The Foundation of Violin Playing
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- Опубликовано: 23 авг 2021
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I've said many times the most important thing a violin student can focus on is the bow arm. But where to start? The proper start for any violinist is slow, whole bows using only the weight of the bow, on all four strings. Seems simple, but this can be one of the most challenging things for early learners to pick up. 
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Grade school orchestra class- we weren't even allowed to pick up our instruments for weeks! Our instructor made us practice the proper bow motion over and over again--"El-bow-grease." I didn't understand then, but now, picking up my violin again, I am grateful.
Love that you're so careful with the basics. Your students won't be blindsided by crescendo and decrescendo 🙂
I watched this at x2 speed and I couldn't be more pleased with the lack of filler in this video.
To the point, no nonsense or unnecessary anecdotes.
Now I'm primed to practice! 😁
I’ve only had my violin for about a week, and I’m starting from the bare basics. Thanks to wonderful teachers like you, and a couple of others here on RUclips, I have been able to start my actual violin playing with a great foundation! I started watching these videos about a month before buying my violin, so I could eliminate many of the problems that beginners face. I am currently working on open strings, bowing, making sure I hold the bow correctly, and holding the violin correctly. Thanks to you, my bowing on the open strings actually sounds good! Thank you! ❤
Excellent. Useful for professional players as well.
Brilliant! 🙏🏻🎻
The best. You rock!
Thank you! So helpful
great informative video! it help me a lot!
This video is a game changer! You are in a class by yourself! Cheers.
Outstanding instruction. I never heard of the trapezius muscle before.
I absolutely agree, that the skills shown in this video, are the FOUNDATION of bowing.
Wish I would'a known this 60 years ago.
This looks like exactly what I needed! Will be sure to try and put this to use tomorrow. First part, at least, I will leave the division and the rest for another day. I will be trying to get some local lessons soon™. I have had my fun making scratchy noises and bouncing around but I am ready to commit to lessons. Just need to get into the rhythm of school again before I add extra lessons to my life.
So good! These exercises are pure class. Excellent fundamentals for us beginners. They feel basic but they’re loaded with opportunity to refine technique. Love your lessons. ⭐️🎻Many thanks for your sharing with us. 🙏🏼
Of all the instructional videos on bowing , this is #1 in my book. This instructional video alone, will save time, money and frustration for both Instructor and student. This will put the beginner who is learning the violin way above the learning curve.
Is there a video or recording of you playing Rondo and Capriciosso? Would love to hear the entire piece. Also your videos are some of the best I've seen. Shaky bow is my nemesis
Thank you! There is a clip somewhere on FaceBook of me playing the last three pages or so at my final Master’s recital. My aunt took the video, so it might be somewhere buried in my personal page, but I’m not sure.
Yo bro thanks a lot. It was my weak pinky that was causing the shaky or vibration while bowing from the frog. Once I figured that out I have greatly reduced the vibration. It should be gone in a month or two.
Bala
Is it?
Any suggestion or recommendation for regain strength and flexibility for injured but recovering left ring finger ?? Thanks first
If views were determined by merit, this video would have hundreds of thousands of views.
Not in 10 minutes after uploading, but one can only hope for the future!
Millions!
can you make a video about vibrato without shoulder rest, because every time i vibrate iam scared??
I play viola without shoulder rest, so I would like to give you some advice:
1) when you do vibrato, you should slightly rotate your left arm to take your left index base phalanx away from the neck, in order for the hand to wobble between two points of contact and not three. However, that means that the weight of the instrument shifts from the left index to rest entirely sustained from the thumb, so it might be necessary for you to fastly adjust your thumb position.
2) you should develop a solid wrist vibrato, for a very simple reason: arm vibrato, by definition, moves all the hand as a block, which means that the instrument gets pulled in and out from your chin. Without a proper chinrest that can be a pain. Wrist vibrato reduces this issue because the left thumb remains virtually still and the hand rotates around it, leaving the instrument more still. You will notice that many soloists that play withiut shoulder rest have a very wrist heavy vibrato (Perlman above all).
3) Flexibility is always crucial, but if you play without shoulder rest its absolutely mandatory. The stiffest you are, the more are you likely to move the violin along with your hand. Develop flexibility of finger, wrist and elbow joints as much as possible. I like to do some Simon Fischer exercises regularly to achieve this.
Finally, one last note: playing without shoulder rest, in general, is like rope walking whilst juggling. Is a matter of continous adjustment and equilibrium. Don't stick to dogmatic rules as I used to do, like violin at 45°, violin sustained by thumb/chin/putting the instrument against the wall, thumb here or there, that's just nonsense. Of course some habits are healthier than others, and just a teacher who sees you live can tell you that, but don't rule out anything because you never saw it written on a book ;)
I hope I helped you to some extent, keep on practising
@@FCarraro1 thank you very much !!!!😍😀😀😀😀😀
Do you agree that the elbow should move in and out in a figure eight type of motion when executing a basic détache motion, at least in concept? This is something that Zukerman especially emphasizes and Perlman also. I imagine they learned it from Galamian...
Depends. I worked with the Zukerman crew for a summer on my bowing technique and this was never brought up, though other Galamian adjacent people I’ve studied with did. I personally find it to be overrated, at least as far as learning BASIC technique goes.
There are a lot of nuances to advanced, more subtle technique that will just confuse a student if introduced before it’s time, and I would say that messing around with any change of bow angles throughout the stroke before you are able to control a simple open bow is definitely one of them. The simpler (and therefore repeatable) the motion the better.
Most motions like the figure-8 can often happen naturally if the student is set up properly, but they will always be much more subtle when done correctly, much like the finger motion at a bow change at the frog. Students who don’t understand exactly what is going on will inevitably over do it, so it often works best for them to learn a simpler motion, and then often those subtleties can be developed later.
This is one of the main reasons I (and Leopold Auer, interestingly enough) warn against trying to copy any violinist you like before you have a really solid grasp of technique. Most students don’t have a proper sense of the degree to which they should be doing something, or understand the proper principles of technique around what they are trying to imitate, and often make more trouble for themselves and their teachers.
@@MurphyMusicAcademy I agree, and I think that, in a way, over emphasizing "concept" vs how you will actually play in a performance can make the teaching come off rather esoteric. I think it is good to understand "conceptually" what is considered sound technique, but to realize that ultimately the eventual product will be much more subtle. Having said that, I think the ultimate goal, like you said in the video, is to internalize these fundamentals into your system so well, that they come out in the most natural way possible without having to think too much about it. That will then free the mind up to focus solely on the musical interpretation...but in order to do that, the mechanics have to be internalized.
You are a great teacher. But I'm heartbroken when your hand disappears from the screen. Don't you understand that the most important change in the direction of the bow takes place outside the field of view of the screen? It's driving me crazy.