“You played only 4 measures, but let me stop you. In the second measure, you held the note C too long. That is how you read the music, I think, so thank you for sharing your idea. It is good that you showed me how you thought. It is a wonderful attitude. However, it is not the correct way of reading and playing it.
When we read the music, we have to pay attention to all the information, which appears even before the notes. We first see the treble clef, which tells us we can play it on the violin. Next, we see the key signature. In this case it’s 4 sharps, E Major, and then we see the time signature, which is Common time (=4/4), in this case. Then, finally we see the notes.
You need to see all that before you start playing. In the first measure, all the 16th notes are written out. If you write in the beats, it is like this:
Now, let’s take a look at the second measure, which you had difficulty understanding. The last four sixteenth notes are written out. Then how do you write in the rest of the beats in this measure? “
“I can put the last beat, but I’m not sure for the rest of the beats … ???”
“Yes. You put the last beat correctly. Other beats are like this:
Do you see the dotted half note has a flag of the 16th note? This actually means that you play 16th notes for the length of the dotted half note, which is 3 beats. If you write out all the 16th notes, the second measure looks like this:
I’m sure you now realize the same idea applies to other measures and you play 16th notes almost constantly throughout the piece.
This etude is not only for training to move the fingers fast and precisely, but also for the bow control, for long slurs, as well as the intonation. I recommend to learn the notes thinking of intonation, and get the idea of how it goes first, and then you can practice as 16th notes; controlling your fingers to move your fingers fast and precisely, Very often, at this level, students already can move their fingers comfortably and fast, so I’m sure you do not have to worry about this aspect too much.
To practice the intonation, you can play only the circled notes as marked below:
This way, you can quickly get the idea of the whole etude. After that, you practice playing as sixteenth notes, and finally raise the tempo so that you can play the notes evenly at any tempo with ease. If you can, it’s also good to pay attention to dynamics, of course.
However, it’s also important to learn other etudes, too. We do not need to spend too much time on this particular one. Let’s see how you can learn it
You are a junior high school student. I know you have to go to school, do your homework. You may have other activities, as well. You have to eat, take a bath, and sleep. I know you cannot devote all of your time to practicing the violin. 🙂 We have to think about efficiency, too.
Also, as I mentioned before, we work on etudes, because we can develop our violin technique and musicality in order to play great works. There are so many other etude books waiting for you. This is a part of “Elementary and Progressive Studies.” As it is titled, this is still at an “elementary” level. We have to think about our long journey and do not want to be stuck in a small hall.
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