This post is perfect for someone who just started their note reading journey and wants to recognize all basic notes and signs in violin music. In this post, I lay out the 5 steps you need to take to learn to read notes on the violin (it is not as hard as it seems!).

If you would like to learn more about reading notes on the violin, make sure to check out my post Violin Notes for Beginners. That is the reason the most famous scales book for violinists, “Carl Flesch’s Scale System” features exactly 24 scales. As we have 24 music keys, there are also 24 violin scales in total. Yes – for each music key there is one scale. Are Scales Associated with Key Signatures? This is also the reason why Bach wrote 24 Fuga’s and Preludes for piano – one for each of the key signatures.Īnother way to remember the flat key signatures is to remember only the first sentence and to reverse the words (“ Birds Eating Alleys Down Go Cats Fat”). That means that in total, there are 12 x 2 = 24 music keys. There are 12 notes in total – and each note has a major key signature and a relative minor. It would make the theory a LOT more complicated and most beginner-intermediate violin players will not benefit from this knowledge. To be absolutely transparent: there are a few exceptions to this rule, but as this rule works for 99% of violin pieces, I will not go into too much detail in this post. Is it a C? Usually, the piece is written in C Major. Is it an A? Usually, the piece will be written in A minor. Just look at the LAST note of the music piece. If you see a piece that has the key signature of C Major / A Minor – how do you know in which one of the keys the piece is written? So A Minor is the relative minor of C Major. The minor key signature with the same flats or sharps of the major key signature is called “the relative minor“. Why Does Each Key Signature Have Two Names?Įach key signature has two names – one “Major” name, and one “Minor” name.įor instance, the Key of C Major can also be called “The Key of A Minor”. If you get a little more advanced, you might also want to add the key signatures of E (4 sharps), E flat (3 flats) and A flat (4 flats). Key of C, F (1flat), B (2 flats) flat, G (1sharp), D (2 sharps), A (3 sharps) Some key signatures, such as the key of F sharp, B, G flat or C flat are rarely used on the violin and only in very advanced pieces.Īs a beginner violinist, you can play almost all pieces by only learning scales in the following keys:

Chart of music keys