Playing in Tune 1

How to approach it -- and what does it even mean?

Special note! I’ve just created an app version of the patented Finger Finder slide rule which is mentioned below. It displays the fingering patterns for any musical key. The app is actually independent of Google and Apple — you may wish to read this article to learn more.

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Everybody wants to play in tune, but the truth is, not everybody agrees on what that even means. Intonation is not always a scientific thing (contrary to what our electronic tuners would have us believe). It is far more human than that — really, it’s about relationships: Your ears compare one note to another. Your fingertips either squeeze together or stretch apart. Some notes lean sharp or flat in order to sound good, depending on the context.

Here and in a couple more posts to come, we’ll look at finger relationships, preparing your hand for more effortless and accurate playing, and some games/exercises to build good intonation into our playing.

First, a bit of perspective. Important as it is, intonation is not our top priority. If you play out of tune, but have good timing and spirit, others can still play with you, enjoy listening to you, and dance to your music. Good intonation makes it all more pleasant and rewarding, but is not essential. On the other hand, you might work hard to play beautifully in tune, but unless you have good timing, your music will be hard to listen to, impossible to dance to, and discouraging for other musicians who want to play along. Timing is a dealbreaker; intonation is not.

Still, we sound much better when we play in tune! For one thing, sloppy intonation can change the whole mood of a tune, for example, by making a major tune sound closer to the minor key, or by obscuring or souring the intent of the tune.

As I’ve suggested, intonation is all about relationships. No note exists in a vacuum. For many notes, there is no absolutely correct placement for the fingers, and although matching a note to an electronic tuner can be a useful test, that’s simply not the whole picture. It’s not about seeing an F# on a sheet of music and knowing where you’re supposed to put your finger. In fact, our ears want that F# to be higher if we’re playing in the key of D than if we’re in E minor (we play in “mean-tempered” tuning, unlike pianos and tuners, which are “well-tempered” and have to make compromises to keep everyone happy-ish). And I’m afraid playing in tune is not about sticking little colored strips on the fingerboard — for one thing, your eyes can’t see those strips accurately from the far end of the fiddle, and for another, I’m afraid they are a symptom of a dreaded disease called fret-envy!

The bottom line about finger relationships on the fiddle is a simple question — Which two fingertips touch on each string? Only one pair of fingertips touch on each string; the others spread a finger’s width apart. With this understanding in mind (even better, in your fingers’ muscle memory), you can play in tune without having to worry about each finger placement individually.

As you may have read last week in the post about Reversing Old Presumptions, our brains are not really telling our fingers what to do. The ears do that. And our muscle memory learns and remembers the physical relationships. Our brain is able to notice patterns, though, and can help by flagging certain places with reminders, like blazes on a hiking trail, so we can stay on track.

The most commonly used finger relationship is the basis of any one-octave major scale that starts with an open string. In this scale, our fingers land as naturally as they usually do when we let our hands drop by our sides — the 2d and 3d fingertips are touching. When we have to separate these two fingers, it can feel a little more challenging, and we have to pay a little more attention in order to play in tune. For example, if we play the one-octave scale from open G to the G that’s the 3d finger on the D string, we have to change the finger pattern for the following two strings — our 2d finger has to now squeeze next to the 1st finger, and stay a fingers-width apart from the the 3d finger. Just being fully aware of that one change in finger relationships (switching the 2d from being next to the 3d to being next to the 1st) can fix intonation problems for most fiddle tunes! In the key of G, this change happens as you move from the D string to the A string. In the key of D, it happens as you move from the A string to the E string.

When I speak of “finger-widths”, by the way, please avoid falling down the rabbit hole of worrying about thickness of your fingers compared to someone else’s! Your muscle memory, and your ears, will understand the concept.

The video at the end of this post takes you through that basic one-octave scale, using animated images from my Finger Finder slide rule. I’ll explain about the video and the Finger Finder in a moment.

Despite the lack of frets on a violin, our fingers do not have free reign. Each finger is responsible for two places — a low and a high position. These two positions are the “territory” of that finger. The Finger Finder (again, see below for more about this) marks out all possible finger positions as adjacent circles on a line (which represents the string). A dotted line is drawn across the strings to indicate the “territory” of each finger.

This physical aspect of playing in tune is crucial. Your brain has way too much to do to keep track of where each finger is supposed to go. This needs to be absorbed by your muscle memory. Fingering maps which list the names of notes for each half step can be intellectually helpful, but they don’t encourage the physical part of playing (and in any case, the names of notes are easy; they’re alphabetical). Professional musicians play by sound and feel, and rarely by thinking specifically about the names of notes. If you grabbed the bow off the strings of a fiddler mid-stroke, and asked what notes she had just played, she would have to reconstruct them for you; she would not likely be aware of the names of notes while playing.

One big help for learning and using the finger relationships that allow you to play in tune is to keep your fingers down on the strings whenever you can. The first finger is the anchor for the others, and allows neighboring fingers to get a feel for where they belong. Keeping that first finger down on the string whenever possible helps anchor your intonation.

Finger relationships also extend to neighboring strings. The physical memory of where the 1st finger was placed on the D string, for example, will help you place the 2d finger on the A string, either next to that 1st finger or a finger’s width away, even though that 1st finger might still be on the neighboring string. There is a specific physical feeling to placing one finger on one string while having another finger on another string, as when we move through a finger pattern such as broken thirds, or up or down a scale, or if we play chords, or play a tune with a lot of cross-bowing back and forth. Playing in tune means you know what it feels like to have fingers ready to go, in relation to each other — rather than playing one note correctly, then trying to find the next one, in isolation.

Allow your ears to do their work, and, as I mentioned, keep your fingers down whenever you can, to help them guide the placement of other fingers. If you’re working on a tune in D, for example, try playing a D scale, including all the notes/fingers in order, starting and ending on a D. Note that the third note of any scale is always very important — in a major scale, that note sounds better when played on the high side, and in a minor scale, on the low side (but don’t tell your electronic tuner about this, it might short-circuit!).

I’ve mentioned the “Finger Finder” — here’s the story: After many years of teaching finger relationships to students, I found a way to represent them in a simple pattern, which at first I drew or printed for students, and later managed to design the “Finger Finder” slide rule to allow learners to view the finger relationships in any key or key signature. This gadget is not like any other — it was even awarded a patent, which means it’s not something you’ll find easily. Below, I’ll give you links to learn more about the Finger Finder — not to sell it, but to give you a chance to learn about a resource you can’t find otherwise. I’ve seen lots of fiddlers make good use of it, so I heartily endorse it simply because it has proved really helpful to people. (I’m very aware of even the appearance of “self-promotions” partly because some Facebook groups are totally paranoid about it — several FB groups of fiddle learners won’t allow links to any of my Substack articles because Substack allows people the option of becoming a paid subscriber, and this is considered a self-promotion! To me, withholding helpful free articles from those types of groups feels like paternalistic censorship, to be honest.)

If you’d like to see how the Finger Finder works, along with a discussion of fingering relationships, you’re welcome to view this YouTube that I made long ago.

The Finger Finder is available from Shar Music , Johnson Strings, and my site. I have no preference where you get one if you want one; I just think it can help your learning and playing.

As described in last week’s Reversing Old Presumptions article, our ears are really in charge of our intonation. They know, better than we can guess, what is the right sound. Usually the ears have a very good idea how a tune goes after hearing it only twice! In terms of intonation, there are many factors that help the ears know about the finger relationships; some are mathematical, as when we match identical notes, notes that are an octave apart, or notes that are a fifth apart (directly across the string from each other). Non-mathematical relationships, such as 3ds and 7ths, are fair game for bending (as in the blues), mood changes (as in major/minor), and ambiguities (as in old-style fiddlers such as Shetland or Cape Breton players, who may hear and play a neutral 7th note of the scale). Violating the mathematical connections, such as playing unisons, octaves, fourths or fifths that are out of tune, creates a buzz in the ears. Playing a doublestop in perfet tune creates harmonious vibrations (sometimes even a third note can be heard) in the ears. But this work of the ears is generally not conscious or intellectual, and it’s not necessary to understand it, though you might find it interesting to read more about in the earlier post on the Mysteries & Uses of the Harmonic Series.

As I mentioned, we’ll be getting into more practical tips soon, but for now, open your ears and pay attention to the feel of the fingers and whether they’re touching or not. Try to think in groups of notes rather than about individual notes. Think about the relationships between fingers both on one string and on neighboring strings. Notice patterns you may not have felt or heard before, and if you like visual learning, explore these patterns at a glance with a Finger Finder.

Below is the video I mentioned, which takes you through the most common finger relationships, using a one-octave scale and arpeggio, starting on an open string. You can learn about finger relationships without either the following video or the Finger Finder, but these resources may prove very helpful to you. This video below is one of ten in Technique Video Group 4, All About Fingering Patterns, on my fiddle-online site.

Note: Out of respect for those who pay a small fee to access that Video Group on fiddle-online, and out of my appreciation for paid subscribers to this Substack, the following video is only available to paid subscribers (Substack will let you view it with a free trial subscription, though).