To better understand how sharps and flats affect where we put our fingers, we have to know that there's something called positions. And in this course we're only going to ever worry about the first position. There's first position, second position, third position and so on. But it really means my fingers are staying right about here and not moving up the neck in any way. Now your fingers are going to cover a certain amount of area on the violin fretboard and we've talked about this little nut thing a bunch of times and This box represents your nut and you teen nut. Now, these lines that are coming down represent your strings.

So this is the East string or the first string, here's a string or the second string. Here's the the D string or the third string and the G string or the fourth string. Now your index finger or your pointer finger is going to be in charge of these first two steps. And what that means for us on our violin is everything that we've played for our index finger or one has been about an inch away. We also have the opportunity to play a low one and a low one is halfway the distance in between the nut and where a regular one would go. So it goes Write about they're halfway in between the distance.

So I'm going to call this a low one. Now, this is a reg You are one, write regular one. And that's giving us some understanding, at least of a terminology to use. If I'm using a low water or one, if this is a regular f note or F sharp or whatever it might be, so that it gives us somewhere to be able to get to when we're reading music. Now, this covers the ones, the ones now I have. I'm going to use lines here for my low, two and my high Hi.

Now, the difference between my low two and my high two is, if I had a regular one, my low two would be really close to my one. And my high two would be about an inch away. So low to a high to a low to a high to a low to a high team. So that's the difference between my low two and my high do. And you can see that there's four different versions of what we've played for low on regular one, low two and a high two. And they're all what we call half steps away.

So if you took a keyboard, and you went from white key to white key if there wasn't a black key in the middle, I mean it only be a half step away. And all of these notes that I have written on the bottom are a half step away to and we're going to talk touch on this in just a little bit. The next thing that I'm going to have is a, what I call a regular three and I'm going to adopt that. So it's a regular three. And then I'm going to have another dot, which is going to be Bye. Hi high three.

So the difference between what we've done so far is we've always played with regular three. So I have my regular one, which is about an inch away from our not my high two, which is about an inch away from my index finger. And my three was always real close to where my high two would be. A high three simply means instead of being a half step away from where my two is, or close, it's going to be about that enjoy just like the rest of my fingers. So now I'm going to have a high three and this is where this little dotted line is indicated. And that's all we're going to cover, we're not going to cover fourth fingers in this particular course.

But what I want to get across is using your chromatic scale, understanding the names of your strings. And if we have a good understanding what our chromatic scale is, we can figure out where these notes are on our fingerboard. And when we're reading music, if, if we're come across something that we're not really sure where it is, we can always use our chromatic scale to fall back on to figure out where that note is supposed to be. Now, our chromatic scale falls into half steps, so they're all real close to each other. And so instead of dough rain me as Dory, right, so you have these two little half steps All steps. So it's broken up into parts.

Now, in these, I'll say that there's going to be three rules to help memorize your chromatic scale. And the chromatic scale is something that is, looks kind of garbled because we have a flat, A, B flat, B, C, C sharp, D flat, E, F, F sharp and G and it looks overwhelming to the beginner who sees this for the first time, but we're going to break it up into parts that help that makes sense to us, especially if you take it into these rules. So the first rule is, I'm going to underline rule one. And rule one existed and there was only one rule. You will read this. A flat A, B flat, B, C flat, C, D flat D. D flat, B flat F, G flat G, but it doesn't.

So the rule looks like this. Rule one is flat, followed by a regular note or its natural. This funny looking square with two sides on it is a natural. And to even understand it a little bit more, every single note, whether it's A or B, or C or D has its own sharp has its own natural and hands on flat. So even though I'm calling these notes, a flat a, and then B flat, I could just as easily call this a flat, a, a sharp, but this is kind of a common way to be able to say these these notes So that you can memorize them in an easy way. Now, as long as you know your chromatic scale at the end, and you're used to saying E flat instead of D sharp you'll be able to say okay, well D was first that I was E flat, and I could say it's D sharp.

But in any case, that's for another lesson at another time. Just realize that the notes in rule one, row one is flat, followed by a natural and unnatural. Notice that I'm not writing a natural or the the weird looking box thing. When an when a letter or a note is by itself and doesn't have a sharp near is considered to be natural. So it doesn't have to have the mark that indicates that it is natural. Okay, so with that in mind, flat, natural, flat, natural, flat natural, and that is rule one a flat followed by it's natural.

So again, if that was the rule, it would be a flat A, B flat, B, flat, C, D flat, D and so on all the way through the scale. But the Rule number two, number two is that there are exceptions to rule number one. And I'm going to circle these exceptions so that you can see them clearly. So the exceptions to rule one is C sharp, C and C sharp, F and F sharp. So C and C sharp, and F and F sharp are my exceptions. Okay, so now that I have exceptions, I have a flat A B flat B.

But I have my exceptions C and C sharp, and F sharp. So once we take in our brain and and realize that I have rule one, which is a pattern, and then I have a new pattern for the exceptions, I have to memorize these C and C sharp, F and F sharp. And as long as I memorize them, as soon as I get, get to C, I can remember that they're an exception. So now becomes a flat, a B flat. There you go. One, exception, C and C sharp.

Rule three states that after every exception is a note. That stands by itself, and I'm going to just draw a box around D and G. So After every circled bit, is the box. After every exception is a note that stands by itself so it doesn't have its own flat or sharp is just natural by itself. Again, remember that if I went one half step to the right, I could just easily call it E flat, D sharp, and I could just as easily go backwards one, I could just as easily call C sharp, D flat. But because we're using these, these terminologies are the simplistic way to learn chromatic scale. We're using these specific notes because they follow this these rules One, two and three, your your flat to a natural, your exceptions and then the note that stands alone after the exception.

So when we go to try to memorize our chromatic scale, we're going to say a flat A, B flat B. Our exceptions are C and C sharp, f an F sharp. After every exception, the circled parts is a note that stands alone. So when we say the next letter in the alphabet, and simply D, or simply G. So if I said the whole chromatic scale in a row, it would be a flat A, B flat, B, C, C sharp, D, E flat, E, F, F sharp and G. So I broke it up into its parts, again is rule one, a flat A, B flat B. The circle part is the exception. So now my exception is C and C sharp.

After the exception is the note that sits by itself, so it's just me. Once I get done with my exception, I go back to rule one again. D flat, E, A flat, A, B flat, B flat D, see how they're the same rule a flat A and B flat, D is a is the flat, followed by a natural. Once we're done with our rule one, we get back into the exception again, F and F sharp, after the exception is a note that sits by itself from S and G. And I know that's a lot to take in right now. So if you have if that Whoa, like my brain is going a little bit weird now, because I'm not accepting all that data, just stop. rewind the tape.

Listen to it a couple more times. See if you can write out your chromatic scale. And I'm writing it out maybe 20 times in a row goes a long ways to memorizing it. Okay, now that we have a chromatic scale and understanding what it is We have to be able to understand how using the chromatic scale can help us play our violin. So this is our G string. So and this is our Eastern so our first string, this is this line, a string, a string or a second string, third string or fourth string.

So it really looks like your violin, first string, second string, third string, fourth string. Now with that being said, my low one right here is my low oneness and the dot and is labeled low one. I have to find G and my chromatic scale. So I have found G, a flat, A, B flat, B, C, C sharp, E flat, E, F, F sharp and G. What comes after G and my chromatic scale, it starts over again with a flat Hey. So I can also just go right back to here again. So, after g which is G here, the very next note or my half my my low one, but I know what a low one is as now a lap.

Okay, does that make sense? Now, now that I know that this is a flat, what is my next note in the scale upwards I've done a flat. And now the next note in my scale is now a or a natural so I'm just gonna write a in there. So I know I know what the low one and the regular one is on the G string. Now I moved to my low to, I've just done a flat and a. So my low two is now B flat.

And now what comes Next after it so I have V flat and then I have B. So it's really just the first rule of my chromatic scale a flat A B flat D. After my first rule comes my first exception I have gotten done playing my low to a my high too. Now I'm on my regular three. So my third finger and let's just go over this on the violin. So we get the best idea. My low one is my regular one, but halfway in between the distance of my, my nut and my index finger.

So that is a flat, a flat. If I move my finger up to a regular one, I'm now playing a note. Now I have a low two which means my first fingers close to my nice second thing close to my first finger. Now I have a B flat, D flat, and then I move up one half step to a high two, and I have a B note. So that's what we've covered so far. The next part that we're going to do is we're going to use our third finger.

So typically what we've learned is we know where one is, our high two is and a three. So this regular three, or the three that I just mentioned, is what we're going for. And that's begins my first exception. See, and then the C sharp, or a high three exceptions, three and high three. So I have my regular one, my high two and my three. The difference between a C note C and A C sharp is simply the distance between my height And three being a C. And then the high three being or reach to being about the same distance between my one MIT MIT my three.

So now this becomes a high three C sharp. So now if we're ever reading music, and we need to be able to know where a C sharp is or a flat or a B flat, we now can say, by using this chart or writing out your own chart, I can get there by beat and I can get to a B flat by playing a low two or a high three for a C sharp. Let's continue this out. We have a D note. That is our third string 123 third string Dean. So if d is the name of my open string My chromatic scale says a low one is going to be the next note up in my chromatic scale.

So that happens to be NP flat. So II flat is going to be my low one. After that I have an E. I regular one will be my low too because I just got done playing he will be my first part of my exception F. After f comes F sharp is my high too. So now what I'm at my high two for the D strength. And now my regular three has gone to be a G note. After G. I could call it a G sharp but in my chromatic scale that we're learning is called an A flat, a flat So I hope this is starting to make sense.

And if it's not making sense that means you're moving through the course too quickly back up, listen to it again a couple times, you'll definitely catch on. But what I'm going to do is I'm going to write out the rest of these chromatic notes. So, we start with a, a, where do I find a? A is actually my second note in my chromatic scale, a is my open second string, the second string what comes after a my chromatic scale B flat. Then I have seen excuse me, I have B in my next one, so I have, I'll change that to B. So we have a B flat B, A, B, flat B.

After beam becomes our exceptions see after our exception and C sharp after our exception as a note that sits by itself, which is D or our regular three, and then we have E flat four hi three, E flat. All right, now we have E flat. The next note that that we were going to work with is our open E string. So we're just going to find the, we found E. After he becomes our low one, which is the beginning of our exception, and our regular one is after f what comes next F sharp. F sharp. After F sharp is what g after GE I can continue on or just go back to the beginning again, and I have a Flat, then a for my regular three, and then my high three is going to be B flat.

Again at any time, I can choose to call the next note that comes higher as a sharp, a flat, one step lower. But in this particular case, we're trying to memorize our chromatic scale and utilize it to help us find the notes on our violin when it comes to reading music, and, and take some time, really, and when you're going through your scale, it'll look like this. And we don't have to play any notes. But if you go with your open, maybe open or give you a signification that we're starting with an open, open fourth string, I'm going to go like this G Put my first finger on a low one, a flat than the regular one, A, B flat, B, C, C sharp. And all I did is I went from low one to regular one to low to the high, high to regular three than the high three.

And I just said them out loud, it's important to be able to say them out loud, so that you can start to memorize them. And do the same thing with D here. So starting with the D note the third string, we're going to go D, E flat, low on E, regular one, low two F, high to F sharp, regular three G, high three, a flat or G sharp. And see see how that works. So you just go string by string, and then you say out loud the note as you played them to help you memorize them. That'll do it for this lesson and we'll see you in the next one.