The Art of Mastering Violin Scales | The Scale Matrix Method

[@poulerikkristensen5214]

I have now been playing the the violin for 20 years, and had a teacher who never introduced me to scales. Just playing folkmusic by ear and by notes. I have learned a lot of pieces. Polka, wals, menuettes, Swedish Polska etc, but never played scales. I now have made a difficult change to classical music and now I really know, that I should have learned the scales.

[@HungViet-rz7kl]

Thanks for sharing your experience!

[@EpiphanySacredMusic]

This video makes my teacher heart happy in ways I can't begin to describe. THANK YOU for teaching teachers how to teach, and for teaching students how to practice. ❤🎻

[@srinitaaigaura]

Heifetz was always ready. I mean just the way he gets up and plays any part of any of the pieces he's teaching. And then there was Milstein who was once asked by Ysaye to play a Paganini Caprice, and he said, "Which one?".

[@devyysk]

which one is CRAZY

[@veronicagermain3599]

Brilliant, succinct, and amazingly helpful; a rare combination on KZbin! Thank you for this.

[@xxbstpagexx]

I really like this systematic approach to scale practice and the content in this channel in general. I am an aspiring amateur cellist and have been increasing my daily scale practice. This method can only help. Thank you.

[@priceviolinacademy]

Nice one Tobiah. 👊 I’m all for any system that makes truly assimilating all the scales fit into a practical routine.

[@KarlBonner1982]

Last year I sat in on a classical jam session at a local violin shop. (I was playing horn). I suggested that we play something in the Dorian mode, and one of the violinists groaned upon hearing that request. "OH NO, modes!" 😂

[@MurphyMusicAcademy]

Lol, modes are something we briefly learn about in freshman music theory and then never talk about again

[@mlsmusic11]

⁠@@MurphyMusicAcademyActually if you play/teach any folk music you play many tunes in modes and the standard key signatures confuse students!

[@KarlBonner1982]

@mlsmusic11 Exactly, even in school band I remember lots of tunes in minor keys with accidentals for the 6th degree. Thankfully I already had learned from a music theory tutorial that it was Dorian. So I grew up thinking of Dorian as that 4th minor scale nobody talks about for some reason...

[@DaisyVernice]

Great idea! What a fantastic system for practicing scales! I love the organization!

[@amandacollecutt2491]

Enjoyed this video. THANKS I m going to expand the time i spend on scales practice.

[@Ahmed-Tea]

First of all this is the most Heifetz/Tobiah/Me related video ever lol thanks for this vid. And although I practiced 1 hour of scales everyday well almost I thought I had scales figured out, my teacher gave me a new scale every 6 months! But now you say all 24 scales? am i supposed to play them all behing my teachers back?!

[@santiagobravo970]

Yes you are

[@MurphyMusicAcademy]

@@Ahmed-Tea it’s impossible for a teacher to get through everything you are supposed to practice, so yes, you should be working on more scales than what your teacher gives you, so long as you can still practice what you go over in lessons. As I said at the beginning of the video: there is just too much! So the student also has to take some initiative in what they practice

[@Ahmed-Tea]

@@MurphyMusicAcademy Yes I am in 6th grade in my music school and my hands are full with sheet music like in the video but my teacher never gave tenths or fingered octives and harmonics. Is 6th grade to early????

[@jackwarwar723]

It’d be helpful to see a video on how to practice the double stop scales effectively. Sometimes I’m unsure how to best break it down into manageable steps to practice.

[@buddythompson5284]

Thank you for this video. I'm a beginner and thought I should start practicing scales. This method should help me do so in a systematic way. I do have a quick question though. Late in the video, you state that once we get past 14 scales in our review "pile", we should start to work vertically in the matrix for reviews. Can you explain how that works? Let's say I'm now practicing the G-minor scale (using your matrix), and it's Monday and I have 3 scales to review. Which three would they be if I'm working vertically? Are they Db-maj, G-maj, and C-min ? And then on Tuesday are they F#-maj, C-Maj, and F-min?

[@oxoelfoxo]

love systems

[@Yevgeniy.546]

Tobiah I've been playing violin for 5 years and for the last 6 month i had left shoulder issue like bad. I have a long neck and longest shoulder rest is still not enough so i have to lean my head to the violin not the shoulder like you said. But my shoulder is raising and tensing up really bad and with no luck of success over the last 6 months. and although I try to practice alot my shoulder middle deltoid lateral head and yes I workout Hurts really bad 🤔 Can you help me / any advice !

[@marco27557]

I am also an amateur player, but I can give you a few tips based on my experience: 1. Find the right CHIN-rest. For me this was crucial: the violin has to touch the collarbone, and the chin rest should fill the gap between the top of the violin and your chin 2. Try at first with no shoulder rest, and if you have to use one, look at the position on how you would hold the violin without. This is related to the "mistake" I was doing of raising the shoulder rest. Since the violin has to touch the collarbone, raising it would just make it unstable, and make me raise the shoulder to compensate. But, if the chinrest is correct, this would not happen, so this is why that was tip number 1 There are some "fancy" chin-rest (~100$/EUR) which are adaptable: I think they're a good investment if you have a long neck. And then, you could decide how to use the shoulder rest. My 2 cents on this after a few months of struggle :) If there's someone more "professional" than me, happy to hear the comments :)

[@ur.kr.2814]

Would it be just as effective or more to play etudes in various keys? Or is there something about scales in particular

[@MurphyMusicAcademy]

I’d say mostly that’s only necessary with scales, but if you explore certain exercises like Sevcik you’ll find he recommends them to be practiced in all 12 key signatures.

[@ur.kr.2814]

@MurphyMusicAcademy yeah, so playing for example the Sevcik shifting book patterns in various keys. Isn't that basically playing scales. Mind you, I'm not trying to argue that I know better how to learn violin, I'm just not completely sure what's so magical about scales. is it basically just the most straightforward way to practice playing and internalising all the different keys and thereby all the different notes on the violin? So would I be wrong to rephrase your advice into: "consistently play in all different keys - easiest way to do that is with scales"

[@vincentstone7272]

Thank you!

[@audreyhepburn8633]

Is practicing scales different from practicing Schradieck? Thank you

[@MurphyMusicAcademy]

Schradieck is a specific set of dexterity exercises, while scales are a series of notes in a particular key moving either up or down in step-wise motion. So yes, very different, and you should practice both

[@ElsweyrDiego]

I'm an intermediate student and i'm using Barbara Barber's Scales for Young Violinists. it covers everything you said to practise, but in 2 octaves. After finish it i can jump straight to flesch scale system?

[@MurphyMusicAcademy]

@@ElsweyrDiego does Barber not have more advanced scales as well? I think jumping into Flesch straight from 2 octave scales is a bit too much, assuming you’re practicing more than the 3 octave scales and arpeggios.

[@ElsweyrDiego]

@@MurphyMusicAcademy oh i thought i could choose between the barber advanced book or flesch. so it's better to go that one before and only then flesch? is flesch this extremely advanced? 😅

[@MurphyMusicAcademy]

@@ElsweyrDiego the advanced Barber scales are MUCH less extreme than the scales in the Flesch book. Have you actually looked at both books to compare?

[@jesslinho8848]

@@MurphyMusicAcademyWhen’s a good time to start using the Flesch book? At what level proficiency or what should the violinist be able to do before starting the book?

[@MurphyMusicAcademy]

@@jesslinho8848 Once you have a solid grasp of all basic 3 octave scales and arpeggios, as well as all 2 octave double stops (3rds, 6ths, octaves, fingered, tenths) then I would start slowly breaking into Flesch. By all means, buy the Flesch book and look at it. You'll understand why I would recommend not jumping straight into it. He takes every double stop scale in a VERY convoluted path. His idea with the scale book was more for professional, or close to professional violinists to readily keep up their skills, rather than for students to learn scales

[@alexsaldarriaga8318]

Curious to hear what you think of the scale book by Elisabeta Gilels. Thank you! 🙏🏻🎻

[@MurphyMusicAcademy]

I’m not familiar with her book, no. But thank you for the suggestion!

[@alexsaldarriaga8318]

@ She was Leonid Kogan’s wife and a great violinist too! Her scale system was an essential element of the Soviet violin school.

[@amxriss]

Can this system also work for galamian?

[@MurphyMusicAcademy]

As I stated at the end of the video, this is adaptable to any scale system or even an amalgamation of them

[@Ahmed-Tea]

J.heifets: NOW G SHARP MINOR IN FINGERED 3 OCTIVES!

[@MurphyMusicAcademy]

Haha, he did that with the tall female student, iirc

[@ASmyk-mo3ob]

Do you practice 4 octave scales sometimes?

[@MurphyMusicAcademy]

@@ASmyk-mo3ob yes

[@hamwhacker]

I had an online violin teacher for 6 months and we started with Carl Flesh C major. He said once I had mastered that one, then we would move on to a different key…we never moved on to a different key and I gave up having lessons. 😢

[@MurphyMusicAcademy]

@ this is not an entirely out of place way to teach. I do this myself, actually, where I make a student spend a lot of time on a single scale so they can learn HOW to practice scales before going through the matrix method. I can’t comment much on your situation, as I don’t know what you sounded like or why he’d not let you move on. For instance I have a student who’s really struggled with scales. We stayed on D-major forever before I finally told him we needed to take a step back and we did 1 octave scales for several months and rebuilt everything. Last week he finally played a 3-octave scale, 24 notes a bow, without crashing. I’m hoping to start him through the system soon. But everyone has a different timeline

[@hamwhacker]

@ Thank you. I think you are right!

[@juanjosekunert]

The scale played in 2:19 is Gb, not F.

[@MurphyMusicAcademy]

Be me Know that comments drive reach Purposefully play one scale a half-step higher because I also know people with perfect pitch won’t be able to resist commenting about it. Profit. Though to be fair this gambit isn’t working as well as I’d hoped. You’re the first person to actually take the bait

[@juanjosekunert]

@MurphyMusicAcademy Hi! Interesting. I didn't have any bad intention writing my comment. I'm from Argentina and really like your content. Thank you for helping me to partially solve my shaky bow recently!

[@MurphyMusicAcademy]

@@juanjosekunert Oh, I knew you didn't mean anything bad by it, but I did do that on purpose and was waiting to see if someone would catch it. Btw, I listened to your Praeludium and Allegro. Very nice playing! Keep up the good work!

[@juanjosekunert]

@@MurphyMusicAcademy Thank you!!

[@Fixing-my-life]

1:55 at half speed

[@curtpiazza1688]

Great idea! 😂

[@namansheth6112]

Unc played F# not F scale

[@RubsViolin]

Hahaha simply asking for a like suddenly increased the like to view ratio to 1:4, that is actually insane Also how do you even double harmonics? Like actually how

[@MurphyMusicAcademy]

@@RubsViolin told you! I’m usually below 10%, but now the like to view ratio is pushing 15%

[@RubsViolin]

​@@MurphyMusicAcademy Human psychology is an amazing thing

[@andrewzhang8512]

Double harmonics are very intination based but also importantly focused on bow techbnique too!

[@MurphyMusicAcademy]

@@andrewzhang8512 My double harmonics have improved greatly since I worked them into my regular scales. I still suck at them, though, which is why I didn't include them in my demonstrations 😅 What I will say, is that they take the upmost stability in the left hand.

[@MurphyMusicAcademy]

For double-harmonics, do you mean what is the fingering or how are they executed? the fingering is typically the combination of a 4th-based harmonic on top and a major 3rd-based harmonic on the bottom. How to execute that properly requires incredible patience and very steady hands. It's also the only double stop where I focus on the top note (the 4th harmonic) over the bottom note.

[@antyy69]

I have a question. double stops are so much harder to practice and it would definitely take more than an hour to practice all the scales like arppegios, thirds, sixths, octaves, fingered octaves, tenths..), so what do you suggest in terms of time management? Do i stop practicing scales when an hour has passed and just move on to my repertoire even though i haven't gotten my scales in tune?