For a great violin warm-up, practice scales and arpeggios everyday. Below are the main scales and arpeggios for the violin in first position. I recommend staying in one key for a few days to master the finger pattern. Scales are a great way to incorporate more advanced concepts like complicated bowings, accents, dynamics, and rhythms.

Understanding the building blocks of scales can make playing scales so much easier. If you also want to know why some notes are sharp and some aren’t, read about key signatures and minor scales.

For a typical warm-up, I choose a key and play the scale several times, starting with half notes or whole notes and gradually speeding up the duration of each note (see Daily Warm-Ups for Scales below). Then pick one exercise from Bowing, Rhythms, and Dynamics for Scales below. Use this advanced bowing or rhythm for the entire scale.

If you want more violin scales in your life, check out my FREE scale book, Creative Scales for the Experimental Violinist. It’s great for beginners or intermediate players. It includes the most common major and minor scales as well as pentatonic scales and dozens of scale variations to make scales enjoyable! Plus, I’ve included my handy Key Signature Quick Reference Guide so that never again will you wonder, “is this high 2 or low 2?” Sign up for my newsletter to get a copy of the free scale book.

The typical finger patter that beginners start out on can be found in the D major and G major one octave scales. In both of these scales, the 2nd finger is “high” or right next to 3rd finger. If you are just starting out, start with the D major and G major one octave scales.

C major has “low” 2nd fingers. Which means the 2nd finger is touching the 1st finger (a.k.a half steps).

A major has sharp 3rd fingers on the G and D strings. And E major has sharp 3rd fingers all the way.

Download the free sheet music for Scales and Arpeggios for Violin First Position Sharps.

Scales 1st Position Sharps_Meadowlark_Violin-1.png

Flat scales generally involve a lot of low 1st fingers. For F major, all 1st fingers will be low. With B flat, there will be low 2s, low 1s, and low 4s. Watch out you can’t always use your open string in flat scales since the open string might be flat in the key signature.

Download the free sheet music for Scales and Arpeggios for Violin First Position Flats.

There are three different types of minor scales: natural minor, harmonic minor, and melodic minor. Melodic is more typically played but it’s great practice to play all three types of minor scales. In melodic minor scales, you always raise the 6th and 7th notes (scale degrees) on the way up the scale, and then lower them on the way down.

Download the Free Sheet Music for Melodic Minor Scales and Arpeggios for Violin First Position.

Scales 1st Post Minor_Meadowlark_Violin-1.png

To be able to play scales faster, use this warm-up guide.

Download the Free Sheet Music for Daily Warm-Ups For Violin Scales.

Once you are ready for more of a challenge, add in these bowings to your scales. For this warm-up, I included a little turn at the beginning. Notice how the notes go up to the third scale degree, then go back down to the first note before starting the scale as normal. This is a typical scale pattern that many intermediate and advanced players use.

Download the Free Sheet Music for Bowings, Rhythms, and Dynamics for Violin Scales.

Scales in Harmony

Playing scales as a duet can do wonders for your intonation. I’ve recorded the major scales that a violinists uses with a teacher duet part in harmony. Play the normal scale along with these recordings and try to adjust your pitch to be in harmony with my notes. It’s lots of fun!

To follow along, you can download these free scales sheets for scales in harmony. You will play the notes on these pages. Play along with me using the videos below. Have fun!

Download the sheet music for Scales in Harmony: C major + Sharps

Download the sheet music for Scales in Harmony: Flats