How to Bow your Violin

Even if you are left-handed, you probably will learn to play your violin as if you were right-handed. In fact, some lefties claim they have an advantage, because their left-hand dexterity makes fingering and vibrato easier and more precise. By the time you become a master violinist, you will become ambidextrous, and at the peak of your performances, both hands will move almost automatically, driven by memory and habit. Of course, each part of your bow has its own name, and technically "the bow" refers to just the wooden stick with which the hairs connect. The "grip" wraps around one end of that stick, and "the frog" joins the bow with the hairs. Your bow has a large screw at its tip, and you use the screw to tighten or relax the hair. Before each days practice, check your bows tightness. At the bows narrowest point, the space between hairs and bow should be no bigger than your middle finger. After you check the hairs tightness, sight down your bow to make certain it remains properly aligned. If you screw your bow too tight, you will bend or warp it, radically altering the quality of your sound. Instinct and intuition will prompt you to pick-up and hold the bow almost exactly as you should. For the sake of absolutely propriety, however, you must curl your thumb through the frog, supporting the bows weight, then wrapping index, middle and ring fingers around the grip, and resting your little finger lightly on the screw. Your little finger serves as your first pressure regulator: Resting it almost imperceptibly on the screw, you allow the bows full weight to fall on the strings, and your sounds grow louder. Pressing your little finger lightly against the screw, your thumb becomes your bows fulcrum, and your bow gently draws away from the strings, turning down your volume. For maximum sound, use your wrist and forearm to increase the bows pressure against the strings, and move the bow to the spot where the bridge holds the strings furthest from the violins body. Drawing your bow back and forth across your strings, your right hand, wrist, and forearm control your tone and rhythm. On the day you brought your violin home, you probably played and experimented with your violins sound effects, trying the infinite variety of pitches, timbres, and harmonies you can create by changing pressure on the bow, changing where it rests on the strings, and changing the length and speed of your strokes. Your lessons will show you when, where, and how deliberately to create different effects according to words, signs, and symbols printed score. In violin jargon, "articulation" refers to how you strike the strings with your bow and how you control the notes by stretching out or shortening your strokes and leaving your bow resting against the strings between notes or lifting it away. Violin vocabulary includes a term for forcefully striking the bow against the strings, a different term for applying full weight and pressure to the strings, and a variety of terms that tell you how to move your bow across the strings. Other violin vocabulary terms tell you to use the widest part of your bow near the frog, the narrowest part of your bow near the tip, or the center of your bow; and still more terms guide your transitions from note to note and measure to measure. Of course, because the violin came of age in Renaissance Italy and Southern France, almost all your violin vocabulary terms come into music from Italian or French, and suggesting simple English translations or international signs for all these commands represent to some name purists the violin worlds equivalent of blasphemy. If you truly wish to succeed with Learning to Bow your Violin, then you must visit this excellent resource. Go to this site immediately: http://learntheviolinfast.com/