Playing String Instruments

Series Summary

Music is one of the primary forms of communication on Earth. Whether the use of tones and melodies developed before, after, or in conjunction with spoken language is unknown; yet music is unique in that it helps us to talk to each other in ways that language cannot achieve. It creates a connection between people that is not limited by time, distance, or relationship; a song can speak to anyone, anywhere. That’s why music continually changes and grows, is still loved and still proliferates. Music is a living language. In this free video series our expert composer and musician will teach you all about string instruments. From the violin to the viola and double bass, string instruments are an integral part of any orchestra and add a unique sound to a rock or jazz band. You will learn about string instruments playing styles, string instrument orchestral placements and different ways to play string instruments. You will also learn about the characteristics and history of violins, violas, cellos and the bass. If you are interested in string instruments let our expert show you everything you need to know about playing.

Video Transcript

"In this clip, we'll learn about how stringed instruments work. First of all, there are two ways to play, two main ways to play a stringed instrument. The first is, pizzicato, where the string is plucked. There are two ways to pluck the string also. Sometimes, the piece of music will ask for a little bit of your fingernail to be on it. It'll be more of an aggressive sound. You can hear your fingernail hitting the string. Or you might, most of the time, you just, you don't want any fingernail at all. The second way is to bow it, or arco, as it's called. And the bow would sound, it sounds like this. It's more of a sustained sound and with the right practice of staggered bowing as it's called in a string section, you can make a note sound like it goes on forever by having the player, each player, change their bows from, this is a down bow, where it goes down. And this is an up bow. And by having the players change at different times, it creates the effect that the note never, never stops. There's another, a couple of other ways to play each stringed instrument. One of them is called col legno, and that is where you flip the bow around and you actually hit the string with the wooden part of the bow and it gets more of an aggressive, woody kind of different sound. And it's, it's, a lot of string players don't like to do it, you know, in certain cases because bows can get very expensive and you're literally hitting the bow against the string. The second part of every stringed instrument is the tuning pegs. This affects how the instrument is tuned when it's all opened, no fingers down or anything. What the open strings sound like and where they are in pitch. And the cello, viola and violin all share the same types of tuning pegs, which are friction pegs. And the bass has a different kind with gears instead. And the friction pegs rely only on friction to keep the string from pulling the friction peg to a different note going down. So they rely on friction between the wood of the peg and the wood of the scroll and that, that's how the friction pegs work and the other have gears to just keep them in line."