Posted by Owain on

Edited on June 8th 2013: Please note that the Grade 4 scales have been corrected. The older version included D major rather than E major - a rather embarrassing and problematic error!

This follows the new ABRSM violin syllabus for 2012 onwards, including the new option for even notes rather than long tonics. I've included the fingerings I prefer to teach, such as starting two octave scales high on the G string in later grades, and three octave arpeggios shifting across the perfect fourths.

I'm undecided about whether I'll teach the new E natural minor scale at grade 1 with fourth fingers or not, and so this document shows open strings (in contradiction to what I put here!)

Unlike those previous diagrams, I've separated out the scale from the arpeggio, partly because some children don't seem to find it all that easy to follow the arpeggio if it's just indicated by a different shade, and also it allows the tonic notes to be indicated for the scales.

Please do take a good look at this, maybe try it out with some pupils and see what they think, and make any suggestions of things that do or don't work well.

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Comments

My 5 yr old son has whisked

My 5 yr old son has whisked through his exams & exam preparations with your scales & appegious diagrams through Grade3. I came to look for Grade 4 finger diagrams, but can't find any on your website. Is this something you can incorporate in your pdf document as well for Grades 1-5? Sincerest thanks in advance, Sophie

I'm pleased that the diagrams

I'm pleased that the diagrams have proved so useful!

To be honest, the main reason I've not included them beyond Grade 3 here is that I haven't ever found myself wanting to use them when teaching scales beyond that grade. However, I'll sort something out when I get the chance. A word of caution, though: there's numerous different fingerings which can be used for some scales, so it's possible that my suggestions would conflict with the preferences of your son's teacher.

I'm teaching myself the

I'm teaching myself the violin and have found this very useful. Do you know of any useful links or documents relating to help with technique/second positions etc. I am focusing on fiddle music in particular which has always felt a little more relaxed but I still am not 100% sure of going up past first position.

I've made diagrams for grade

I've made diagrams for grade 3 scales separately, available here.

Regarding Jessica's question about shifting and different positions: I don't know of any particular resources to recommend, although there's certainly plenty of videos on Youtube. My approach in teaching this is first of all getting familiar with playing in third position, such as the upper octave of a 2 octave D major scale (see the grade 3 diagrams linked to above), before attempting to shift between first and third positions. In these lower positions, the left hand shape remains the same, simply moving along the neck with the thumb as a reference point for the index finger. Moving up beyond third position becomes much more complicated!

Thank you so much for this,

Thank you so much for this, it is very useful. I tried to get in to the source file but didn't recognise the lytex file type. I've used lilypond a bit in the past, and latex too, so wanted to customise a bit for my daughter's grade five scales.
I had great fun with lilypond and another daughter doing trumpet scales colour coded for the fingerings. Lilypond is excellent for this sort of stuff.