How to Hold a Violin Bow Step by Step for Best Results
Are you a beginner violinist that’s really struggling to hold the violin bow? You have no idea how to hold it or perhaps you’re a returning violinist, you cannot remember how to hold the bow? In this post, discover how to hold the bow step by step and create a beautiful balanced bow hold to help you pull out gorgeous tone.
The role of the thumb in the bow hold
The first step is to get your thumb in the proper place. Here we want that thumb to be half stick, half frog, angled in. We don’t want the thumb to be bent backwards, hyperextended, sitting only on the stick, we want it to be angled in half stick, half frog.
You know you have it in the right place if you see an indentation on the corner of your thumb.
Our first step is to really understand how the thumb sits for the bow hold.
The most perfect bow hold is a relaxed bow hold
We want to alleviate any tension at all in the right hand. If there is tension, it’s going to come across in your tone. You’re going to sound tense but if we’re relaxed and balanced, it’s going to really help to create a gorgeous tone.
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Role of the middle fingers in the bow hold
Once you have your thumb in its place, you want to focus on your middle fingers, your middle finger and your ring finger. Allow them to just sit gently over the stick and on the frog here. We don’t want to feel like we have to wrap them over Tension is created by forcing them to be wrapped. We just want them to gently sit.
The roles of the pinky and index finger
Allow the pinky to sit on its tip nice and curved. Don’t feel like you have to have him sitting on the silver, just let him fall where it feels natural.
Also allow the index finger to fall where it feels natural. Do not overwrap the index finger as this causes a lot of tension. Just a nice relaxed index finger. Where the index finger hits the stick, is just here above the first knuckle above the nail.
Shake out your bow hold
Hold the bow with your left hand and shake out your right hand. After you shake out your right hand and it is nice and relaxed, allow your left hand to bring the bow to your right hand.
Have your thumb find its spot and allow your other fingers to relax on to the bow. Don’t grab the bow.
Be aware that you are not index finger heavy.
This is one of the things I work with so many violinists that come to me and we retrain their bow hold is because they are index finger heavy, meaning the dominant finger. When the index finger is taking over, the other fingers don’t really know what their jobs are.
We want our bow hold to be nice and balanced. What I mean by balanced is that you want to feel like the center of your bow hold is really in the middle of the hand. Not that the index finger is all strength and the ring finger and pinky is weak.
Bow hold balance
It is important to have a balanced bow hold that allows us to be comfortable where we are in the bow.
When we are the frog the pinky and ring finger are active, the index finger is passive. When we go to the tip, the active part of our bow hold is here on the index finger and the pinky is passive.
When we’re in the middle of the bow, we’re back to being balanced.
If you are index finger heavy and you’re trying to play at the frog with a heavy index finger you are actually working against yourself.
Exercise Time
Bow Hold Finger Taps at the Frog:
- Set your bow on the string and check that your index finger is not heavy. You can just give it a couple of taps.
- Check in that your shoulder is relaxed
- Check in that your elbow is relaxed and you feel your pinky nice and curved. We don’t want a high elbow or high shoulder here.
- As you pull a down bow to the middle of the bow, check into your bow hold that you have a nice relaxed pinky, tap the index finger that it is relaxed and not overwrapped.
- As we go to the tip of the bow, check and make sure that you feel your index finger being active and your pinky is nice and relaxed here.
- As you play from frog to tip back to frog keep your bow nice and straight and check in with your bow hold and fingers where they are active or passive.
Maintain a flexible bow hold
A frozen bow hold is not going to allow us to make the subtle changes that we need to make as we go from frog to tip. So when you go to the tip you’re going to feel that your pinky doesn’t have so much weight and then when you go to the frog you’re going to really feel that your pinky has a little bit more weight and responsibility.
Let me know in the comments below your findings after implementing the exercise above.
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