Hello. I'm a violin teacher and one of my students has been playing using finger tapes to help her play in tune. I don't really like using them as I think students end up relying on them a little too much, but I felt it might aid her muscle memory a little and help to train her ear. I've decided that now is the time to remove the tapes, but her tuning is now all over the place. She can sometimes tell if she is out of tune, but often doesn't know whether the note she's just played was too sharp or flat.

I've tried aural training exercises (i.e. echo singing, spotting which note is higher/lower) and she sings quite well in tune, but is unable to tell if a note is higher or lower. She also doesn't grasp the concept of octaves i.e. she can't tell that they are the same note, but an octave apart.

Can anyone help me and offer some advice on ways I can improve this? Technically, she is a very good player, but tuning is a major problem.

Many thanks

Give her some feedback that doesn't depend on using words? Some kids get really wound up by having to remember sharp/higher flat/lower.

If you have an iphone or ipod touch you can use the cleartune app to give you a display with a swinging needle that moves nearer to the note as you get closer in tune to it. Some of my violin kids find it really helpful. Electronic tuning devices can show you the same but not all have clear displays.

Maybe for the octaves...

hate to say this but get her to play them on the piano so she gets a whole big range of 'all the Cs' or 'all the Fs'. Also there's a good octave song in Essential String Method Book 1, 'Low D High D' which seems to help. Can she sing the beginning of 'Somewhere Over the Rainbow'? From different starting notes? If you sing a major scale in numbers 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 and then ask her to sing only 1 and 8 but to sing 2-7 inside her head can she do that?

I don't mean catch her out with these, I mean using them all might help!

I'm guessing the pupil hasn't been playing that long as she had finger tapes (pre-grade 1?) though you say that she's good technically, so not sure . Anyway - one thought about octaves - get her to sing "Somewhere over the Rainbow." That's how I learned to hear them. In fact this reminds me to dig out my list of songs with various intervals for the first couple of notes.

I've been playing for 3 1/2 years and sometimes can't tell if I'm playing sharp or flat, BUT, if I sing the notes in my head, or out loud, when I play the notes again they're in tune. So maybe getting her to play a note you sing, and getting her to sing/hum/whistle/. . . a tune before she plays it would help.

I think tuning/intonation is something that gets refined over time. Stuff I thought was in tune a year ago I would probably wince at now. But today, if I'm not focussing on the sound of the music in my head then it won't come out of the violin as tunefully as if I do find that place of focus. It's definitely something to do with making that connection between the sound in my head and the sound of my violin that moved my intonation forwards.

Also duetting really helps me. I find I can tune to my teacher's playing.

I've been playing for about 10 years and I have to admit that I can't tell whether a note is sharp or flat unless it's very obvious My pitch is extremely weak for a string player, but in my defense I usually play decently in tune. I can adjust the note even if it isn't clear to me immediately whether it's sharp or flat by trying both directions and seeing which direction makes it sound better.

I also had tapes for more than 2 years by which point I had reached grade 2-3 level, because the lessons I had until then were in groups at school, and there simply wouldn't have been time to correct every single child's intonation without a concrete reference. As soon as I started one-on-one lessons the tapes came off and I don't remember having any trouble. My intonation and ear needed a lot of improvement, but that happened without a struggle and my progress was very fast. Maybe I would have developed a better sense of pitch if I hadn't started with tapes, but I don't think it was detrimental.

Singing-while-playing is definitely one to try.

However, try to pinpoint exactly what the difficulties are: "Higher up the fingerboard = sharper" is actually one abstract concept ('higher' along a horizontal surface) being compared to another ('sharp' meaning higher pitch). If neither of these confuse a beginner, then getting the fingers to behave themselves to actually go where they sound right can also be a challenge.

To add to all the good advice already given, here's a couple of things I'd try:

• Silly sliding up and down the fingerboard, to establish the connection with higher and lower pitch.
• Introduce harmonics, sliding up to them. This will also help with the concept of the octave, perhaps backed up with the physical explanation about halving the string and doubling the speed it vibrates. (IIRC 'Low D, High D', mentioned by violincjj, uses harmonics?)
• Introduce close 2nd fingers. Sometimes this helps in getting the concept of tones and semitones clearer, and 'fixing' the 1st and 3rd fingers in place while the 2nd is allowed to play either of two notes gets those Grade 1 finger patterns underway. You don't need to be anywhere near repertoire needing this to do it: simple copying of D-E-F# and D-E-F patterns, listening for the change of 2nd finger, can be a starting point, and you can do 'happy/sad' versions of tunes such as Merrily We Roll Along, also introducing minor tonality.
• Stick with it! For some, it's a very slow process, but they can get there.

It has been my experience that if children sing first what they are going to play, this greatly increases the likelihood that they will play it in tune.

Colourstrings students can sing all their pieces in solfa before they play them. The son of a friend of mine (now at RNCM) delighted his father when, as a five year old, he announced, 'I'm going to make my cello sing the songs now.'

We didn't sing solfa much but we sang through Suzuki Books 1 & 2, sometimes with words, sometimes not. When DS4 was also at the stage where he was beginning to learn note names he said that when he played his pieces, the notes sang their names to him

I think being completely secure with intervals is hugely important to playing in tune. To understand exactly what you are expecting to hear in an ascending scale first of all, then in intervals of a major third, perfect 4th, minor third probably last of the common intervals because it's tricky to sing.

But even after singing a note, I think some people struggle with a difference in timbre. I find it very hard to compare a violin note to a piano, for example, and have to play the note on a piano then sing it aloud to tune the violin, I can't translate directly from piano to violin because it doesn't sound the same even when the note is correctly tuned - not to mention that often a pianist without much accompaniment experience plays the note for too long and it starts to drop in pitch. Even the difference between a 4th finger A, a 2nd finger in 3rd position A and an open string A starts to put me off a a bit because they don't sound exactly the same - useful for a choice of timbre in advanced playing, but murder for starting out. How well does she do comparing her note to one you are playing on a violin, rather than singing? Can she at least tell when the match and do not match? I think that comes before being able to work out whether you are too high or too low.

To hear that an octave is the same, why not play something ridiculously too low or insanely high and ask her to sing along? There is a very good chance she will automatically find her own octave to sing in, and will start to realise that octaves will sound "the same".

What about having the student turn her back while you sing a note? She can then sing the same note, and you both raise your hands when you think you are in tune with each other...When she raises her hand, she should turn around to see if your hand is up yet or not!

Then swap round so that she is singing and you are trying to match her.

Next, try having one of you play while the other tries to sing in tune (and vice versa), with the person who starts second to say "NOW" when she thinks you are both in tune.

Finally, try it with both playing your violins.

Good luck and have fun.

I have nothing constructive to say, except thanks for trying with this student, and please persist in doing so.

I took violin lessons for many years as a child. I couldn't hear how to fix tuning issues, but I knew that it sounded awful. I don't remember my teacher trying to help in this area, and I am now as an adult trying to address the problem. I think that it is probably much harder to deal with as an adult, with deep rooted issues. I'm sure that your student will thank you for it in years to come (if she remembers that you did so!).