Violin: Scales for the Melody

Twelve roots against 24 types, mapped for one instrument and read as melody work.

Pick a root and one of 24 types and see it as it lies on this fingerboard, roots marked throughout. A few carry most of the repertoire; the rest are for the arrangement that goes somewhere else.

The melody section plays written lines together, so a scale is section practice before it is anyone's vocabulary: several players putting the same pitch in the same place, with nothing on the neck to arbitrate.

A written line is not a scale played straight through. It is a handful of notes taken out of one and timed to land before the sung phrase comes back — which is what a map like this is actually for.