Books › Modern Violin-playing, 1920 › scan 92
Scan 92
Modern Violin-playing, 1920
22 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1been properly relaxed, and has permitted the arm to follow the hand without interference.
3The bow is now at the tip. And at this point you should repeat the experiments in pressure which you have just made at the middle of the bow. Press and relax five or six times; taking care, as usual, that the pressure is a pressure of the hand from the wrist.
5Then move the bow upwards with the hand; until the forearm is parallel to the floor.
7Here again, before changing the action of the hand, you must examine your arm carefully. For there is more danger of shoulder-interference during the up-bow than during the down. Repeat this exercise, then, until you are convinced that your hand is acting without any intervention either from the arm or from the fingers.
9After you have assured yourself on this question, you may move the bow rapidly between the middle and the point some twenty or thirty times.
11Be sure that if the shoulder or the elbow then feels tired or cramped you have been allowing the shoulder to exert pressure in an effort to "help" the hand. Or it may be that the impulse to move the bow is only partly centred in the hand. The forearm may be participating. And the result will be a subconscious confusion as to the exact moment when the upward movement changes to the downward, and vice versa.
13After the above exercises have been pretty well mastered as between the middle of the bow and the point, they should all be repeated from the middle to the heel.
15When the two halves of the bow can be used with some facility, it is high time to begin drawing the bow from end to end.
17While doing this, it is an excellent plan to stop suddenly and examine the shoulder. If the bow can be drawn from end to end with the greatest swiftness and lightness, it means that the arm is absolutely free. The stop, when it is made, should be a long one; and the bow should remain on the string, while the player concentrates upon the next stroke. If there is the least stuttering during the stroke, it may be taken for granted that the arm is not accommodating itself to the movements of the hand; but is participating in directing the movements of the bow.
19The next difficulty to be faced is the change of bow. Here again we shall be well-advised to begin the practice of the change at the middle of the bow.
21First place the bow on the string, with the hand at a right angle to
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