For Students

There are a number of ways to use this page:

If you want to listen to a song, find its title and click on the arrow on the left of the bar (adult students may need to scroll down a bit to find your repertoire!). It can be very helpful to have your sheet music in front of you as you listen before you try to play the song.
If you want to try to play along, make sure you have tuned your violin to a digital tuner first (A440). Most of the sound clips have a count in to give you time to get ready. If you need more time, have someone put the track on “pause” until you are ready.
The titles in red are pdf versions of the audio clip.
If you want to write your OWN SONG, here are 3 different types of staff paper you can download and print to use:

Music staff (large) treble clef Music staff (landsc.)treble clef Music staff (small)

For those who need to “decode” what finger on what string:

For beginning violinists: Violin Fingering Chart

NEW! for beginning cellists: Cello Fingering chart

1st finger exercise (good for violin players at ANY level!)

Be sure to “buckle your knuckle” (index finger base joint) at the nut, and set your thumb opposite the 1st finger. Your middle knuckle should look flat like a “table” on the E string. The finger should lean slightly in toward the lower strings.

Play 0-1-0-1 on each string, then 1-0-1-0:

Allegro(“Popcorn”) – open string version

Twinkle_open string version

Twinkle Twinkle Little Star “Theme”