Books › The Violin: How to Master It, 1880 › scan 42
Scan 42
The Violin: How to Master It, 1880
12 lines. Read by computer on 23 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1CHAPTER VI.
3The Management of the Bow.
5The mastery of the bow is the perfection of grace and delicate art. Without it no student, however hard working, need hope for that endless variety of expression and subtle swelling and diminishing of tone, which places the violin above every musical instrument; with it, success is almost sure.
7Balancing the Bow.
9The bow is held balanced between the thumb and the first and fourth fingers of the right hand. Any student may analyze the position and management for himself by placing the inner side of the point of his thumb, about the middle of the nail, on the stick close to the little silver ferule binding the hair in the nut, sloping towards the heel of the bow in exactly the line of the fourth finger, the point of the little finger on the top of the stick, about an inch and a half behind the thumb, and the first joint of the first finger on the front of the stick, about an inch before the thumb. He will have the bow perfectly balanced without the aid of the two middle fingers at all.
11Let him now bring down the two middle fingers easily between the first and fourth, slightly apart, and sloping gracefully towards the heel of the bow so as to show no angular joints or knuckles, turn out the first joint of the thumb till the back of that member, close to the outer corner of the root of the nail, presses against the edge of the hair close to the nut, and the position is perfect. He will now find that the thumb is exactly opposite the second finger; that the stick of the bow runs across the first joint and towards the second joint of the first finger in a slanting direction; across the fleshy part of the points of the second and third fingers in front of the first joint, to the point of the little finger, which, being shorter, lies naturally, and as an important balancing lever, on top of the stick, instead of hanging over the front like the other three.
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