Oh, one more thing. Ican`t believe I`ve missed this until now, my brain must be going down the tubes. Anyways, I`ve been playing for five years, not four. Just clearing that up. Okay, bye!

hahahah, you sound like me! It must be a viola thing, being spacey/forgetful. Anyhow, I`m in 9th grade, and there are tons of youth orchestras out here, since I live in the Philadelphia, PA area. I`m currently a member of the philadelphia young artists` orchestra. Anyhow, I guess I must be pretty lucky to have all these opportunities near me (although the commute to orchestra practice is about 1 hour)! You should do some research about music things in your area. Have you asked your orchestra director about other viola stuff you can do outside of school? Or maybe you could start a quartet with some people in your school orchestra class who are on your level of playing (hopefully there are some. . .yeah, it sounds like the music you`re playing isn`t the best, hehe ) It`s nice having a quartet in your school because it`s not hard to practice together. I love all of this viola conversation!

yes i know what you all mean by the balance and all.this is actually my first year playin the viola.and in my school orchestra i ve achieved to be better than all of our violinist who have played way longer than i have.and my techer tells me im better then them.but i feel im being held back by the pieces we play.my parts so simple and routine like.and the violins get all the glory with their lead melody.their parts are so much harder it must be fun.and it sounds so nice(when played right)but i think it would sound so much better on the viola.much much better.

Yeah, but I suppose you`re always gonna get that in an orchestra I suppose, because the teacher has to have a piece everyone can play because there are strong players and players who could use a tutor once or twice a week. I suppose if you really want to be challenged, that you get a tutor, so that the both of you can work one on one. But really, a lot of my musical ability comes from playing other instruments. I suggest, for example, if you play violin or viola, you can pick up the mandolin really fast, because it`s tuned in sevenths like a violin or viola is (for example, the first fret or space on the g string of both the mandolin and violin is lowered first position). Put simply, playing multiple instruments is inevitably going to increase your repitoire of musical pieces. I suggest trying it out. Please post too whether or not you play more than one instrument. Thank you everyone for your comments and please keep posting!

I thought violins, violas, cellos and basses were tuned in fifths, not sevenths. That confused me! And cookie person --it sounds like you need to do something more challenging! Do you take private lessons with a teacher outside of school? If not, you should look into teachers in your area! Private lessons are a great help, and you also get to play interesting solo pieces where you have the melody ALL the time (huh-imagine that!). It`s great!

Violas, violins, and cellos are all tuned in sevenths. Guitars, bass guitars (and uprights) are some instruments that are tuned in fifths. It is confusing, but really the most difficult part is the changing finger patterns.I have been looking for a private tutor, but no luck so far. Hopefully one day I`ll find a decent one and I`ll learn some good stuff from them. Thank you all for the advice and/or comments.

They are tuned in fifths! Guitars are in fourther (except G-B)

Liz

Fourther? I don`t know what that is.

maybe she meant fourths? I dunno. ..but i`m pretty sure the string family instruments are tuned in fifths because if you count the number of notes between each string, there are 5 (example: g, a, b, c, d).
Yah, so that`s my proof, i guess, . Do you live near any major city? I`m guessing not, since there aren`t any private teachers nearby. . .hmmm, that could be a problem, i`ve always lived in an area where there is lots of string/classical music around, since it`s near Philadelphia.

Well, I live in Macon, Ga. which is a fairly big city, I suppose. There is a great music program here, and a lot of tutors, but they overcharge lessons. The cheapest tutor so far is $40 per lesson! That`s robbery by any standard. The only quartets and special orchestras are for high school and up! Well, there was one I did in elementary, but that doesn`t do too much for me anyway. Oh, and violins, violas, and cellos are tuned in sevents. See here for example:

Viola
Strings (Decending order Starting with A)
1.A 1.D 1.G 1.C
2.A# 2.E 2.A 2.C#
3.B 3.F 3.A# 3.D
4.C 4.F# 4.B 4.D#
5.C# 5.G 5.C 5.F
6.D 6.G# 6.C# 6.F#
7.E 7.A 7.D 7.G

This is how a bass is tuned:

1.G 1.D 1.A 1.E
2.A 2.E 2.B 2.F
3.B 3.F 3.C 3.G
4.C 4.G 4.D 4.A
5.D 5.A 5.E 5.B

See? The Bass tuning is how a guitar is tuned as well, only the guitar has two more strings. So, to sim it all up, violins, violas, and cellos are tuned in sevenths and bass (upright and guitar) are tuned in fifths. Also, I realize that I didn`t include both names for the enharmonic tones; I was too lazy to bother. I get the feeling you guys know well enough and that most will be able to tell the difference. Hope this helps. Bye!

P.S. Try to bear with me on my typing errors, if any. I`m not the best at it to put it nicely.

Sorry about this. I was reading over one of my posts and I noticed I said "suppose" more than once in one sentence! Sorry about that. Geeze, I need to take a vacation, I`m starting to lose it. In the future, I`ll try to do better. Bye!

Sorry, I made a typing error.

As for josh and his sevenths, i have no idea what he`s talking about

Liz

Actually I have now worked out what you meant, Josh. The bad news is, you don`t know what a perfect fifth is. You mean seven semitones. A perfect fifth contains seven semitones. You did make some errors though, have a look back and see what notes you missed out!

Liz

Okay, I see now. My mistake.

Could you plesae explain perfect fifths then?