From Zero to Mozart
Stage 6Beyond first positionLesson 16 of 30 · Left hand

Double stops, both fingers down

Stage 3 taught you to read two notes stacked together. Stage 8's reading-two-notes-at-once had you play the easy cases. Here's the whole playing ladder, and the one genuinely new step at the top of it.

The ladder you're already most of the way up

  1. Two open strings — no left hand involved at all. Purely a bow-control exercise: even weight on both strings, a clean simultaneous attack.
  2. Open + one stopped note, on the adjacent string — the left hand only has one job; the open string takes care of itself.
  3. Both notes stopped — the genuinely new skill. Two fingers down at once, on adjacent strings, tuned to each other, not each in isolation against an open string.

You've been doing steps 1 and 2 since Stage 3 and Stage 8. This lesson, and the three after it, are step 3.

Both fingers down, together

40 bpm

How to play it

Let the finger rest across both strings at once, weight even on each. Bow both strings together, listening for a clean 5th — no beating.

1st finger on the G string (A) and 1st finger on the D string (E), together — the simplest stopped double stop there is, since it's the same finger flattened across two strings rather than two independent fingers. A perfect 5th, the same interval the open strings themselves are tuned in.

Most real double stops — thirds, sixths, octaves, all coming next — use two different fingers, one per string, which is harder: the hand has to hold both in tune relative to each other, with no open string to lean on for either one.

Try it

Try

Play the 5th above, holding it for a slow four counts, listening for beating. Then lift and replace the finger a few times, checking the interval stays clean each time — that repeatable accuracy, not the first lucky attempt, is what the next three lessons build on.

The usual mistake

Checking each note of a double stop against an open string separately, then assuming the pair is in tune. It isn't the same test — two notes can each be individually correct and still clash against each other. Tune the interval, by listening to the two notes together, every time.