STRAIGHT BOW

You have to move your elbow. No “runner’s arm.” This is a motion we don’t really do in life, generally, and that we have to learn for violin. To be very specific, you have to use more elbow than forearm to move the bow, sometimes only the elbow. This applies when you are playing in the middle and in the frog end of the bow. At the tip and in the upper half of the bow, the forearm usually moves (the exception being for some types of small, fast bowing, but let’s not complicate things too much).

The other factor is the angle the violin comes off your body. Your bow arm has to adjust to that, so finding a good set up has a lot to do with finding where your bow arm is comfortable and the violin feels right on your shoulder. You may have to adjust the angle of the violin to your comfortable arm position. You might have to adjust the angle of the bow to where your violin wants to be. Or a little of both.

Another thing I almost forgot, is even more basic. The bow should move along the string as you play at an angle pretty close to perpendicular to the string. In other words, the bow and the string make a 90 degree angle. I say pretty close, because Ivan Galamian said (in Principles of Violin Playing and Teaching) that the tone is best with the bow at a very slight angle…something I’m still pondering, but which I think I believe. (I just haven’t fully thought about it yet.)

To cure your runner’s arm, William Star (and other’s I’m sure) recommends putting a door jamb in the way so you can’t move your elbow the way it shouldn’t move, which is around your right side towards your back. Just be careful not to block your elbow from moving up and down in space, the motion you need for a string crossing. The door jamb should be hitting your arm around the corner of the curve in your elbow, not right at the curve.

I’ll need to draw some pictures.

Time for a “door jam.” Ok, corny alert.

Here’s something that will slow you down– force yourself to do a 2 or 3 octave scale on one bow, with the slowest possible yet constant bow speed with good tone. I found it possible to go about 76 without compromising the sound.

It’s the best scale variation I’ve found for relaxing. Playing slow with mind and body awake, makes me feel like I’m tapping into the slow-moving essence of Tai Chi, though I’ve never studied Tai Chi.

For an even slower challenge, you can throw away any concern about the sound and move your bow as slow as it is possible to go without having it stop and start. If you are too slow, the bow hair will “catch” periodically. We want one notch faster than that, but no more.

This taps into the famous 1 minute bow of Ivan Galamian (not sure if he originated it or not), we’re just adding notes. And then there’s the 3 minute version…

I have been much inspired by this book “The Harmonic Experience” by
W.A. Mathieu. He has studied Indian music and also Jazz and Classical
and is a great composer. The whole idea of the book is to relate Just
Tuning to Tempered Tuning with the overtone of gaining a deeper
understanding of harmony. A link to the book on Amazon can be found
at:

http://www.amazon.com/Harmonic-Experience-Harmony-Natural-Expression/dp/0892815604

What I wanted to write about today is playing over drones.

Playing over a drone. A useful thing to do. Good for intonation. It’s
also the whole basis of Indian Classical music. Some say the Indian
ideas of playing music came about as a way to root out the principles
of music, vibration and everything. We are talking about continental
Indian music, not Native American.

I often drone with students in lessons I wanted to recommend another
useful resource: Darol Anger’s “Drones in all Keys” which is for sale
as a $10 mp3 download. Go to:

http://www.darolanger.com/tune.html#n367

It also sounds good to get a couple of string players droning. Strings
blend so well. Have each player play quietly and practice using a slow
bow speed (thereby the Ivan Galamian exercise of slow bow is brought
in). Then take turns soloing and have fun.

Things I’ve noticed. A major scale is a “safe” place to start and good
for beginners. It’s good to stay on a single note for awhile, longer
than you would probably do if you were soloing in a more normal band
setting. It’s good to mix short and long notes, too. As a challenge,
you can also try to string together running notes and test your
fluency. Beyond these basics, you can go into different scales (7
modes to choose from, and many possibilities beyond that) and make up
new patterns to master and improve in your chosen are of
improvisation.

One thing I like about drones is they bring you back to the sound.
Since you have to think about what you’re playing in relation to the
drone, it is both simple and difficult to hear if you are “perfectly”
in tune (more about that later)– whether you are hearing and playing
with equal measure. Even when you get distracted, you return to the
drone eventually. It’s “always there.” You will be drawn back to it.
Without even trying, you’ll naturally create phrases that eventually
return to the home note, the drone.

At some point I will record many tracks of strings droning and sell my
own “Drones in Each Key.” Five minutes each and an hour goes by.

It’s called “stop on the tension notes.”

E.X. in C major:

C, D, E, F, G, A, B (hold) C, B, A, G, F, E, D (hold)

Interesting.