reading sheet music

I am back taking lessons again, since March.

My teacher and I made a discovery: I didn't know the names of the notes I was playing. I was playing a G scale - I knew that I was starting on the open G, and playing a scale, but I couldn't tell you any of the other notes I was playing within the scale.

I had been learning scales by myself, and so I was going on muscle memory from that. To begin with, I had already learned major and minor scales on a guitar, so I was drawing from that as well.

When I was playing the violin from sheet music, if I could play scale of the key I was playing in, I could figure out the notes by gauging from the intervals. My fingers & ear knew where all the degrees of the scale were, so I paid no attention to the note names on the fingerboard. I can read sheet music from taking piano lessons for many years.

So this was fine as long as I was playing something predictable like a scale or a folky tune. We started doing bowing exercises, and she pointed out that I had missed an accidental, and we realized I had been playing mostly by ear, ie not processing any of the note names at all. She said "I want to be able to put any sheet music in front of you" and have me play from notes. This wasn't my priority, I just wanted to be able to play folky music, but I totally saw her point, as a piano person who can only read one note at a time :(

I went home and drew little fingerboard diagrams, trying to memorize where each note was. I also dug out my grade 2 piano books, and tried to play through them with the violin, paying attention to the note names. The tunes were easy, so I started playing backwards through the pieces, to force my brain to work harder. I figured out where the Cs were.

I went back for another lesson and told her what I'd been doing. She said I should do arpeggios and say the note names as I played... which was hard! I guess that's the point. I started to envision the sheet music notes as I played, instead of the note names, and figured that I was being more productive. I also started practicing a C scale, to give me reference as to where all the sharps and flats are.

My teacher also pointed out how rough I was playing, from what she said, I figured that I have to ease the bow into each note, so that it sounds more pleasant. I find that if I am in a zone while playing, I make way fewer mistakes and the tone sounds sweeter. So if I could cultivate that "zone" all the time, I could save myself a lot of time by not practicing my mistakes. I also had fairly low expectations coming in, I didn't want to sound beautiful, I wanted to be able to bash through jigs and reels. But again I am glad that my teacher is holding me to high standards.