Berklee Violin Arpeggios, Chords, and Etudes

Master harmony on the violin fingerboard! This book will give you the fluency to improvise, play comping (accompanying) parts, add background lines, and deepen your enjoyment of all kinds of music. These exercises and etudes will help you practice arpeggios and comping voicings for commonly used chord progressions, with appropriate fingerings and alternate spellings when needed. You will develop left-hand dexterity and broaden your harmonic understanding and vocabulary. Audio tracks let you hear the exercises and then practice along with an accompanist.

You will learn to:

• Construct the common triads and seventh chords: major, minor, diminished, and minor 7b5.
• Choose fingering strategies for common chord progressions.
• Play chords across the strings.
• Voice-lead chords to transition smoothly and ergonomically.
• Improvise melodic lines over chord changes.
• Comp chord patterns using essential rhythmic grooves.

“Arpeggios give a great definition of the harmonic content of a chord. I use them in my improvisations, and Mimi Rabson had the excellent idea to produce this book, which will help violinists master this concept.”

—Jean-Luc Ponty, Violinist and Composer

“Mimi Rabson has penned another indispensable resource for string players. This well-designed compendium is an open doorway into the harmonic world of jazz.”

—Tracy Silverman, Electric Violinist and Educator

“Mimi Rabson, in her quiet way over the last twenty years, has changed the tone and color of American string styles. A powerful string player and pithy composer in her own right, she belongs to that blessed legion of relatively unsung musical heroes who help others become excellent. This book is a supremely useful example of how she has done that. The etudes and exercises here form the foundational blueprint for any serious string player who wants to perform contemporary music. This book is a musical Swiss Army knife for anyone who is interested in improvisation over Western harmony; it will get you where you need to go. Mimi’s meticulous attention to detail makes this one of the most complete musical reference books I’ve seen, and I plan to have it on my music stand at home for a long time.”

—Darol Anger, Violinist, Professor Emeritus of Strings at Berklee College of Music

“Mimi Rabson’s scale book is a game changer. Since much of the book is playable in the first position, I anticipate using this not only as a brilliant collection of exercises for my collegiate improvising string students but also as a contemporary replacement of outdated, traditional, intermediate scale-exercise books for my middle school and high school students. A great method in learning to ‘think in harmony’ for all levels.”

—Duane Padilla, Jazz Violinist and Violist, Violin Faculty Member at Punahou Music School