Books › Modern violin-playing, 1920 › scan 46
Scan 46
Modern violin-playing, 1920
12 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. Printed page 24. See the scan on archive.org.
1each finger should take the strongest curve and the one best suited to it. In practice it comes to this: that there must be a slight shifting of the hand forwards or backwards relative to the thumb, so that the new finger may be pressed down with the greatest ease and efficiency. And this can only be done if the muscles which join the thumb to the hand are trained to relax, and so to permit each finger-movement to take place at the moment that the preceding finger is raised.
3Another pair of pictures may be grouped here, to show correct and incorrect positions of the first finger. These two pictures (Plates 12 and 13) must be compared with our two earlier plates (10 and 11) which showed the right and the wrong way of holding the violin. Plates 12 and 13 give us, in fact, the finger-results of the correct and incorrect methods of Plates 10 and 11. In Plate 12 we see the finger properly posed and relaxed, when the neck of the violin rests upon the thumb. While Plate 13 shows us the faulty position of the first finger, often caused by "clutching" with the whole left-hand.
5Now that we have cleared the ground by these preliminary considerations, we are at liberty to follow them up by the ten exercises which we outlined at the beginning of the chapter. They are here all grouped together; but the student may be reminded of the fact that the first seven differ in intention from the last three. Performed away from the instrument, and therefore without the distraction of sound, they will give him an instinctive perception of what is meant by the words "muscular control." And even after their validity has been tested on the violin, it will be beneficial to go back and try to perfect them, simply as muscular exercises.
7EXERCISE I
9Raise the arm slowly until it is parallel with the floor, then allow it to fall limply to the side. This should be done both to the side and to the front, and care should be taken not to raise the collar-bone.
11The object of this exercise is to develope the sense of what is the least effort necessary to raise the arm from its zero, that is to say from a state of complete relaxation. After it has been practised, it will be well to get someone to raise the arm, and, without warning, to let it go free. As it is not yet certain that the arm will fall, we go to the next exercise.
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