Don't be late on October the 8th.

 Okay, I have nothing else to talk about this morning, so I'll show you this.

I drew it up for my students. It's really a simple thing, a version of which can be found on any string instrument. I don't really know how many violinists are aware of it, but it's not rocket science.

"Sometimes people say “well, this isn’t that hard. It’s not rocket science!” As it turns out, although rocket science is complex, it’s still 100% understandable. Rocket science was used notably first in the space race in 1969, between America and the USSR. In this situation, the perfect calculations were required not only to get people off the surface of the Earth, but to actually make it to the moon.

Before this, in 1961, Yuri Gagarin became the first human to actually make it to space. Despite these early missions taking place so many years ago, the basic physics required to actually get people up there has remained pretty much the same. Technology, of course, has changed, and today’s rocket science does have more components generally than it did nearly 60 years ago.

Today’s rocket science can be broken up into a couple main components:

• The fuel and it's applications.
• The physics to get the rocket off the ground."

I hope that helps. Okay, back to the violin.

Some keys are considered hard (Db major, F# Major and others) but, if you know the above four scale shapes, they all become easy. The same principle applies to minor and dominant 7th. scales. Okay, some minor scales require a few altered notes, but they still fit into the system. Augmented and diminished scales will be different, but that's okay. 

The most used scales in western music are major, minor and dominant 7th. I suggest that you start by using major, dominant 7th. (starts on the fifth note of the major scale) and the Dorian minor (starts on the second note of the major scale). Once you are comfortable with these, you'll have the system sorted.

You'll be able to play all over the violin.

Have fun boys but don't play out of tune.

Robert chuckles.

Peter bites his lip.