Left Hand Posture for Violin
Don’t Want to Read? Watch the Video!
In this post, discover proper left hand posture. It’s very important while playing the violin that you have correct posture and a relaxed left hand. The best left hand is a relaxed left hand. After you’ve mastered holding the violin with your jaw and shoulder, (check out my violin hold blog post here) the next step is to actually bring the left hand to the violin.
To start, you can just shake your left hand out. Get it nice and relaxed. With the palm facing up bring the palm to the violin. It’s very important to keep the wrist straight. You don’t want it to be sticking out and you also don’t want it to be collapsing in to touch the violin.
A lot of beginner violinists hold the violin with a collapsed wrist thinking that it’s helpful but it is not. You want to make sure that the wrist is straight.
The other thing that you want to watch out for is that it is very easy to tense up between the thumb and the base of the index finger. This space needs to be open.
Check out my blog post on how to play without left hand tension here.
You always want to be relaxed. So when you first start playing with each finger you want to be able to keep the thenar web space open.
When you do bring your fingers to the strings and start playing, you want to just do one finger at a time keeping the hand open up and the palm always facing the fingerboard.
Do keep in mind there are different schools of thought of how the left hand should be.
MENUHIN TEACHES PROPER LEFT HAND POSTURE FOR THE VIOLIN
What I demonstrated in the training video coincides with Menuhin’s thoughts on the left hand as well.
Menuhin discusses left hand posture for the violin at 4:30. Here you can clearly see his demonstration of the left hand relationship to the violin.
LEFT HAND POSTURE FOR THE VIOLIN BASED ON THE RUSSIAN SCHOOL
Some violinists play with the fingerboard resting on the web of the hand between the thumb and index finger.
This is based on the Russian school of violin playing training and is shown in the example video below by violinist Egor Gzechishnikov.
One commonality between the two left hand postures – a relaxed left hand.
So, no matter where your contact point (where the violin contacts your left hand) may be, it is most important that your left hand is relaxed and your palm is facing the fingerboard.
Have fun setting up your beautiful relaxed left hand!
Need some personal pointers?
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Happy Magical Practices,
Heather is a classically trained concert violinist residing in Bulgaria. She received her BM violin performance degree from CU-Boulder, studied with top teachers including Rachel Barton Pine. Heather has held leadership positions with multiple orchestras in the Greater Chicago-Milwaukee area. She has instructed millions of violinists globally via Youtube videos, online academies, group coaching and one on one sessions. Heather’s students have won multiple awards, concerto competitions, held concertmaster positions in orchestras and even performed in Carnegie Hall. Heather is an advocate of a holistic violin lifestyle – putting one’s mind, body and spirit as a violin journey priority.
Please share in the comments which above tips you will be implementing into your daily practices sessions.
Great tips. I am working on relaxing my left hand. These useful tips on holding the violin will surely free up my arm, shoulder and wrist for more motion. Great lesson and blog post as usual. Beautiful setting. Thanks for the blog post and excellent help.
Toni,
Thanks so much for your comment. You are most welcome. Keep me posted on how your relaxation is going 🙂
Thank you so much for sharing the Russian school video! Every other video I’ve seen online has always been the French method which absolutely does not work for me. I have an extremely short pinkie which really curves against my ring finger. If I try to use the French method, my wrist and hand twist in an awful way and tense up horribly. The Russian method actually works really well with my hand. I thought trying to hold the violin like that would be absolutely wrong but I’m glad it’s not!
You are most welcome Kiki!