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Help with first position.

 
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ShawnK
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Joined: 27 Jul 2008
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PostPosted: Sat Aug 02, 2008 8:07 pm    Post subject: Help with first position. Reply with quote

Hello,
I am fairly new to playing the violin, and I have a question about the fourth finger first position. When I play the fourth finger on any of the string the note produced sounds dull and not at all like the next open string. The tuner I use says that I have the correct pitch, so I am at a loss as to what I am doing wrong.
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mshikibu
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PostPosted: Sat Aug 02, 2008 8:18 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Does the tuner also say that you have the correct pitch on the open strings?

Remember that every step has 200 cents. In other words, every half step (fingers close) has 100 cents, or 100 divisions of the pitch. That is a lot of fine discriminations, so it's easy to play the violin badly if you're not very careful.

Make sure the strings are in tune, first, and then when you play the 4th finger, find the spot that causes the next up, open string to resonate in sympathy.
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ShawnK
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PostPosted: Sun Aug 03, 2008 9:52 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I use the same tuner for tuning all of my strings, so I do not think that my strings are out of tune.
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SMaus
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Joined: 03 Aug 2008
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PostPosted: Sun Aug 03, 2008 10:00 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Is it just the sound or the pitch that you don't like?
mshikibu is absolutely right - the open string should resonate if you hit the note perfectly in tune. But don't forget, the lower the string, the duller the tone... Smile
Or in other words, if you play a piece on the E-string it will sound completely different when you play it on the G-string or even the A-string. No matter what you do with your intonation. It's just the sound that changes. It's softer, darker, more G-string-like.
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ShawnK
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PostPosted: Sun Aug 03, 2008 11:41 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

So, how different should the fourth finger sound compared to the next open string? When I play the forth finger the note sounds foreign to me, even though the pitch is spot on.
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mshikibu
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PostPosted: Sun Aug 03, 2008 12:31 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

ShawnK wrote:
So, how different should the fourth finger sound compared to the next open string? When I play the forth finger the note sounds foreign to me, even though the pitch is spot on.


I guess the best way to express it is that the pitch is the same but the timbre is different: timbre is the sound quality that distinguishes (for example) the oboe from the French horn, even though they are playing the same pitch.

The quality of the instrument is also a factor.
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ShawnK
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PostPosted: Sun Aug 03, 2008 1:36 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Is there anything I can do that might help?
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Dave Chandler
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Joined: 31 Oct 2007
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Location: Mt Mitchell in North Carolina

PostPosted: Sun Aug 03, 2008 2:35 pm    Post subject: Playing 4th finger Reply with quote

I'm an old guy, getting arthiritis in my 4th finger, and I can no longer press as hard and cleanly as I could when I was younger, and it does impact on the sound. I have to play around my problem, because its not going away, but getting worse. But you don't want to work around this.

As you move up the fingerboard away from the nut you have two things happening....the string is higher off the fingerboard, and as you move from 1st to 2nd to 3rd to 4th fingers, they are each incrementally weaker. The cure, is practice, and strengthening that pinkie. If instead of playing with your 4th finger, you shift up and use one of the others, does the sound become cleaner? If so, its not the string or the violin, but the weakness of the fingers.

All the best.
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SMaus
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PostPosted: Sun Aug 03, 2008 4:29 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Train your finger strength. Here I wrote something about increasing the speed, but it's also good to train your strength. The article is in German, but the notes speak for themselves.
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mshikibu
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PostPosted: Sun Aug 03, 2008 4:33 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

ShawnK wrote:
Is there anything I can do that might help?



One thing you might do is to go to a good luthier shop and play other violins; see if it happens on other instruments. I wonder if your instrument has a weakness there? There's something you can buy which helps sometimes. See:

Super-Sensitive Wolf-Be-Gone
http://tinyurl.com/5wfdj6
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SMaus
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PostPosted: Sun Aug 03, 2008 5:44 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Could be if it happens on one or even two strings. But Shawn writes it occurs on any string. Sounds strange to me. Probably Dave is right, it's related to the finger weakness.
@Shawn
Have you checked your hand position? I mean, is it possible for you to simply drop your fourth finger to hit the string? Or have you "opened" your hand so much that you have to stretch your fourth finger excessively to reach the fingerboard?
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ShawnK
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PostPosted: Sun Aug 03, 2008 7:29 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thanks for the help, my finger strength seems to be the problem. I also noticed that the sound was much better when I played using only the very tips of my fingers, but I am not sure if this is the correct way to play?
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SMaus
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PostPosted: Sun Aug 03, 2008 7:42 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Basically - yes. Sometimes it is a bit difficult to perform this with the fourth finger because it's so short compared to the others. Therefore the fourth isn't bent so much.
But you should at least try to press the string with the tips, especially when you play faster parts. They sound much more precise that way.
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ShawnK
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PostPosted: Mon Aug 04, 2008 10:22 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thanks for everyone’s help, I really appreciate it.
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