Lorrie Gunn - children's lessons & play-along videos expert

How to play Ode to Joy

All violin beginners will learn Beethoven's famous tune

In this video, Lorrie teaches you how to play the famous Ode to Joy with your violin. This is especially helpful for children and beginners.

Released on September 2, 2020

DISCLAIMER: The views and the opinions expressed in this video are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Virtual Sheet Music and its employees.

Video Transcription

Hello fellow violin lovers, please join me today in playing the very beginning of Beethoven's famous tune Ode to Joy. I can't wait to show you the song, but first let's get warmed up. Let's warm up our left hand with a special finger pattern. Now the finger pattern is going to start with two fingers down and we're going to play two fingers, three fingers, four fingers, play the four again, lift up the three, lift up the two. It's good to play that several times and even if you want to pause the film at this point and play it a few times, that's good too.

But moving right onto our second finger pattern, that's going to be right on the E string, playing zero, first finger down, second finger down, play the second finger again, lift the second finger play the first finger, and lift the first finger, zero. And same with the first pattern. You can pause the video and do some extra practice on that if you need it.

Those two finger patterns are in the very beginning of the Ode to Joy song. Let's play through the song. Carefully, we're going to place our second finger on the E string. Bring your bow down and play two fingers. Two, two, three, four, four. Lift the four, life the three, one, O, O, one, two, two, one, one. Two fingers. Two, two, three, four, four. Lift the four, three, two, one, O, O, one, two, one, O, O. And there you have it. I hope you continue to keep practicing the beginning of Ode to Joy.

If you want, there is a free sheet music download for the music in this video from virtualsheetmusic.com.
Automatic video-to-text transcription by DaDaScribe.com
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Comments, Questions, Requests:

Cecilia Alcívar Smith on October 8, 2020 @7:54 am PST
Hi Lorrie and thank you for your cheery quick lesson! From another fellow colleague, at 0:48 I think you meant to say, “lift up the 4, lift up the 3” instead of, “lift up the 3, lift up the 2.” JOY and CHEERS to you and thank you again for posting these enjoyable videos!
reply
Lorrie Gunn - host, on October 8, 2020 @4:37 pm PST
Hi Cecilia, You are correct. I did not realize I had done that until it was up at the VSM site. I figured that fellow violin lovers might still be able to play since there was other information on the screen. Thank you so much for keeping me honest. We will be even more careful in the future.
Fabrizio Ferrari - moderator and CEO, on October 8, 2020 @4:44 pm PST
I am sorry about that, we should have noticed that during video editing as well. Thank you again Cecilia for your provided feedback!
Lorrie Gunn - host, on October 8, 2020 @5:26 pm PST
Yes Fabrizio, I agree with you.
Owen Mellow * VSM MEMBER * on September 16, 2020 @5:30 pm PST
Great!
reply
Donna Lorraine Gunn - host, on September 17, 2020 @12:21 pm PST
Thank you Owen! I am glad you liked it!
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