D-Place
Hi friends! We’re back with another article about the fingering hand. This article will cover the notes on the D string of the violin.
Here you will learn about the names of the notes corresponding to the Don’t Fret finger locator system.
Recommended Reading: Where To Put Your Fingers On The Violin
For example: yellow, red, blue, and orange. Remember that the fingers used correspond to the tapes as follows:
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Yellow=1st finger
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Red=2nd finger
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Blue=3rd finger
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Orange=4th finger
Remember that we are not yet going to use our 4th finger. So don’t worry about that one just yet.
For now, let’s get into our first three fingers. Make sure that you have your Don’t Fret system ready to go, or at least you are using the diagram provided here to follow along.
Yellow Tape
The yellow tape is where your first finger goes. This note is called the “E”.
Red Tape
The red tape is where your second finger goes. This note is called the “F#”.
You may have noticed that symbol next to the F. This symbol has it’s own name in music and has it’s own purpose.
Let’s talk about it for a moment.
“#” – The Sharp Symbol
You may not have seen the “#” symbol in relation to music.
Most people know this as a hashtag on Facebook or Twitter, and a pound sign on phones.
But in music, the “#” is called a sharp, and it raises or lowers a pitch one half step.
I don’t want to confuse you right now as we will deal with it more later, so if this is your first time seeing this symbol, simply attach it to the “F” and remember that the name of the note located on the red tape on the D string is an “F#”, or F sharp.
Blue Tape
The blue tape is where you third finger goes. This note is called the “G”.
Orange Tape
For the sake of being thorough, the orange tape is where your fourth finger goes.
This note is called the “A”. Another reason I wanted to include this is so that you can see the linear letter walk of the violin.
A basic violin truth-The 4th finger is the next open string
This particular “A” note is the same pitch as the open “A” string, which we will learn about next.
A basic truth of violin playing is that the orange tape, or fourth finger, of each string is the same pitch as the next string up.
Of course, this stops at the “E” string as there is not another string after that.
Final thoughts
Use the images and the video to help give you a visual understanding of the notes and where your fingers go.
Memorize the letter names of the notes as well as the fingers.
In this way, you will jump start your understanding of music theory for the future.
If you or your student are young, you can vary this by starting with just the fingers and what tapes they are on.
Remember that we always want to play each note on our finger tips.
I hope this helps everyone. Keep practicing and music is magic!