"It's only a scale!" - My FingeringBoard Journey (02/12)
Channel: Bill Fitzpatrick's Videos
Date: 03/04/2023

So continuing with my fingering board journey, I was teaching at the Conservatory Maurice Ravel in Levallois Perret, as I said in the introduction. I think it was my third year at the conservatory when the director called me into his office and brought up the fact that many of my students in my studio were graduating.

Because of this, he told me that I needed to start teaching beginners to make up for those leaving. I said okay, but in my head I couldn't help but think that in fact I had never taught a beginner in my life. Because of that, this development was very, very intimidating.

Well, to prepare myself, I began to look back at what I did when I started the violin. But doing this made me realize how much I disliked some of the books I started with.

It's at this point that I started thinking about my Blair Academy theory class in Nashville, Tennessee, which was taught by a jazz pianist. I realized that in this class I learned scales through tetrachords. Unlike in the French conservatory system where 

I observed that scales were taught from the first degree to the second, or the first degree to the third, or the first degree to the fourth, etc. This realization gave me the idea for using my fingering board to visually show the tetrachords and their patterns within them, which are found in scales.

So to better understand how tetrachords work,.... 

Starting with the lower tetrachord between C and D, or the first and second degrees of the scale, there's a whole step. Between D and E, or the second and third degrees, there's a whole step. Between E and F, or the third and fourth degrees, there is a half step.

And now with the upper tetrachord between G and A, or the fifth and sixth degrees, there's a whole step. Between A and B, or the sixth and seventh degrees, there is a whole step. And finally between B and C, or the seventh and eighth degrees, there is a half step.

So these are the patterns used to make a major scale using tetrachords.Now let's transfer this information to my fingering board using an A major scale.

So when the lower tetrachord or on the A string between the first and second degrees, there is a whole step. Between the second and third degrees, there is a whole step. Between the third and fourth degrees, there is a half step. Remember, there's a whole step between the two tetrachords.

And in the upper tetrachord, or on the E string between the fifth and sixth degrees, there is a whole step. Between the sixth and seventh degrees, there is a whole step. Between the seventh and eighth degrees, there is a half step.

So through my fingering board, we now have a visual understanding of the distances involved in playing and A major scale on the violin. To bring this understanding into my lessons with young students, I would, during the first couple of months of teaching them, drill them to identify half steps and whole steps from the piano.

I didn't do this on the violin, as I didn't want them copying how I played, as students all know, I didn't want them copying how I played, as students always seem to find a way to copy what you don't do so well.

Anyways, I decided that by calling these intervals major or minor, or even half and whole steps, it would complicate things. So I decided to simply call them happy or sad. I know it's a bit silly, but I mean, these were five, six -year-olds. And anyways, as I remember, that was how it was taught to me early on.

Because of this interval training from the piano, they could hear where to put their fingers to produce a whole or a half step. And when they move their fingers higher up the strings, they more easily made the distance adjustments, as again, they heard the intervals clearly and reacted accordingly.

I had so much fun seeing the joy in these young students' eyes when I would show them that they could play a major scale from all over the place by starting on the lower of two strings with their first finger. I did, however, tell them to not tell anyone that it was a secret between us, as no one would believe that someone so young could do this.

It was from here that my journey of understanding why scales were so important began. My colleagues were right.

Okay, so a story. I remember back in the day at the Aspen Music Festival that Perlman asked my quartet to be the principals of a string orchestra to perform of all these four seasons with him playing and conducting.

We were rehearsing it at one point. There's a sort of a duet happening as he would play this passage and then I would play the same thing right after he did. His was beautiful, impeccable, and mine, well, let's say that it was just less than stellar. It was strange as I practiced every note inside out, left to right, right to left, upside down, but his was so much better.

Well, after having done this a few times, he waited till everyone was talking about something else and leaned over to me and said, so what's the matter, Billy? It's only a scale.