Combining Space & Line Notes

Next step for reading music fluently

Getting back to our recent topic of learning to read music fluently on the violin without all the memorizing and verbalizing, let’s combine what we’ve done so far.

If you’re new to this (or if you’ve allowed an impatient mind to jump ahead just because it thinks it understands everything), go “back” to the Open Strings game, and make sure you’re totally comfortable with it. Then try the Space Notes, same thing, see that you can see and play without thinking. Move on to the Line Notes in the same way. In fact, those games are always helpful to go “back” to.

Remember — all of these games are great excuses for warmups with good timing and good straight bowing. I put “back” in quotes because you’re really never going back to anything when you warm up with a game you’ve done before. You just get more familiar with it and do it better, which means you can then afford to pay attention to other things too: the sound and feel of the bow in each part of the bow, seeing all four notes in a measure at once, picturing their pattern. Music is all about relationships, and trying to get any one note “correct” without reference to those around it is unnatural, and doesn’t really improve your playing for the next time you try it.

Space and Line Notes — together at last

It’s a romance meant to be. The next step is to combine space and line notes, but again, I find it best to do it in a limited and manageable way. Sorry to harp on this, but oftentimes people’s minds (especially more accomplished or academic ones) think they don’t need to do something in a manageable way because they can handle complex things, but we want to develop not the mind but the hand/ear/eye coordination. This is one major reason I created brief technique videos for fiddle-online.com, so that people could go through them and get the benefit of the exercises/games without having to think too much! I don’t have a video at the moment for reading, but we shall see about that (Technique Video Group #6?).

Below, I offer the sheet that I often use for students at this point, and once again, it is limited to paid subscribers out of respect for students who have paid for it in the past. But you can create your own practice sheet if you like.

[And if you’re on a tight budget, I’m offering a holiday discounted paid subscription from now til Christmas, so see if you can lean on someone to give it to you as a gift!! Click here to see the 20% discount offer, or to see the regular monthly and other options, click “Subscribe now” below.]

The idea for combining space and line notes is to limit them to one string. Your eye can instantly see whether a note is written on a space (between lines) or on a line. So if we limited ourselves to one string, you have a 50% chance of getting any given note right! If it’s on a space, you use 0 or 2d finger, and if on a line, it’s 1st or 3d.

But really you have better than a 50% chance. Since we’re using only one string, you can see if a note appears lower on that string, which means it’s either an open string (space) or 1st finger (line). If it’s higher on the string, the note needs either the 2d finger (if a space note) or 3d finger (if a line). That’s a lot of words to describe something that happens in a flash!

The four notes on each string use fingers 0, 1, 2, 3. The fourth finger is not necessary for the moment; it plays the same note as the next higher open string, except on the E string where there isn’t a higher string. In flat keys, the fourth finger is required, but it’s a lot easier because it’s placed right next to the third, and we’re not worrying about that at the moment.

As with the earlier space and line note games, this combined game has five exercises to choose from — one for each string, plus one allowing you to follow your nose and get used to moving through all four strings after you feel comfortable with the individual strings. (On my sheet, the last exercise, using all four strings, is written using four eighth notes per measure instead of four quarter notes. This changes nothing — those eighth notes are all equal to each other, just as the quarter notes are equal to each other in time. You always get to pick the tempo, so play that last exercise the same as the other ones, using one note per second. Eighth notes can be grouped together with “beams” connecting them, which makes them easier to see as a pattern.)

Pick one of the first four musical lines and try it as you did the previous exercises — about one second per note, four notes per bar/measure, a downbow to start each measure, a new bow direction for each note. Keep your eyes glued to the patterns, without succumbing to the temptation of glancing at the bow or fingers or strings. Stay exactly in time by feeling the beat and looking forward to the next one, whether you think you know what the note is or not. As I said, you have a better than 50% chance of getting the next one right, so if your mind gets anxious about getting it right, just ignore that and guess and go. As long as your bow stays in time, you’re fine. If you guessed wrong on a note, you’ll soon run out of notes, and can either fix it on the fly (best skill of all) or start again for another run.

Playing in Tune

Because we’re on one string at a time, we can now start to think about intonation as well as fluent reading, good timing, and a good sound. We’re building it all at a manageable speed. This allows us to physically do it all without going on overdrive to keep “on top” of everything.

Up till now, we haven’t worried about playing in tune. All that has mattered is that we see a line or space note and put down the correct finger (or no finger). But now, the game can be written with key signatures — one sharp for G string notes, 2 sharps for D string, 3 sharps for A string, and 4 sharps for E string — these represent the keys of G, D, A, and E.

The four notes of each string can be played as the first four notes of a major scale, the most common pattern we use on the fiddle. If we just keep the 2d and 3d fingertips touching, and let the others stay a finger’s width apart from each other, we are playing those four notes in tune, and we can do this on each string.

For this exercise/game, you may as well incorporate that pattern. Playing in tune here simply requires the physical connection between the 2d and 3d fingertips, without need for thinking, verbalizing, or having any knowledge of keys or music theory. Here’s what that pattern looks like, taken from the Finger Finder:

My game sheet combining space and line notes, available below, uses patterns such as 0,0,1,1; or 0,1,2,3; or 0,2,1,3; and all sorts of variations of those four notes up and down the string, to get your eye and finger and ear used to reading fluently without allowing your mind to indulge in any anxiety whatsoever. Then you can boast to people that reading music is so easy you can do it in your sleep.

As you’ll see, it’s meant to be easy, and as you get comfortable, you can aim for better timing, sound, and confidence. Take in the pattern of a whole measure at once, stay in time, stick with a downbow to start each measure. If you find you’re not starting a measure with a downbow, you added or missed a note, or you put two notes on one bow without being aware of it. Stop and pick a nearby measure to start up again with a downbow.

Don’t forget to breathe! Enjoy.