Viola: How to Play, Tuning, Sizes, and Violin and Viola Compared

What is the difference between a violin and a viola?

The viola is slightly bigger, lower and warmer than the violin. It is tuned C, G, D, A, a perfect fifth below the violin’s G, D, A, E, and reads the alto clef instead of the treble clef.

A quick way to tell them apart in a string section: look at the lowest string. If it is thick and silvery and the player’s instrument looks a little longer, it is probably a viola with its low C string.

How is a viola tuned?

A viola is tuned C3, G3, D4, A4 from the lowest string to the highest, each string a perfect fifth apart. Tune the A string to 440 Hz first, then tune each lower string a fifth below the one above it.

Most violas have fine tuners on at least the A string. Use them for small changes and the pegs for big ones. Turn the peg gently while pushing it into the pegbox, and tune up to the note rather than down.

What size viola do I need?

Violas are measured by body length in inches. Most adults play a 15.5 to 16.5 inch viola; children start on about 12 to 14 inches. A teacher or string shop checks your outstretched left arm to find the right size.

Many young players start on a violin and change to a viola later, or play a small viola strung with C, G, D, A strings.

How do you start playing the viola?

Get a viola of the right size, a bow, rosin and a shoulder rest, then learn to hold the instrument and bow, play the four open strings, and add fingers one at a time. Lessons with a teacher help most in the first months.

1. Get sized and rent or borrow a viola. Many US schools start string players in grade 4 or 5 through the school orchestra program.
2. Rosin the bow and tighten the hair until there is a pencil’s width between the hair and the stick.
3. Learn the hold: the viola rests on your left shoulder and collarbone, your jaw on the chinrest.
4. Play long, straight bows on each open string: A, D, G, then C.
5. Add fingers 1, 2 and 3 on the D and A strings (D major pattern), using the chart below.
6. Learn to read the alto clef and play simple tunes.

What is the alto clef?

The alto clef is a C clef centred on the middle line of the staff, so that line is middle C (C4). The viola uses it because most of its notes fit on the staff without many ledger lines.

In the alto clef, the lines from the bottom are F3, A3, C4, E4 and G4, and the spaces are G3, B3, D4 and F4. The open C string (C3) hangs just below the first ledger line under the staff. To learn the staff and clefs step by step, try the staff and clefs unit.

Viola fingering chart (first position)

Each note and the string and finger to play it with. “Low” and “high” mean the finger is placed a half step nearer to or further from the scroll. The pattern is the same as on the violin, a fifth lower; the 4th finger on one string gives the same note as the next open string, so we show the open string except for the top E.

Classfern’s free string guides on lessonplanner.info will keep growing. For now, tunes that stay on the G, D and A strings use the same notes and fingers on both instruments, so you can practice those with the violin play-along and finger chart.