This giant wall hanging is a great addition to my music studio. I came up with the concept, and as I am not a brilliant sewer, my mother-in-law stepped in to do the sewing for me. It is made of felt, we found stiffer black felt to use as the dots (‘fingers’) and put velcro on the backs of them. The GDAE letters are sewn on, as are the black strings (a black cord we found).
How to play:
1. Hand student the velcro dots.
2. Hold up a flashcard (use all the ones your student has learned so far for great revision, or if you are learning a new finger, use only the ‘new’ notes to drill those notes into your students head). Flashcards can be found here: Violin flash cards
3. Student has to place the ‘dot’ where their finger would normally go on the giant fingerboard.
Mine is usually set up so that if a beginner student has trouble remembering where a particular note is, they have to work out where the note is on the staff, then have a quick look at the giant fingerboard to work out where their finger needs to go.
You could use a stop watch and see if you student can beat their previous record if you go through all the cards, or all the notes on one string.
Generally if I notice they are having trouble with a particular note, I will drill them with this string game, and they get really good with their notes.
I also have a beginner version I use, which is a little more colourful.
The idea is the same as the version with the black dots, but I printed out the flash cards in matching colours and the coloured dots have the letter names on them.
For an easier version of the game, just use 4 big coloured circles for the GDAE and use blue tac to stick them up on your wall. Cut out and laminate circles to use as the dots and use blue tac to stick them to the wall. I used to do it this way, but I found it took as long as the game itself to pull apart all the circles prior to playing (unless you do it before the lesson).
