In an orchestra setting, usually you are asked to play one note at time. But how do you play something like this?
It’s two notes at once, which for string musicians is called a “double stop.” In some solo pieces, you may be asked to play three or even four notes at once–called “triple stops” and “quadruple stops.” Three or more notes usually form a “chord” like the G-major chord or A-minor chord. (Music theorists will say that just two notes “suggest” a chord but that you need three notes to form an actual chord.)
(Image source: https://violinspiration.com/violin-double-stops/)
Playing multiple notes together adds richness to a musical section. Here is a sample of Hilary Hahn playing double stops for a Beethoven piece.
https://youtu.be/_RLShLMRCeM?si=Wht2FzOkzSGyI77g&t=4
After mostly playing just one note at a time, learning to play double stops can be challenging at first, but through practice and good exercises, you can rapidly improve.
For this post, we’ll focus just a few basic points.
Right Hand: To play a double stop, you have to become accustomed to playing two strings at the same time. For your right arm, this means you have to adjust your bowing angle and pressure, so you play both strings evenly. Here are two examples.
https://youtu.be/P3gV1BEpJYI?si=hlLQL360SSmaUXyZ&t=150
https://youtu.be/5rD3WdjDEd4?si=YIoYWCAaB1DsfriP&t=63
To start, you may want to practice playing two open strings at the same time, to get a sense of what arm angle and bow pressure you need to get a clean double stop sound.
Left Hand: For open string double stops, your left hand does not press any strings, so that is easy. Other types of double stops will require pressing on a string for one or both of the notes. When you do this, it is important that your left-hand fingers form a nice “arch” so that other strings are not touched as you press down on a note.
(Image source: https://www.soundhouse.co.jp/en/howto/stringed-instruments/violin/hold-strings)
One good way to check that your fingers are touching just one string, is to practice a double stop by playing each note individually first, and then together. Here is an example of how to practice this.
Focus on these two things first, and try to become comfortable with these skills. We’ll cover triple and quadruple stops on our next post.
There many good double stop exercise books available, but to start, a good free set of exercises can be found at the following website: https://violinspiration.com/violin-double-stops-chart/
