Check and adjust your bow hold before picking up the violin

• Keep your thumb bent, with its tip securely located between the edges of leather grip and the frog
• Gently arch all fingers
• Pronate your forearm/wrist
• Press thumb upward and first finger downward to create bow pressure, for a rich tone and volume
• Let the second and third fingers drape across the stick
• Your pinky is the only finger that touches with its tip

Watch bow strokes in a mirror. Make sure you're playing with
straight yaw, using short strokes at the middle of the bow.

• Hinge at your elbow when bowing—avoid runner's arm (elbow moving fore and aft.)
• Hinge at shoulder at string crossings—using wing-flap motion
• Watch tone point in mirror—play closer to bridge on E, closer to fingerboard on G
• Watch yaw in mirror—bow should remain parallel to the bridge
• on short strokes you won't see much roll; on long strokes the bow is directly above the hair at the tip
• In lieu of watching in a mirror, watch the bow's shadow, or bow in the direction of a web camera observing the yaw and tone point on the computer monitor.

Single String — Warm-Up

— Medium Speed —

 

Once you have this exercise memorized, watch in a mirror to make sure you're bowing with straight yaw.
Add a little pressure to keep the tone point from drifting.

About using this page ...

You can easily increase the size of the elements on this page with various commands or gestures:

• control + or -  on Windows
• command + or - on the Mac
• pinch gestures on mobile devices

On a tablet you can restart the video with a tap to the beginning of the playback track.

NOTE: If you don't see the playback controls, hover the cursor over the video.
If the control bar covers part of the video, move the cursor off the video and the control bar will disappear.

Music Lessons  •  TheoreticallyCorrect.com homepage