Books › Modern Violin-playing, 1920 › scan 68
Scan 68
Modern Violin-playing, 1920
16 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1drance, not a help. Finally, the player has no real control over his apparatus. His mastery of the stick practically ends at the point where his forefinger lies. Beyond that, the string may, and will, become so bouncey that, with the slightest nervousness on his part, the even course of the horsehair is liable to be upset. Nor can he correct these irregularities by means of a small increase or decrease of this kind of pressure. For the main result of that will merely be that the string will be bent either more or less than before.
3This method of bowing, then—the method of the pressing forefinger and the forearm rotating round the thumb—is unsatisfactory.
5Not more satisfactory is the shoulder-method. This utilizes the shoulder as the point from which pressure is exerted. The idea is that, if the arm is held at all crooked, and the upper-arm rotated away from the body, the hand is bound to descend.
7It is, however, a very elementary principle in mechanics that it is more difficult to deliver power through a long shaft than through a short one of the same diameter. With the long shaft there is always some loss from elasticity or bending. Errors are magnified, as the distance from their point of origin increases. And, in the arm, there is the added disadvantage of the joints that are interposed between the shoulder and the fingers.
9Besides these mechanical principles, we must not forget that there are also human factors to be considered. The power has to travel a long way from shoulder to bow-stick. A great strain is thus placed on the muscles, and vocational cramp of the shoulder is the almost certain result.
11This painful complaint sometimes comes from the long and unrelieved holding of a muscle contracted. More often it is due to the fact that the surfaces of the bones are not always perfectly smooth. They may have tiny projections which cause irritation, particularly round the joints. A projection of this sort may rub across the muscle or tendon-sheath, as the arm is moved to-and-fro, and may set up inflammation in either. When this inflammation is in the tendon-sheath, the wall weakens, stretches, and forms a pocket, which fills with the lubricating fluid of the tendon.¹
13But apart from these very serious physical drawbacks, there is a strong mechanical reason why pressure should not be applied from the
15¹ Cramp sometimes attacks the hand when the tone is produced by pressure of the forefinger from the knuckle. It is also the inevitable consequence of raising the right collar-bone to "assist" the pressure.
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