How to Pull Out the Best Tone From a Violin
Frustrated with your violin tone? Wish it was better? You are not alone. Playing the violin with good tone is the most important goal for violinists. If you don’t have good tone you’re not going to want to listen to yourself let alone have others listen to you.
In this blog post, we will go deep into the 4 aspects to develop in order to effortlessly pull out the best tone from a violin.
Tips for Best Violin Tone – Contact Point
First you have to have an absolutely unshakable relaxed violin hold in order to play with good tone. Need tips to investigate your violin hold? Check out this youtube playlist here.
Secondly, you need a relaxed bow hold. You will never achieve your full tone potential without a relaxed bow hold. Check out this youtube playlist here for tips.
Once you have your relaxed violin and bow hold foundation set you are ready for the next step.
Your contact point directly influences your tone quality. The contact point is the point where your bow is on the violin. Basically where your horsehair hits the string.
If you are too close to the bridge, it will definitely send chills down your spine. It’s gonna sound pretty screechy. Now, that’s great if you want to sound scary or if you are playing a piece where it calls for that specific sound but in general we don’t want to screech.
If you play too far over the fingerboard, you will create a surfacey sound. Again, if this is the tone you are desiring to create within a soft section of a piece then that is exactly where you want to play.
In order to create a nice concentrated healthy sound you want to be exactly in the middle of those two places, the fingerboard and the bridge.
How many times have you been dissatisfied with your tone on the violin?
You want to sound better but you don’t know where to start. You are serious about transforming your violin tone and know deep down all you are missing is proper training.
There is one simple commonality in all levels of violinists from newbie to professional – Developing Gorgeous Tone. Improve your violin tone today and beyond with Gorgeous Violin Tone Academy. 12 weeks of tonal study bliss.
Tips for Best Violin Tone – Straight Bow
It really doesn’t matter which way your bow is going crooked, if it is not straight, you are not achieving your full tone potential.
There are three different ways to make sure your bow is going straight.
- Stand in front of a mirror to double-check that your bow is going straight. You may think your bow is going straight when you look at the violin but in all actuality, it is not. This is why you want to double-check in the mirror that your bow is going straight.
- Compare your bow that it runs parallel with the bridge. Then double-check in the mirror that it is indeed so. Keep in mind, it may look straight to you but in all actuality, it is not.
- Compare your stick with the end of the fingerboard. Do you find that it runs parallel with the end of the fingerboard? Then double-check in the mirror.
- Check to see if your bow is straight in comparison to your strings. Is your bow perpendicular to the strings? Does it create a cross with the string.
After applying the above, you will know exactly how to see if your bow is going straight whether you compare to the fingerboard, bridge or perpendicular to the strings. It doesn’t matter as long as you know how you can make sure that your bow is truly going straight.
Keep in mind, as you do these tests, make sure you are truly holding the violin correctly, that your body is straight up and down and your violin hold is consistent because if it isn’t, this is just a waste of time.
Tips for Best Violin Tone – Bow Arm Mechanics
How your bow arm operates has a direct influence on whether or not you will pull out the best violin tone possible for you and your equipment. The first place to investigate is what I call the elbow elevator. Your elbow shoulder and wrist create a plane with the specific string you are on. If you change strings that plane needs to be adjusted.
When you play on the A string, your elbow should be on the A floor of your elbow elevator. When you go to the E floor your elbow needs to drop to the E floor. Okay if you go back to the A floor it goes back up, D floor up, G floor up. If we drop from the G floor to the E floor, your elbow needs to drop quite a bit. Investigate your levels because this is very, very important for producing a good tone.
Energetic Flow Through a RELAXED body
This final step to pulling out the best tone on the violin is the key that unlocks your true full tone potential. This applies to all levels of violinists from beginners to professional violinists.
Your bow arm needs to be completely relaxed from your neck all the way down to the tips of your fingers. This allows the energy of to flow directly to the violin without any blockages.
Imagine this energy to be water, that is like a waterfall or like a river flowing through. When you bring your bow to the violin, you want to feel in your shoulder that this is basically the beginning of the waterfall and from the nectk to your shoulder is completely relaxed.
After your shoulder, the water is coming down and flowing into the elbow. If you have tension in your elbow it’s going to stop that river and it’s gonna stop the flow of energy. Now, this energy in this river flows all the way through your fingertips, into the stick and finally into the violin.
This energy is being held up by the violin, flowing through the stick gets transferred and transmuted into sound.
Give it a go, bring your bow to the string, feel the energy flow from your neck to your shoulder down through your arm. Check to make sure you don’t have any blockages of tension anywhere in your bow arm.
Tension likes to get blocked in the elbow, wrist, and bow hold. If all those places are tension-free and relaxed, the energy will flow all the way completely through into the violin so your violin is basically holding up this wonderful beautiful heavily relaxed bow arm and you can pull out that great tone. This is the key to pulling out the best tone from the violin.
You are now able to pull out this amazing tone from the back of the instrument with this relaxed energy of the river flowing through your arm to the instrument.
Synopsis
All of the aspects above are absolutely mandatory to creating the best tone.
- Postural Foundation – consistent relaxed violin and bow hold are necessary to nourish on a daily basis.
- Contact Point
- Ability to play with straight bows
- Proper bow arm mechanics
- Unblocked energetic flow to the violin
Want clear guided step by step training to help you foster all of the above and more to create your best tone possible? You will LOVE my 12 week Gorgeous Tone Academy, nourish your violin tone full bloom. Discover more here.
Leave a Reply
Want to join the discussion?Feel free to contribute!