Four Fingers = One Pattern – Quick Practice Tip

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Hi there, I’m Dr. David Wallace, with myTalentForge.com’s Quick Tip of the Week!

Today’s Quick Tip is to think in terms of 4 finger patterns.

So, when I’m playing, I don’t think note to note, I don’t think in terms of half-step, whole-step, half-step, whole-step, whole-step, whole-step, or things like that… But I think in terms of tetrachords- 4 note shapes.

So, for instance, I think of this shape, etc. …

Whatever it is, I’m thinking about 4 fingers being one shape. And that makes it easier!

Because then 4 is suddenly simplified into 1, and it makes things think faster.

Now, here’s the other magical thing about this- you will start to find that each shape has a sound like this chromatic shape of all half-steps… That’s obviously what you use for the chromatic scale.

So if we have all whole-steps […] that makes a whole-tone scale. And I think of that as a whole-tone pattern.

This one […], if I take it on another string, gives me a major scale. So instead of thinking whole-step, whole-step, half-step, I think major.

Each of the primary patterns makes a different scale and if you learn those patterns, and think in those patterns, then suddenly your knowledge of the finger board increases; all keys become equal. You start to become much more fluent in all positions, in all keys.

And if you’re really interested in exploring this, check out the One Octave Modal Scales on myTalentForge.com, and we’ll practice these so that in about 15 minutes, or so, of practice, you’re able to set your intonation for the day from half-position all the way to 7th position, using the most common finger patterns and finger shapes.

So think in terms of those shapes!