Coincident fingerings

[ed]

Which fingerings on the D string are exactly coincident with those on the A string? Ie you do not need to move your finger at all when moving the bow from one string to the other. Fingering charts alone would not seem sufficient to show this accurately.

I show this in the following chart for the scale of D, where notes that I have put together horizontally on the same line are played with exactly the same finger position (coincident). I worked this out by looking at violin fingerings.

1=D (1 5)

D string	A string
1	5 (open strings)
2	6
3	7
4	1.
5	2.
6	-
-	3.
-	4.
7	-
1.	5.

Have I got this right? Does it repeat exactly for higher octaves? I should be grateful if someone could confirm this is correct, or offer a correction.

Thanks

Ed

[davidmdahl]

Wherever you are pressing on the erhu strings, the pitches are a fifth apart. This is true for open strings and all the way through the positions. Your chart is partly okay, but your entry for "6" on the D string corresponds to "-" on the A string rather than "3.". Why is that? Again, the same pattern of 1|5, 2|6, 3|7, 4|1, 5|2, 6|3, 7|4, and back again to 1|5 repeats throughout the entire range of the erhu. It might help you to refer to a piano keyboard.

Erhu scores often indicate helpful fingerings that remind us of this pattern of the fifth. It does come more naturally after a while.

Best wishes,

David

[ed]

Thanks David, this clears up a lot. I have also found some beautifully done new fingering charts which confirm what you say - however I do wonder about 7|4. I should be grateful if you would look at the following and see if you think they are accurate:

softist.com/chinamusic/erhu/erhu.php

These new charts show a considerable regularity which is not obvious in the charts previously posted to this forum - and make going on to the higher left-hand positions look much easier!

Ed

[davidmdahl]

If you are familiar with a keyboard, it might help you to find how the notes map when you play a D major scale starting on the notes D and A at the same time. If you keep the distance between the two notes the same interval of a fifth, there will be a dilemma at the seventh step. A fifth above C# is G#, which is not in the D major scale. You see on the fingering chart that the position for 4 on the outside string is not at the same position as 7 for the inside string. You need to play G natural instead of G#. The numbers always always indicate the note in the designated scale, unless there is a accidental sign such as # or b.

The charts at the website look good to me.

Best wishes,

David