Day 10
Back to the “tilted bow vs. flat bow” debate. I have done more experiments today and finally noticed some differences. It looks like with a flat bow, you can apply slightly less pressure, and it is easier to catch up the string faster at the tip. Based on this, my new strategy is to keep the bow tilted at the frog and gradually flatten it up the bow to arrive flat at the tip. This makes perfect sense because the bow becomes lighter at the tip, and a flat bow will compensate for that. Now to the question of some flat bow/tilted bow warrior - “Which camp do you belong to?” - I can answer neither and both!
After open strings, I moved to Roland Vamos's “Daily Sixteen” (https://www.carlfischer.com/bf131-the-violinist-e2-80-99s-daily-warm-ups-and-scale-system.html).
Those exercises are brilliant! Not a warm-up for me yet (I spent most of my time on the first exercise to troubleshoot my problems), but they were right on target!
Problems I was troubleshooting:
First and fourth finger on a slur - tone loss on the fourth finger. Analyzing the problem, I noticed that my thumb was overpressing when hitting with the fourth finger. When I thought about it, I realized that the main problem was not that my fourth finger was weaker but that it was more difficult to transfer the arm weight to the fourth finger. The solution is to release weight from the first finger (so it is barely touching the string) and transfer the arm weight to the fourth finger.
When you go to higher positions, my half step is too wide. I need to “step” on my finger to make it shorter.
Correct intonation when going to a higher position (I had to check it with Intonia to get it right).
Keeping hand and fingers completely still on the string
Keeping my fingers close to the fingerboard, hovering over the note, I will play.
Do not go to the VII position. It is too early.
Because of all these problems, I only had time for the first exercise, but it was worth it! My philosophy is that to learn faster, you need to go slower:). It is better to do a few things right than many wrong. Moreover, I was doing each “mini exercise” (one measure each) multiple times to get it right. And after that, I was doing it faster and faster. I read a research paper on effective practice, and the main finding was that it is not time spent on exercise but the number of times you did it right. So with faster repetition (if you keep it right!), you will learn faster.
Finally, I went to vibrato exercises, but with a new flavor. I was vibrating through the bow change and not vibrating in the middle of the bow to relax my hand (thank you, Beth, for pointing it out!). At the change, I wanted to keep the vibrato wave in Intonia uninterrupted and smooth as much as possible. It turns out it was too difficult for me at the frog, and I had to split my exercise in two (at the tip first and to the middle of the bow and back, and from the middle to the frog for the second one). Problems I need to address:
Not to tense my body when vibrating (especially my left shoulder). As a temporary solution, I begin with a very slow vibrato (easier to relax) and gradually speed it up
Maintaining vibrato through the bow change at the frog is too difficult for me yet. Solution: change bow earlier and begin to approach the frog gradually.
Keep the bowing exactly the same with vibrato as without vibrato to keep the same quality of the tone.
To keep the tone smooth through the bow change, I need to think about it as one motion (up-down bow) ratchet than two separate motions (up bow, down bow).
After this exercise, I did continuous vibrato on the A string (from the first to the fourth finger and back), and it became much better!
Finally, I did exercise N.11 from “Finger Exercises for violin.” Book one (by Caissa Harvey). The low second finger is always a problem for me.
Points to remember:
Keep fingers light. Do not overpress (especially with the first finger).
Keep fingers on the string but release weight when moving to the next.
Hover your fingers over the notes and keep them as close to the fingerboard as needed for good articulation.
Keep a good tone and focus on the right arm when speeding up!