Table of Contents

Parts of the Violin................................................................................................................ 1 Instrument Care.................................................................................................................. 2 Rest Position......................................................................................................................... 3 Playing Position................................................................................................................... 3 Musical Alphabet................................................................................................................. 4 String Names........................................................................................................................ 4 GGG Song............................................................................................................................ 4 Parts of the Bow................................................................................................................... 5 Bow Care.............................................................................................................................. 5 Rosin..................................................................................................................................... 5 Bunny Bow Hand................................................................................................................ 6 Bunny Bow Hand with Pencil............................................................................................ 6 Bow Hand on the Bow........................................................................................................ 6 Bow Exercises....................................................................................................................... 7 Up Like a Rocket................................................................................................................. 7 Wheels on the Bus............................................................................................................... 7 Silent Butterfly..................................................................................................................... 8 SHH-Boom!......................................................................................................................... 8 Shadow Bowing................................................................................................................... 8 Circle Bows........................................................................................................................... 8 Rhythm and Note Values.................................................................................................... 9 All about the Staff.............................................................................................................. 10 Drawing Open String Notes on the Staff........................................................................ 11

Parts of the Violin

Scroll

Strings

Pegs

Fingerboard

Bridge

F-holes

Handle with care! Your violin is made of wood and can break. Repairs can be costly and time consuming! Never let anybody play your violin unless it is your teacher or and experienced violinist that you trust! Always store your instrument in your case when you are not playing it. If your case doesnt close easily, check and make sure nothing is out of place inside. Keep your violin clean! Wash your hands before playing. After playing wipe the rosin dust, fingerprints, smudges, etc. off your violin with a soft cloth. Dont ever leave your violin in the car for long periods of time. Especially on very hot or cold days. If your strings need to be replaced or your bridge is not lined up correctly, ask your teacher to help you. Dont try to fix it yourself.

Instrument Care

Tailpiece

Rest and Playing Positions

Sing this song to help you remember how to stand in rest position.

Rest Position Song

Rest position, feet in line, Scroll out front, thats mighty fine. Check your bridge, cause it should be, Peeking out at you and me. Now its time to take a bow, One and two and three is how!

1. Stand in rest position with feet together. 2. Unzip your feet to make a V.

Steps to Playing Position

3. Take a step out with your left foot so your feet are shoulder width apart.

4. Pull your violin out with your left hand. Make sure your left thumb is on the half circle on the back of the violin. Hold the violin out high in front of you.

5. Turn the violin upside down.

6. Land your violin on your shoulder. Keep looking straight ahead and dont lift your shoulder! 7. Turn your head to the left and drop your chin onto the violin. Can you hold the violin with only your head and count to 100? Remember to not raise your shoulder! 8. Great job!

Our First Notes

Practice saying the musical alphabet. Now practice saying it backwards!

The Musical Alphabet

ABCDEFG

Learn the Names of your Strings

Pluck each string while singing the following song.

GGG Song

GGG, going up to DDD, going up to AAA, going up to EEE, going down to AAA, going down to DDD, going down to GGG.

The Bow
Parts of the Bow
Tip Stick Frog

Hair

Tension Screw

Bow Care
Keep your bow clean! Wash your hands before playing and wipe your rosin and smudges off your bow stick after playing. Avoid touching your bow hair. Dirt and skin oils can ruin the bow hair. Rosin your bow regularly. Tighten your bow before playing. Just enough so that a pencil can fit in between the stick and the hair. Loosen the bow hair before putting your violin away. Keeping it tight can cause the hair to stretch unnecessarily and ruin the hair.

About Rosin
A bow needs rosin on its bow hair to make sound. Rosin is sticky and provides the friction needed to make the string vibrate. If you apply too much rosin you will see a cloud a rosin dust every time you draw the bow. If you dont apply enough rosin the bow will feel slippery. Be careful not to touch the bow hairs, or the rosin wont stick anymore!

Bow Hold
Practice making a bunny bow hand without your bow first. Bend your thumb and and your middle fingers. Place your middle fingers over your bent thumb. Bend your pinky and index finger to make floppy bunny ears. Practice wiggling your fingers, but make sure your thumb stays bent!

Bunny Bow Hand

Bunny Bow Hand with Pencil or Wand

Once you are comfortable with your bunny ears, practice doing them with a pencil or wand. Place your bent thumb underneath the pencil and your fingers should be over the top.

Bow Hand on the Bow

Now we can put the bow hand on the bow. Place your bent thumb on the metal next to the hair of the bow drop the middle and ring fingers on the frog flop the index finger over the bow grip hop the tip of the pinky onto the stick (not the screw!)

Bow Exercises
You can do the following exercises while holding the bow or a pencil with a good bow hand.

Windshield Wipers: Using your right forearm rock the bow from side to side. Stir the pot: Hold your bow vertically, so that the tip is pointing at the ceiling. Make clockwise and counter clockwise circles with the bow. Like you are stirring a thick stew. Elevator Up: Hold your bow vertically, so that the tip is pointing at the ceiling. Move the tip of the bow straight up and down. Do it fast and slow.

Up Like a Rocket
Hold your bow with a good bow hand and the tip pointing straight up to the ceiling. Say the poem and do the action s with your bow. Make sure your bow hand stays in position!

Up like a rocket. Down like the rain. Back and forth like a choo choo train. Round and round like a great big sun. Land on my head - Curved pinky, bent thumb!

Wheels on the Bus

Hold your bow with a good bow hand and the tip pointing straight up to the ceiling. Sing the song and do the action s with your bow. Make sure your bow hand stays in position!

The wheels on the bus go round and round . . . The people on the bus go up and down . . . The wipers on the bus go swish, swish, swish . . . The doors on the bus go open and shut . . .

Using the Bow on the Violin

The Silent Butterfly
The bow needs to land on the strings like a silent butterfly. Practice landing your bow on the strings while in playing position. Practice landing on all parts of the bow from frog to tip. Make sure your bow hand is correctly placed the whole time!

Get into playing position and make a perfect bow hand. Land the middle of the bow on your E string. When someone says BOOM! quickly and quietly rock your bow to the A string. Practice rocking up and down to all the strings.

SHH - BOOM!

Shadow Bowing
Get an empty toilet paper roll or cut an empty paper towel roll in half. Place the tube on your left shoulder. Place the bow in the tube and practice bowing all of your Twinkle Variations. Play each variation at least 8 times. This will help your bow arm to use the right movement when playing.

Circle Bows
Start at the frog and take a bow stroke. When you are finished lift the bow and move it in a circle until you are back at the frog. Land on the string at the frog like a silent butterfly and do it again. When we start the bow at the frog and move it towards the tip it is called a down bow and we use this symbol . . Now start at the tip and take a bow stroke towards the frog. When you are finished lift the bow and move in a circle until you are back at the tip. Land at the tip like a silent butterfly and do it again.When we start a bow stroke at the tip and move it towards the frog it is called an up bow and we use this symbol to show when you should use an up bow / .

Musical Concepts
Rhythm
Rhythm is the beat of the music. In order to write different rhythms we use notes. We have been practicing lots of different rhythms and they are each written using different kinds of notes. In this page we will be learning three different notes. They are different then the notes in our Twinkle Variations, but thats okay! The chart below show three different kind of notes and how long they should be held.

q h w

Quarter note = 1 beat

Half note = 2 beats

Whole note = 4 beats

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The Staff
We need to learn how music is written on paper. Each note of the musical alphabet has its own special location on what we call a staff. Below is a picture of the staff.

Lines and Spaces

The staff has 5 lines and 4 spaces. Each line and space is a different note. The notes in the higher lines and spaces sound higher than the notes in the lower lines and spaces.

This is called the treble clef. When we play the violin we read notes in this clef. They are the higher notes on the piano.

Measures and Barlines

Music is divided into measures. Measures are divided into barlines. The time signature tells us how many beats there are in every measure. In this example there are 4 beats in every measure, because the top number of the time signature tells us how many beates every measure can have.

Top number = how many beats in a measure Bottom number = what kind of note gets one beat.

Time Signature

Divides the measure

Barline

Double Bar Line

End of piece

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Writing Open Strings on the Staff

Lets learn how to draw open strings on the staff. Remember our open strings are G, D, A, and E. Our G strings is the lowest sound so it will be the lowest on the staff. Our E string is a high sound so it will be higher on the staff.

The G string is a space note drawn below the staff. We draw two small lines below the staff and draw the G in the space below those lines. The extra lines are called ledger lines.

G String

The D string is also a space note. It is drawn in the space below line 1 on the staff.

D String

The A string is drawn in space 2.

A String

The E string is drawn in Space 4.

E String