Violin Notes

The violin is the high voice of the bowed strings and the most numerous instrument in the orchestra. Its notes have a peculiarity that almost no other instrument shares: they are not marked anywhere. There are no keys as on the piano, no frets as on the guitar and no keys as on the flute: there are four strings and an ear. On this page you will find its notes, how it is tuned and where each note falls in first position.

The four strings: G, D, A, E

A violin has four strings, and these four "open" notes (not pressed by any finger) are the basis of everything else:

Notice the distance between them: from G to D, from D to A, from A to E, always a perfect 5th. The violin is tuned in 5ths, which sets it apart from the guitar, which is tuned mostly in 4ths. The practical consequence is large: with four strings a 5th apart, the violin covers a very wide range without needing more strings, at the price that the hand has to stretch more between notes.

And one detail goes beyond the instrument: the second string, A4 at 440 Hz, is the note the whole orchestra tunes to. When the oboe gives the "A" before a concert, everyone compares it with this string.

That is also how the violin is tuned: you start from A4 and set the other strings in perfect 5ths, comparing two neighboring strings at once (A-D, A-E, D-G) until they sound clean, with no beating. If you have no oboe or tuning fork, a chromatic tuner gives you each string.

Why the violin has no frets

This is the difference. On a guitar the fret decides the note for you: you press between two frets and an exact C comes out however your finger lands. On the violin nothing gives it to you: the note is the exact point where your finger shortens the string, and a millimeter too much or too little is out of tune.

Put another way, on the violin the note is not found, it is built by ear. That is why the instrument is so hard at first, and also what gives it its superpowers:

• Vibrato: the finger oscillates on the string and the note "breathes". With fixed frets it would not work the same way.
• Expressive intonation: a violinist can raise a leading tone slightly so that it "pulls" toward the tonic. A piano cannot.
• Glissando and portamento: sliding between two notes with no steps.

That is why beginners get stickers on the neck: a temporary crutch so that the finger memorizes the distance, not frets. They come off as soon as the ear takes over.

First position: the notes that come without moving the hand

The left hand does not stay in one place: it travels along the neck in positions. First position is the starting one and covers almost all of the beginner repertoire: the hand sits next to the nut and, with the four fingers, each string gives five notes (the open string plus four).

The natural pattern, the one the stickers mark, is this, and what matters is the gaps: between the 2nd and 3rd fingers there is a half step (UK: semitone; the fingers touch), and between the others a whole step (UK: tone; they spread apart).

This pattern is not a law: by moving the fingers you get whatever sharps and flats are missing (a "low" 2nd finger gives F♮ on the D string, a "low" 1st finger gives B♭ on the A string…). And to go higher you change position: in 3rd position the hand moves up the neck and the 1st finger takes the place where the 3rd finger was before.

How many positions are there? In practice players use up to about seven, and higher ones exist. You do not need to master them to start (you can play a great deal in first position), but it is good to know they exist:

Try it: the violin diagram

Pick a note and the diagram shows on the violin where to press the string and at what point along its length, with its sound and its place on the staff. It runs from each open string up to its octave (more than two octaves in all, from G3 to E6), with every sharp and flat, and you can hear the notes bowed or pizzicato. Because the violin has no frets, one note lives in several places: the diagram lights up all of them, and the player chooses. To tune, use the violin tuner.

The same note in several places

The D4 can be played with the 4th finger on the G string or with the open D string. The same goes for A4 and E5. They are the same note, the same pitch, and yet they do not sound the same:

• Open, the string vibrates freely: brighter and more powerful, but it allows no vibrato and "sings" differently from its neighbors.
• Stopped (with a finger), it sounds warmer and more even with the neighboring notes, and it allows vibrato.

So choosing where to play a note is not a whim: it is a musical decision. In a cantabile passage a violinist often avoids open strings so as not to break the color; in a brilliant passage, or to sound a chord, they look for them. This idea simply does not exist on the piano, where every note has one key and only one.

Bow, pizzicato, double stops and harmonics

The normal way to play the violin is with the bow (arco), drawing it across the string for a sustained, singing sound. But it is not the only way:

• Pizzicato: instead of bowing, the string is plucked with a finger. The sound is short and percussive.
• Double stops: the bridge is curved, but the bow can play two strings at once, sounding two notes together. With three or four strings, chords are played, almost always "broken" (quickly, from low to high), because all four strings cannot be held at once.
• Harmonics: lightly touching the string at certain points (instead of pressing it down) gives very high, flute-like sounds. They are the harmonics of the series: natural ones (on an open string) and artificial ones (pressing with one finger and touching with another).

The violin in the orchestra and its family

The violin is the most numerous instrument of the orchestra: it is divided into first and second violins, two sections with different roles (the firsts usually carry the melody; the seconds, the harmony and countermelody). At the head is the concertmaster (UK: leader), the first desk of the first violins, who is the second musical authority after the conductor.

And it is not alone: the bowed strings are a very consistent family, because the viola and the cello are also tuned in 5ths (C-G-D-A for both, with the cello an octave lower than the viola). The odd one out is the double bass, which is tuned in 4ths, because its size would make stretching a 5th impossible.

Common mistakes when learning violin notes

• Believing the stickers are frets. They are a temporary reference. The violin has no frets and the final note is always decided by the ear.
• Thinking each note is in only one place. D4, A4 and E5 are in two places each, and they give a different color.
• Looking for "the fingering" of the violin as if it were a wind instrument. There is no closed fingering chart: there are positions, and each passage asks for one.
• Forgetting that the natural pattern is not fixed. The fingers move up and down to give sharps and flats; the 2nd finger in particular lives "high" or "low" depending on the key.

Summary

• The violin has four strings, G3, D4, A4 and E5, tuned in perfect 5ths. A4 (440 Hz) tunes the orchestra.
• It has no frets: the note is not found, it is built by ear. Hence vibrato and expressive intonation.
• In first position each string gives five notes (open + 4 fingers), with a half step between the 2nd and 3rd fingers.
• The same note can be in two places and they do not sound the same: open is brighter; with a finger, warmer.
• It does not transpose and is read in treble clef.