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I got some positive feedback from this little demo here, so I thought I would share it.
It's just about the mechanics of playing a double-stopped 5th in tune - one of the things that seem to be missing in many of the tutorials on the web 🙂
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v.....Lso8t50-h4
Jim
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Oliver said
What would you say about fingering the pair horizontally thereby guaranteeing that both strings are involved in a still tunable configuration ?
I don't understand your question at all ... sorry!
Jim
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Wow, thanks for that Worldfiddler... Don't you go away anytime soon. That's the stuff I am working on right now.... Thank you 😉
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No Oliver, that would not be a good way to play other notes in tune. You need to come down with your fingers pointed towards the body so to speak in order to play a better vibrato and to play quicker.
Besides I don't think that we can place our fingers across the string completely horizontally.
Actually, using the different angles of your round finger is how to adjust the intonation of a fifth to make it perfect. You feel it after a while. Sometimes the strings aren't still in tune when performing and you need to use just the corner of a finger on an interval.
Thanks for your post Jim
"The richest person is not the one who has the most,
but the one who needs the least."
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This is a very interesting video for a variety of reasons:
1. Tuning - practicing a scale of perfect 5ths seems so basic and fundamental in order to learn how to tune the violin. And yet its typically absent because its hard to learn to bow two strings? I think that helps develop the muscles in the forearm and upperarm.
2. Finger pads - Forces you to use the pads of your fingers, and not the tips. Improved intonation generally is the result.
3. Ear Sensitivity - Depending on your finger size, you will have to adjust guided by your ear. 5ths are I believe the easiest interval to detect so its the safest way to begin ear training
4. Point of support and axis - surely this must have fingering implications. Instead of moving the support of the 1st finger to and from adjacent strings and weakening security of intonation, the use of the perfect 5th could alleviate fingering certain passages.
5. Historical - Thinking about 5ths makes you wonder why the violin is tuned that way in the first place.
The way violin is taught seems strange to me. The basic fundamentals of shaping the left hand are not served well with 1-2-3-4 fingering. Its best for youngsters but as an adult why not start with Chords --> Arpeggios --> Scales instead of the other way around.
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ok Jim so aim for between the strings, got it! thanks 🙂 will keep that in mind when I get my first double stops in a song.
"It can sing like a bird, it can cry like a human being, it can be very angry, it can be all that humans are" Maxim Vengerov
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Thanks for the vid! I'll have to reverse engineer the advice because I have a really bad habit of doing double stops when not meaning to! LOL
I think that's the bass player in me though. Ya know, big strings, big frets, clumsy fingers! I'm going to have to focus more on precise finger placement to only do double stops when I mean to, not when I partially miss the string! 
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” ~Benjamin Franklin
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