Finger patterns as they appear in early book 1 Suzuki violin repertoire -a post for teachers

Which songs go from “E to 3 on the A”? Ask the student in early book 1 to think this over, and/or play the pieces and figure it out.

_Twinkle Twinkle Little Star_, _Song of the Wind_, _Go Tell Aunt Rhody_, and _O Come Little Children_ are similar in that they go from the open E string to 3rd finger on the A string.

HOWEVER, _Lightly Row_ goes from the open E string to 2nd finger on the A string. This can cause some confusion.

I have found it helpful to point this out and to drill “EE, 33 on the A, 22, 11” on repeat with one of the _Twinkle Variation_ rhythms as soon as we depart _Lightly Row_.

For many children this is very tricky since in _Twinkle_ this finger pattern shows up both as “EE, 33 on the A, 22, 11” (what we covered above) and ALSO as “EE, 33 on the A, 22, 11, 0” (which concludes the phrase on the open A string).