Bow

 

Bow with violin

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Bow Hold, Pressure and Speed So, keep a light bow, but also avoid playing your bow strokes too slowly. Do some experimenting to see what speed is sufficient and what speed is too slow. Then get used to playing within the required speed parameters. The practice maintains a steady amount of pressure as you play. 

We want to avoid situations where at different points of a single bow stroke you are applying disparate amounts of pressure to the string. We want a bow stroke that is consistent all the way through. Resist the temptation to hold the bow more tightly. 

A good bow hold easily offers you enough security, even if it doesn’t feel that way at first. It’s simply a matter of getting used to this counterintuitive, unobtrusive way of holding the bow. Straightening out or tensing your fingers to get a better grip on it will not be helpful to you in the end.

Bow Positioning and Direction

Let’s pick up right where we just left off—holding the bow. I’d like to point out a few important things about both holding your bow correctly and executing a good bow stroke. First off, let’s remember what happened when we drew the bow along the string instead of across it in our earlier experiment. We got squeaks and scratches, right? Now, a question for you to ponder: so far, as you’ve been playing, has your bow been sliding along the strings despite your best efforts to draw it across them? 

position

You’ll need a mirror for this one. Stand in front of your mirror and position yourself so that you can see yourself from the front. The neck of the violin should be pointing off to the side and you should be able to look directly at the bridge and F-holes.

 Now play the E or the A string. Look at the bow as you do. Is it running along the string even as you pull it across it? In other words, is it leaning and sliding to one side as you move it back and forth across the string? If so, we have a problem. The bow should remain parallel to the bridge at all times. If the tip or the frog starts to lean toward the fingerboard as you play, 

we’ll need to correct that as quickly as possible. The simple slanting of the bow will produce scratches and squeaks since it’s being dragged along the string in addition to being pulled across it. You’ll certainly get sound from the string, but you’ll also find that some squeaks and scratches get unavoidably intermingled with that sound, 

Which will ultimately produce a result you’re not quite excited to hear. So, how do we keep the bow parallel to the bridge? By training the muscles in our arm to move in conjunction with each other in such a way that the bow ends up being straight for the entirety of the bow stroke. This is where we get into bow mechanics.

direction

Bow Mechanics First, without the bow or violin, stand against the wall and extend your right arm out to the side. Now pretend you’re holding the bow and practice bending that arm at the elbow, back and forth. Do this several times.

 This will help you get accustomed to moving the hand from only the elbow without needing to involve the shoulder. While you’re repeating this movement of bending and straightening your arm from the elbow, 

pay attention to your wrist. It should be moving too, but in the opposite direction to your elbow. Imagine the whole thing as a fish swimming: the tail moves in the direction opposite to the head. It’s the same here. When your arm is extended straight against the wall, your wrist should be bent away from it and in the direction of your body.

 When your arm is bent at the elbow and has come in toward your body, your wrist should be bent away from your body and in the direction of the wall. These are the basics. Now we’ll apply them to our actual playing. With your instrument in the playing position,

 play the E string. For now, mentally divide your bow into three sections. Focus your bowing on the middle third only; avoid the third to either extreme of the bow. This should give you ample opportunity to use the elbow and wrist moves we just worked on to keep your bow straight.

 Stand in front of your mirror and check to see that you’re doing it right. Go slowly so your muscles really have the chance to get used to the motion and remember it. Playing the violin well is largely about muscle memory. It is important for beginners to keep the bow flat on the strings.

 Try not to tilt it in either direction. More experienced players often do tilt their bows so they’re not playing quite flat on the strings, but that is a discussion for another time.

 For now, simply focus on getting the horse hair flat on the string as you play. That is your best bet for achieving a full tone at the moment. Also, try to keep the bow in the center of the playing area (between the bridge and the fingerboard) the entire time.

 Once you’ve gotten used to that, you can try going from the frog to the tip and back again instead of sticking only to the middle portion of your bow. Even so, avoid playing too close to the frog or the tip for the moment. 

Full Bow Technique I’ll go over the technique for using the full bow right here for your convenience. First, imagine the arm as a complex piece of machinery where each individual movement it makes fits with and flows from or into another individual movement. 

In a very real sense, that’s just what it is. Now we’ll need to break up those individual movements and practice having them flow seamlessly into each other. We’ll need a little bit of shoulder movement, a lot of elbow movement and a good amount of wrist movement. These little distinct motions will need to become one connected one. We’ll break the movement up into three. 

First we’ll practice without the bow and violin. Stand in the playing position and position your right hand as if you were about to play a down-bow from the very start of the frog. Naturally, this will mean that your arm has come all the way up, the crook of your elbow is more or less in line with your neck and your hand is very close to your face. The first movement will be a small one, and it will involve moving the shoulder to bring the entire arm down a bit. Again,

 it’s only a small movement, so don’t move it very far. At this point your hand should have moved from about ear level (if you’re looking in the mirror; nose level if you’re looking at the violin) to chin level, and your elbow is still very closed. At the beginning of this motion, the wrist is bent away from the body. At the end it is still bent away from the body but at a slightly less sharp angle. The second movement is a bigger one, the biggest in the sequence, 

and it focuses on the opening of the elbow. Shift your attention from the shoulder and use the elbow instead to bring the forearm down. Now your hand should be in front of you, somewhere in the region of your abdomen. For the first half of that movement, the shoulder will still naturally move, but only a little. For the last half, it shouldn’t move at all.

Most of the movement should be in the elbow. At the end of this motion, the wrist is more or less straight and in line with the forearm. The last movement is another small one. It’s a combination of shoulder and elbow. 

This movement will see your arm becoming almost straight. Naturally, the shoulder will move in toward the torso in preparation for the locking of the elbow joint. The end result will be that your elbow joint is almost locked, but not quite. 

At the end of this motion the wrist is bent upward, toward the body. It will be worth your while to take some time to practice these three movements without the violin for a few moments. After you’ve completed them in succession, do them in reverse. 

This will constitute down-bow and up-bow respectively. Break them up sharply at first but then slowly work on melding them into one smooth motion. Also, pay close attention to the movement of the wrist. It must respond to the other movements or the bow will never end up staying parallel to the bridge even if you pull off the other movements perfectly.

1. Hold the bow with your left hand on a 45-degree angle, with the stick of the bow positioned above the hair of the bow.

2. Bend your right-hand thumb and place the thumb tip into the groove of the bow.

   

   Credit: By Rashell Smith

   Placing your thumb too far into the groove promotes tension against the bow. Place it on the thumb’s right edge.

3. Place the tip of your pinkie on the screw of the bow, keeping your finger slightly curved.

   The reason why you start with the bow tilted is so that your pinkie will lie on an angle on top of the bow.

4. Lay your fingers over the top of the bow, keeping them curved.