Mapping Scales

The creation of my fingering board happened when I started teaching beginning violin students in France.

I felt that just saying things, especially in a foreign language, was just too abstract, so I started them off by teaching them songs that were well known in French culture.

I arranged the first songs to start from the open A string.

These songs used the tetrachords for an A major scale, but of course, I didn't tell them that.

I did this because playing on the A string places the left elbow in a fairly neutral position. If we started the scale from the G string, this would require moving the elbow into a slightly more awkward position. So A string it was.

Using the tetrachords for a major scale starting from the A string, you needed the lower tetrachord the following pattern.

Whole step, whole step, half step.

Now for the upper tetrachord, which is a whole step away from the last note of the lower tetrachord, the pattern is identical.

Whole step, whole step, half step.

Seeing this on my fingering board gave them a mental image to work with.

Oh yes, it's very important that the student is capable of identifying whole and half steps. So with my beginning violin students, I would take time in their lesson, while they were learning how to hold the violin and bow, to go to the piano and have them identify whole and half steps, which back then I called happy and sad. In French, I would make faces and say, c 'est triste or c 'est gay. I mean, they were 5 and 6 year olds.

Anyway, the result was that they now knew how to play a one octave major scale.

When I shifted the notes to start with the D string, they immediately saw that by doing the same patterns, they now knew two scales.

And moving it to the G string, well, you see what I mean. They had now learned three scales.

Building on this, I now taught them how to construct a two octave scale.

They simply needed to start the second octave on the eighth degree of the scale and repeat the pattern.

Why don't I build an A major scale on my fingering board, starting with the first finger A on the G string? So on the G string, there is a whole step, whole step, and a half step.

On the D string, there is a whole step, whole step, and a half step.

On the A string, there is a whole step, half step, and a whole step.

And on the E string, there is a whole step, half step, and a whole step.

Do you see the symmetry this creates? You see on the G and D strings, it's whole step, whole step, half step.

And on the A and E strings, it's whole step, half step, whole step.

Doesn't knowing this make playing a two octave A major scale easier? And guess what? If you start anywhere on the G string with the first finger and use these patterns, you will always get a two octave major scale.

For fun, I used to pick up a student's first finger and place it randomly on the G string, telling the student to play the patterns from there.

As they were good at recognizing the sound of whole and half steps, no matter how high or low on the string I placed their finger, they would adjust the distances.

After about two or three, I would stop them and ask them what scale they had played.

Surprised, they would admit that they didn't know.

This pleased me because they were relying on the patterns in their memory rather than first thinking about the notes before playing them.

Well it doesn't stop there, as we can use this idea to organize three octave scales as well.

To do this, we need to look at the tetrachord patterns string by string.

Let's start by looking at a B flat major scale, with B flat to A to B flat, or second finger to first to second finger at the beginning.

This makes the number of notes ascending and even 24.

So the pattern on the G string is half step, whole step, whole step.

On the D string, whole step, whole step, whole step.

On the A string, whole step, whole step, half step.

Oh yes, do notice that there is a shift to the last half step.

Then whole step, whole step, whole step, and finally on the E string, whole step, whole step, half step, and whole step, whole step, half step, with shifting occurring as shown on my fingering board.

Looking at scales this way frees the student from worrying about what fingerings to use.

I mean doing the same patterns over and over again means one is doing the same fingerings over and over again.

This allows their attention to focus on things like making a great sound or playing in tune.

As there are other scales which require different fingerings, I observed that by using the logic of these patterns, I could reduce and organize them. This was important for me as I wanted my students to have a solid base from which exceptions were only that, exceptions.

So I made this fingering chart that only contained numbers and handed it to my more advanced students.

These would make them very happy because of its simplicity, but in fact they pleaded with me to give them notes.

So I made a book of scales, well, making this book made them very happy.

That said though, I used all the fingerings from the chart, so in fact I got them to do the patterns anyway.

I just went through the back door.

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