5 Rules for Practicing Double Stops

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One of the most charming aspects of violin playing is double stops, or playing two strings at the same time. Yet, it is also one of the most challenging as well. However, if you approach your violin practicing correctly, double stops won't be as difficult as you previously thought.

[@carindaamy6300]

I am an adult learner who is mostly self-taught. I didn’t know we were “allowed” to use different parts of the fingertips. You just made my life so much easier! Thank you!

[@peterzabriskie8624]

I have been attempting this instrument for about 11 years. Lately, I have been trying to return to the basics in order to eliminate ingrained bad, previously formed, habits. This lesson has been right on point, for me, and one of the best I've seen on You tube(or anywhere else). I expect to be returning to review it regularly as it really does a great job of emphasizing the value of the “basics”. Thank you for posting it.

[@williamnichols6253]

It feels like every day I get a mile further down the road towards proficiency, but I also find out the road is two miles longer than I thought.

[@MurphyMusicAcademy]

Yes, this feeling will continue for a very long time😅

[@jordanlosper5761]

y'all don't understand how much I missed these videos

[@MurphyMusicAcademy]

While I'm sorry you had to miss them, it does warm my heart to hear you say that

[@DaisyVernice]

Excellent video! The tendency for beginners is definitely to squeeze and press harder. These tips are very helpful!

[@alexkuamoo3874]

Thank you!

[@JamesSmith-ij8nj]

Excellent.. Now to put it in practice...

[@hala8111]

You make everything more simple to understand, i love you’re channel ❤️

[@vivalamusica2576]

...this Is amazing!!! Thank you 😄

[@SF-ru3lp]

I needed the instructions for looseness on the octaves. Thank you, Tobiah! G Ire

[@gianfranco5036]

Finally another video!! Thanks for so much

[@MurphyMusicAcademy]

Yes! I took quite the break over Christmas and New Year. Glad to be back

[@momoma533]

Already gets a like in the first half minute. I will wach the rest later. ;)

[@MurphyMusicAcademy]

Glad to hear from you! Hope all is well!

[@momoma533]

Hope the same for you! :) I got a bunch of double stops exersices. So this may be interesting :D Have a nice day :)

[@Roland_Geyer]

Thank you very much for your valuable advice regarding a casual, relaxed and liberated posture while playing the violin. In the meantime, I have freed my violin and myself from every constricting part between my body and the violin, especially from the coercive measures concerning shoulders and chin, correct my posture while playing and move to the beat while dancing while I am looking for beautiful tones. and once again I would like to explicitly point out that your videos inspired me to do so! 👍

[@shipsahoy1793]

😎Thanks for this!👍👨🏻

[@augustinechinnappanmuthria7042]

Fantastic tutorial of double notes Augustine violinist from Malaysia

[@RobertShulerMusic]

The reason beginners press harder when playing double stops has nothing to do with there being two strings. It makes it more likely to contact both strings if the bow angle is not perfect. The bow angle is never perfect, even with professionals. Playing on the edge of the bow hair is also a way of doing this. The hair will have a lot more "give" from the edge. Another trick is to play closer to the fingerboard than the bridge, where the strings give more. Beginners won't get anywhere unless they use one or more of these tricks. When they get used to playing double stops, maybe they can drop them. Think of them as training wheels. No one is going to learn something if they have to fail at it continuously for a year of practice. Young people can memorize a piece and look at the strings while playing. But generally old people can't see the strings near the bridge, or see double.

[@TymurMelnyk]

Welcome back

[@MurphyMusicAcademy]

Glad to be back!

[@user-of5bk8lz6b]

want more videos! plz!!!

[@MurphyMusicAcademy]

Hoping to be more regular going forward!

[@grantwolfe3323]

Maybe you have already done a video on it, but I'm curious to know how do you usually teach scales? Do you prefer more of a Galamian or Flesch system, or something else?

[@MurphyMusicAcademy]

I do a hybrid. I grew up with Flesch, and I still use the arpeggio system and his fingerings for scales, however, that book is a bit overwritten, IMO. No one has the time to really effectively practice everything he wrote, so I use it more as a reference book. As for the formatting of scales, I like Galamian's notes-per-bow approach, where you start with one note per bow (using a full bow), and then two, and then three, then four, and so on. The goal here is that the motion and speed of the bow remains roughly the same no matter how fast your fingers are moving. I find it a very effective approach for helping to mentally separate the two hemispheres, as too often what happens in the right hand influences the left, and vice versa. Then, I introduce 3rds and then octaves. For 3rds I give the student my own fingerings, and work with them on how to understand how thirds work so they can make their own decisions about fingerings as they develop.

[@clashwithbau2467]

Question since D string and A string doesn't have ledger lines how can you tell when to play on 2nd 3nd and 4th positions?

[@JohanJohnJohnson]

I feel like the angles of the bow need to be adjusted as you play in higher positions cuz the height of the strings change a bit.

[@TheChickwithguns]

Will you do a video on triple stops? I’m working Seitz concerto no. 2, and while the double stops aren’t a big issue, the triple stops are getting me. I am trying to do the two and two rather than breaking the chord, which some say is okay and some say is not. My teacher prefers two and two. My chords always break, though. The top note always breaks. It did in Bach’s Bourree, and it’s doing it now. When I try to do two and two, that middle string either sounds horrible or the top note comes off the chord.

[@MurphyMusicAcademy]

Is that the 3rd one in the Suzuki books? If I remember correctly, that is mostly just double-stops. For the few 3-note chords, we would do "2-and-2" as you put it, though that is what we called breaking. I think what you're referring to as "breaking" is what I call "rolling," where you roll the bow quickly over each note of the chord, but really aren't playing any of the strings together. For someone of your level, I wouldn't ever bother with triple-stops. I just rarely find a student at that level whose bow technique is developed enough to execute it properly, and the time it would take to teach would be better spent on other things. None of the pieces you mentioned really sound bad with broken or rolled chords, and something like the Bach Bourree would be ruined by a triple stop (which is not a baroque technique by any means), imo. All this being said, a KZbin short on triple stops would be a good idea, so thank you for the suggestion. Even if you aren't ready for triple stops, you'd probably enjoy watching the video in any case. Hope this helps!

[@TheChickwithguns]

@@MurphyMusicAcademy The Seitz concerto is the first one in book 4. Not to cop out, but I kind of agree with you that I just don’t have the technique for two and two. Double stops were utterly neglected by my teachers until now, and when I was reading the introduction to a double stop book by Whistler that I have, he advocated for second year students to learn them…well, here I am approaching my fifth year…better late than never, I suppose. It would be a load off letting that top note be alone for now. I have plenty of other things to work on. It seems that there is an utter lack of consensus regarding what skills should be taught at what level, which never ceases to bug me. I’m not Suzuki’s biggest fan, but I spent four years doing method books because, well, that’s what I did for piano when I was a kid/teenager, and my teachers all let me pick how to proceed (probably poor a choice to let the student guide the class…at least when I was teaching Latin and English, it was never up to my students what curriculum we used), so I like Suzuki for the repertoire, which I am now working hard to build. I never gained a repertoire in piano, and I hated it, so I refuse to let that happen in violin. What’s the point of being able to play Salsa Siesta and scales but nothing else? Book 3 in Suzuki was very inspiring to me. Book 4 is exciting, but since no one agrees on how to move through violin technique nor at what pace, I turn to KZbin for guidance. :). I will let the top note be by itself. It certainly will help me at least be able to get the piece under my fingers and keep me from stalling out pushing for something that I feel is a bit beyond me for the moment. PS: if there is a curriculum that is methodical and heavy on repertoire, I’d love suggestions. Suzuki can’t be the only one who thought it was a good idea to play real pieces…

[@alizekeriyakemanci6570]

Two string direction an bows motion on it. More difficult its not.

[@williamnichols6253]

I always press too hard on double stops, and I'm almost always playing double stops (bluegrass/rhythm fiddle) ...The tension just slowly builds in the small of my back until every part of my teqnique falls apart. ... But if I don't press, the high e will go flat, I don't know why. Not enough rosin? I use a lot. The strings are new and played in (tonicas). ...I'm definitely doing something wrong. Single strings I can relax my traps and let the bow work. Double stops I just can't seem it to get it right. I just can't get the strings to resound right unless I press, and if I press everything goes wrong before the end of the song.

[@williamnichols6253]

Just practiced open strings and open double stops for 20 min, I figured out what's wrong... ... On double stops the angle across the strings has to be perfect because the bow will lift off one string or the other if it's not. ...'pressing' is just a way of unconsciously increasing the margin for error on the angle, at the expense of a ton of tension among other undesirable things. ... So I just kept practicing with nothing but the weight of the bow, I even tilted my head to force my right trap to relax. ... It was working, and then I realized that thinking that hard about the one technical thing caused every other technical thing to get lazy and wrong (like my left hand). ... Violin is hard.

[@AC5SH]

:)

[@consumer614]

In high positions you play out of tune, do you realise, teacher?

[@zacharylahlou9943]

Too much talk and little instruction. Be brief and precise. An A on the bla-bla-bla. What you say in 10 minutes can be done in one