Singing is Practice

It is easy to put practice in a box. Practice is playing your piece over and over right? But practice involves so much more than that. Today we are going to talk about one practice strategy in our toolbox- singing. As strings players, one of our biggest sticking points is intonation. We want to hit each pitch on pitch every time.

Photo by Felix Koutchinski on Unsplash

While the placement of your fingers, the tuning of your instrument, your muscle memory, your spatial awareness and understanding of the fingerboard all aid in this, singing is a secret weapon that allows you to nail your intonation internally, helping to use all the tools at your disposal to nail it externally too. So how can singing help? Often when I am practicing, I will listen to my piece ahead of practice, so the rhythm and pitch are familiar to me. I think many of my neighbors have heard just about all of Bach's works for violin while I'm walking my dog. While I am practicing, if I am feeling like the pitch isn't right, I will sing, play, sing, play. this helps me to find the pitch internally so I can find it externally. One way to get used to this practice is to try this with scales and arpeggios first. This can help younger players who are learning new scales or practicing sight reading. Sing the scale while tracking each note with your finger, listening to the pitches as you follow them on the page. Do the same with your arpeggios. Remember always that practice is not only repetition and that exercises like this can help expand your awareness of your instrument, and your connection with the music!