Playing The Violin - Left Hand: Producing Pitch

Left Hand: Producing Pitch

While beginning violin students often rely on tapes or markers placed on the fingerboard for correct placement of the left hand fingers, more experienced players place their fingers on the right spots from skill alone. To attain good intonation, violin players practice long hours to train their fingers to land in the right places, learning to hear when a note is in or out of tune, and cultivating the ability to correct the pitch rapidly and automatically as notes are being played. "Singing" the note mentally helps to land in the right spot. (In practice, intonation may be checked by sounding an adjacent open string, and listening for the interval between the two notes.) Although adjusting to the desired pitch after landing the finger is indeed possible, the amount of adjustment needed may be greatly reduced by training the fingers to fall properly in the first place. That said, a quote widely attributed to Jascha Heifetz goes something like: "I play as many wrong notes as anyone, but I fix them before most people can hear them."

The fingers are conventionally numbered 1 (index) to 4 (little finger). Especially in instructional editions of violin music, numbers over the notes may indicate which finger to use, with "0" above the note indicating "open" string, or playing on a string without manipulating the pitch using the left hand. The second finger may be either "low" or "high," corresponding to G or G♯ on the E string in first position. Similarly, the first finger may reach a half-step down for the F, and 3rd and 4th fingers reach up for A♯ and C respectively, as shown on the chart of Bornoff finger patterns on the left. (Pattern number 5 may be seen to be the same as pattern number 3, but a half step lower, or in "half position.")

The lower chart on the left shows the arrangement of notes reachable in first position. Note well: left hand finger placement is a matter of the ears and hand, not the eyes, that is, it has strong aural and tactile/kinesthetic components, with visual references being only marginally useful. Note also (not shown on this chart) that the spacing between note positions becomes closer as the fingers move "up" (in pitch) from the nut. The blue bars on the sides of the chart represent the usual possibilities for beginners' tape placements, at 1st, high 2nd, 3d (and 4th) fingers, or Bornoff pattern number 2. This particular pattern results in an A major scale on the A and E strings, which is a natural start for simple tunes like "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star".