely as the viola ) Tip: Remember when you are holding the violin not to collapse your wrist, because if you get into this habbit, its hard as ###### to get out of it as a collapsed wrist makes some things that you will eventually learn how to do, impossible,

Hi Allegro
I started the violin a few weeks ago! I am using the books you mentioned and Abracadabra but the Eta Cohen books are best because they have the best repetoire. The hardest bit is definitely the tuning!
Cat

The greatest help would be to find a teacher. Another pair of eyes on your playing can help considerably to start you out right and help you through the difficult times.
Also take a look at the website below. The video clips are incredibly helpful and explain things very simply but effectively
Violinmasterclass.com

Don

QUOTE

The greatest help would be to find a teacher

Couldn't agree with you more, Donski.

I really do believe that whatever instrument you learn to play (even if it's a second or third study) it is wise to have some lessons - especially in the early stages.

A surprisingly large number of bad habits can creep in through innocent ignorance and as others have already said, they can be very difficult to get rid of at a later stage.

Apart from not letting the left wrist collapse upwards underneath the violin neck - which apart from the awful technique it gives you, makes the player look more like they are holding a saucepan of potatoes - don't stick the violin under the front of your chin. The shoulder rest violinists use should be doing exactly what it says on the box - a SHOULDER rest. Adjust its height so that the violin and shoulder rest together fill the gap between jaw and shoulder comfortably. Take into account what you are wearing when you practice, ie. a jumper will pad things out a bit more than a t-shirt. Keep the violin out towards your left side, on the shoulder, with the left side of your lower jaw on the chin-rest. Keep the instrument up level with your shoulder, don't bend forward letting the scroll point down at the floor - apart from bad technique again, it will give you serious back-ache.

A flexible right wrist and fingers are also vital. Tenseness here will cause rigid bowing from the shoulder more reminiscent of sawing a piece of wood in half - and in doing so your playing can end up sounding that way too. Bowing movement should be primarily from the bending of the elbow and wrist, not from moving the shoulder. Flexibility will draw a sweeter sound from any quality violin.

Bow hold. This can really only be demonstrated and is just one reason why lessons in the early stages are vital. Not only will the bow hold affect your bowing quality, but it will also dictate the flexibility in your wrist and fingers.

Enjoy your playing Allegro, but a few lessons now while you are fresh to playing the violin, will be of enormous benefit.

Amanda

I have just taken up the viola- had it a week! Anyway I think one of the most important things to keep in the forefront of your (and my) mind is that it is alright to be a beginner. The beginning stages are about developing a firm foundation rather than rushing ahead to just about manage pieces of more musical interest with inadequate technique. Unfortunately I find rushing ahead very tempting!

Erard - a very wise choice! Hope you enjoy playing the viola!

Get an electronic tuner. Not only will it ensure your instrument is perfectly tuned but you can check your intonation is correct.

I use an 'Intelli Violin Tuner-IMT103'. They cost around £14.00. I put mine on my music stand, set the tuner to 'chromatic' and play slow scales (no vibrato) this then helps me get good intonation. After a few minutes I find I can hear intervals very clearly for the rest of my practice session.

QUOTE (Jinxter @ Dec 13 2004, 08:49 PM)

Get an electronic tuner. Not only will it ensure your instrument is perfectly tuned but you can check your intonation is correct.

What do string players do about temperament? If I tune the A string of my viola to 440 and then tune perfect 5ths down this gives me a C string 6 cents flatter than if I tune the C string with a tuner. Not a good situation, especially if playing with a fixed pitch instrument or do the best composers avoid open Cs played with the piano for this reason?

QUOTE

What do string players do about temperament? If I tune the A string of my viola to 440 and then tune perfect 5ths down this gives me a C string 6 cents flatter than if I tune the C string with a tuner. Not a good situation, especially if playing with a fixed pitch instrument or do the best composers avoid open Cs played with the piano for this reason?

Erard,

I apologise profusely in advance if this is not the case , but are you sure your ear is hearing an absolute perfect 5th between the G and C strings??

I've always tuned my violin as A=440 and the other strings as perfect 5th's. I have never used an electronic tuner, I was taught from the outset to use my ears and I know I can trust them better than faffing with some bit of electronic equipment that will also pick up overtones and the like.

There is quite a lot of repertoire with open G's on the violin, but I'm not sure about the viola with the C string. I've never had a problem with any of my open violin strings when playing alongside fixed pitch instruments.

Maybe it would be worth having a word with a good piano tuner - perhaps contact Steinway at their London showroom??? Any piano tuners I've come into contact with, tune by ear and won't use any electronic gadgets.

Another thought is that your viola strings may need changing. You will get false 5ths when the strings get older and have gone past their best. Ideally, strings should be changed about every six months, or sooner if you do lots of playing.

Amanda

I'm not sure about this, erard, but you may be describing the phenomenon known as the "Pythagorean Comma".

If you tune from the bottom C on a piano to the top C 7 octaves higher, tuning octave by octave (ie simply doubling the frequency at each octave), you will reach a note with a frequency of exactly 128 times that of bottom C (ie 2 to the power of 7). If however you reach the same note (top B sharp) tuning by 12 successive perfect fifths (i.e. frequency multiplies by 1.5 for each rising fifth), you will reach a note with a frequency approximately 129.7 times that of bottom C (ie 1.5 to the power of 12). The difference in pitch is called the Pythagorean Comma, and is almost a quarter of a semitone.

As William Pleeth states, "Early keyboard players, who had to wrestle with the problems of a fixed-pitch instrument, expended vast amounts of time and thought on ways of "tempering" the tuning of their instruments so that they could avoid the harsh clashes of intonation brought about by the so-called Pythagorean comma. Without tempering, an instrument which was well tuned in one key could be outrageously out of tune in a distant key, but by "cheating" slightly the keyboard player could distribute the discrepancy of the pythagorean comma over a range of many octaves.
Thus tempering was a way of "splitting the difference", a compromise which would help smooth out harsh tonal disjunctions without too great a cost to the overall sense of intonation. Bach's "Well Tempered Clavier" was an attempt to illustrate that a "well tempered instrument" could play in all twenty-four keys without any great intonation problems."

William Pleeth goes on to point out that instrumentalists within the viol family could not temper their fretted instruments in the same way, and this is one of the reasons why the more flexible violin family of instruments won the ultimate battle for popularity (apart from double bass).

I have read a number of discussions on the implications of tuning in fifths or octaves for string quartets. Tuning in fifths is supposed to give a wider, more expansive sound, but leads you more quickly to the Pythagorean comma. I tune in fifths simply because it is easy and I like doing it - it seems to me that an instrument strung in fifths feels more in tune with itself when the fifths are bang in tune. I do this regardless of the fact that when playing with piano, the piano will be tempered, and I could guarantee better tuning with the piano by tuning each string individually to the piano.

However, since the comma is spread over 7 octaves, it seems to me that the tempering of piano notes reasonably close to A440 will not be so far different from the open string notes on the violin. Of course the C on the viola is that much further from A440 (approaching 2 octaves below) as against the G on a violin or viola (just over 1 octave below) so it may become more noticeable.

I have read elsewhere that the fifths should be tightened as much as is bearable to the ear, to accommodate the tuning over the octaves, and that most professional string quartets prefer what is referred to as "tight tuning" based on the octaves, because it sounds more in tune overall. I read (somewhere that I have now lost) a professional quartet's step by step guide to tuning up, and I wish I could find that again.

Yes I am talking about the comma- in order to have 12 5ths exactly equal to to 7 octaves in equal temperament each 5th must be 2 cents smaller than a perfect 5th (assuming you are in equal temperament, where all the 5ths are the same size). This means tuning the A to 440 the C string 3 5ths below will be 6 cents flatter if tuned by perfect 5ths rather than to equal temperament. I am happy with the maths/physics but after years of tuning a harp mostly to equal temperament am rather bothered by the practicalities and consider 6 cents variation in tuning to be worryingly large. It seems this doesn't bother most players and I don't understand why!

Zoda, if you could point me to any of the discussions on tuning you mention I would be very grateful.

QUOTE

I have read a number of discussions on the implications of tuning in fifths or octaves for string quartets.

I'm really sorry, Erard, shortly after I got broadband my whole computer packed up and I had to have the hard disk wiped (including the whole of "my documents" as well as all the "my favourites" links), and the disks re-installed. Losing the links to a variety of interesting sites are one of the things that annoy me the most. I can't now remember where I read a lot of the stuff, and some of it I vaguely remember isn't off the web, but from a conversation with Roger Coull about 14 years ago. However if I do find any of the links I will come back on this thread and post them up - I wouldn't place too much hope in that for the time being, though! I would be grateful if you'd do the same. My thread of hope with questions like this is usually Kenm, who may as yet pop up and illuminate the subject for us.

You could also try the viola forum in 8notes - I've more or less stopped posting there because of the pop-ups and because I like it here so much, but being an American website it has quite a lot of different visitors.

I think your question, which is totally specific to the viola, is one example of why it would be a good idea to have a viola forum on this website , or at the very least to rename "violin forum" as "violin and viola" forum (not to mention the six zillion to one vote in favour of viola in the thread "which do you prefer, violin or viola", or the regularity of posts from Jess (nutter), Cheeble, Liz Ward, Carys, Isabelsmells, Rainbow, you, me, anyone else who plays the viola, or just as importantly anyone else who may be encouraged to play viola and perhaps enrich chamber groups across the country accordingly.)

In the meantime, just as a humble "me" guess could I suggest that your approach to tuning may have to vary according to the circumstances? If you are playing unaccompanied, perfect fifths would seem to make sense. If you are playing together with a fixed pitch instrument such as piano or harp (did you hear that trio for flute, harp and viola on Radio 3 recently?), and the 6 cents difference on the C bothers you, why not tune each string individually against the fixed pitch instrument? If, however you are playing in the viola section of an orchestra, I would have thought you primarily have to be in tune with the section, who may themselves take one of a variety of approaches, depending on how the orchestra tunes up. In my kind of amateur orchestras you just get an A from the oboe and everybody tunes themselves in 5ths from that - in those circumstances it wouldn't be much use you being tuned in equal temperament if everyone else is tuned in perfect fifths. I guess in an orchestra the whole section has to agree to tune in the same way. For the reasons outlined above, I'm a bit uncertain about how you would tune in a quartet. As to avoiding open strings, I can't see that being a popular solution since the sound of a viola's open strings are one if its greatest assets (also, come to think of it, how are you going to avoid an open C string!)

QUOTE (zoda @ Dec 17 2004, 04:41 PM)

My thread of hope with questions like this is usually Kenm,  who may as yet pop up and illuminate the subject for us.

I fear I may be but a broken reed on this one. You have read more widely than I have on the string tuning aspects of temperament.

QUOTE (erard @ Dec 17 2004)

I am happy with the maths/physics but after years of tuning a harp mostly to equal temperament am rather bothered by the practicalities and consider 6 cents variation in tuning to be worryingly large.

My thoughts are based on acoustics and a certain amount of reading but rather a small amount of practical experience:

For practical purposes, you need to have a flexible approach. The two main categories, which cover the vast majority of performing situations, are distinguished primarily by whether or not you are playing with a fixed pitch instrument, like a piano, a harp or a guitar.

If so, you need to tune each of your strings to the corresponding note on that instrument. In the case of a piano playing music post-1860 or so, the tuning is very likely to be 12-note equal temperament, and you will get very close to it if you tell your electronic tuner to adjust to the piano A and take your string tunings from the electronic tuner. However, you should bear in mind that for Baroque and Classical music, historically informed performances might use other temperaments, so you still tune to the piano, but not via your tuner, unless it very sophisticated or you know how to correct its indications for the temperament in use.

If not, as in a string quartet, or a symphony orchestra playing Classical repertoire, I would expect the usual tuning to be perfect fifths,[1] with common strings tuned identically across instruments (e.g. your G, D and A should coincide with those of the violins). I certainly tune bass strings[2] by coincidence of harmonics (giving perfect fourths on perfect strings), even when playing in a piano concerto. However, as Zoda has pointed out, in a professional string quartet, tuning is a matter for discussion, and subtle variations may be introduced for particular repertoire. For instance, it would not surprise me if a quartet playing music of the New Viennese School, such as that by Schönberg, decided to tune strings in equal temperament because that was implied by Schönberg's theoretical system.

The very few exceptions to the two categories are likely to be works in which unusual tunings are specified by the composer. For instance, some decades ago I heard a radio broadcast by the 'cellist Rohan de Saram, in which he played several works in 19-note equal tempered tuning. This is the second good approximation to the European tuning system based on harmonic ratios.[3] It gives better approximations to harmonic intervals for major and minor thirds than ET 12 does, but worse fifths. I don't recall string tuning being discussed, but presumably he found some way (before electronic tuners) to put his strings onto the equal tempered scale of 19.

I hope that helps, but I think you got all the relevant stuff from Zoda already.

[1] Note the warning (in another post) about old strings. Serious wear because of bowing will make the higher modes of vibration of a string non-harmonic; it will then be difficult to tune to it.

[2] But basses are less critical because pitch perception is less acute in its register.

[3] Others include 31, 41 and 53.

I knew you wouldn't let us down, Kenm!

Happy Christmas

David

QUOTE (Donski @ Dec 6 2004, 01:21 PM)

The greatest help would be to find a teacher.

I have a friend who teaches violin and I can check in with her from time to time. I cant afford regular lessons right now ( im currently self teaching on my other intruments).
Anyway, its quite fun so far and not as hard as I thought it would be. I can find the notes and can play alot of the music I hear pizzicato, but my bowing is truly awful. I bought some sevcik bowing studies and they are a huge help, would recomend them to anyone.

QUOTE

I can find the notes and can play alot of the music I hear pizzicato, but my bowing is truly awful.

I found that my horrible bowing tone was (almost) solved as soon as I was shown how to hold the bow properly. I'm still expression-free though!