Scan 25
21882.a.10 – How to hold a violin and bow / C. H. Mitchell., 1882
10 lines. Read by computer on 24 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1light and shade, and to disguise the change of stroke, will be prejudiced.
3With regard to a separation of the functions of the fingers, the task seems difficult. That the thumb and middle and ring fingers hold the bow whilst the little finger counterbalances when required, and the forefinger produces the pressure, is a theory corresponding to that system of holding the bow which places the thumb between the middle and ring fingers. Another theory that has been enunciated is that the forefinger, little finger, and thumb support the bow. The correct view may be that the thumb and all the fingers perform this last-mentioned office, and that the whole hand, and certain muscles beyond, produce gradations of tone, the forefinger taking the chief part, and that the little finger counterbalances the weight of the bow when the lower third is in use, aids materially in lifting the bow from the strings and carrying it, and generally tends to security and regularity.
5BOWINGS.
7It is eminently necessary that the violin student should know what he is expected to do. In the study of Geography more satisfactory ideas even of individual portions of the earth's surface, are obtained when the situation of that portion in the great whole is known. Similarly in the study of History we have a better conception of any event when we know the reign in which it happened, a still better if we know the position of this reign in the history of the particular country, and a still better again if we are acquainted with the relation which this reign bears to the world's history. Something analogous obtains with regard to violin-bowing. If the learner knows which joints he is within the province of, he will have a better chance of success. The absence of this knowledge, on the other hand, may lead to his attempting impossibilities.
9Let the student now place the point of the bow on the E string. The hair is not to be placed flat on the string, but the bow inclined towards the finger-board. If the reader, of course without holding a violin, will endeavour to shake his right hand from side to side at the wrist whilst the hand forms a straight
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