How to Play: Viola 101

Learning how to play the viola was not easy. I don't expect anyone reading this to be a master at the instrument after reading this, but I thought I'd give a run down of the basics and how to get started. The viola has 4 strings C, G, D, and A. C being the lowest and A being the highest. Normally when learning an instrument you'd start with a scale or a chord, but learning viola you start with 2 notes A and D, the 3rd and 4th string.
 

If you put your finger down on one string you get the next note on the scale. so one finger down on the D string is E and two fingers is F, etc. Unlike a guitar, you can't play a chord using multiple strings at a time, you can only play one string at a time. To actually play the note you have to run the bow hairs across the string. You hold the viola under your chin and with your left hand and you hold the bow with the right hand, regardless of what hand you write with.

You need to make sure not to push down to hard on the string, or else you could hurt the viola strings. Playing too rough can be indicated by the sound not coming out smoothly but rather sounding really rough. And playing lightly can be indicated by not enough sound coming out of the instrument.

If you've ever played an instrument before, you probably recognize this:this is a treble clef, otherwise known as a G Clef. Most instruments read music in this clef. The viola does not. The viola reads in Alto clef which looks like this: Viola is the only instrument that reads in this clef. I personally feel like every instrument should read in this clef. In my opinion, it's much easier to read and keep your place in the music relative to middle C Middle C lies directly in between the two bumps of the "B." But on the treble clef middle C lies below the staff. This difference between the treble and alto clef is one of many differences between the viola and the violin.

Everybody thinks that they're virtually the same instrument but they're not. A violin has 4 strings, but it's strings are G, D, A, and E. So most of the strings are the same, but the viola has a low string that the violin doesn't, and the violin has a high string that the viola doesn't have. The viola is also slightly larger than it's treble clef'd counterpart. So if somebody who has played viola their whole life tries to play violin, they would probably understand the general feeling of the instrument but definitely won't be able to read the music.

I hope this helped some of you understand the very basics of the viola a little more than you did prior. Since there isn't really a video that I could show you that would say it any differently than I did, i'm going to end this with a video of a piece of music for beginner viola and violin students. One that I had to play in the 5th grade:

Elementary - High School: Discovering my Favorite Instrument

Hello everyone! I am going to be using this blog to talk about the instrument I play; the viola. I am going to talk about why I chose to play it, and still do, what I like about it, a little on it's history, and how to play. In this first blog post I am going to be giving a little background and introduction on myself.



I started taking viola lessons in fourth grade. Back then I was not really invested in the instrument the way I am now, I was just learning how to play. About seven other students and myself took viola lessons, and I am the only one out of those six or seven children that still play viola today, and I have almost made a career out of it. The initial reason I chose to take viola lessons is very simple. About halfway through fourth grade all the music teachers came and gave a presentation on different instruments they were offering lessons in. I knew I wanted to play a string instrument, but to me as a child, there wasn't a clear difference between Viola and Violin, they looked and sounded the same to me. The reason I decided to take Viola lessons is because all the other students who were contemplating taking music lessons were all planning on taking Violin lessons. And I didn't want to be like everyone else!

 In middle school I had a few bad experiences in and out of music. I got bullied a lot in middle school(which didn't really help my creativity in general), and my viola instructor was very rude and unprofessional. I don't want to say "He was mean!" but that's pretty much what I'm saying. He wasn't helpful in furthering my understanding and interest in my instrument and I also just generally didn't have a good time in middle school.

High school is where I really fell in love with the viola and realized I wanted to spend the rest of my life playing it. It was there I met Sarah Jordan, who succeeded where my middle school instructor had failed. She taught me how to take the viola seriously, apply music theory, and convince me that becoming a music teacher wasn't as far fetched of a goal as people made it out to sound.

This is a song I played in High School. That obviously isn't me playing.

After college I really want to be a music teacher. I would prefer teaching either little kids, like preschool/ kindergarten age, or high school students. This is because of multiple reasons. If you get a teaching license you're good to teach from K-12. Elementary school children who are taking instrument lessons, usually don't last that long for the most part. Maybe they become uninterested in the instrument, or thought it to be too challenging for them. Or maybe their parents wanted them to take lessons and they didn't really want to. Middle school students are at an age where their surrounded by so much stimulus and aren't sure what to do with it. Middle school students taking instrument lessons are usually distracted by a lot of outside sources and never really too focused solely on their music.

High school students taking music lessons are typically taking music lessons because it's something they're passionate about. Music is something they want to pursue after high school, maybe even building a career off of it. That is why I would prefer to teach high school students because they are more task focused and prone to enjoy practicing and studying music. And preschoolers literally do not know anything about music yet, so whatever I teach them about music is exactly that. They are learning information about music that I taught them for the first time in their lives. Granted if I hadn't told them, they would probably learn it somewhere else, but if I can educate and inspire someone passing on my knowledge of music to them, that's why I want to be a teacher.
                                         

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Anthony Frascone