First Bow Strokes

A bit overdue... but here's a vid of my "first bow strokes". The clips are from Feb 7th to Feb 20th.

There was great amount of improvement over 2 weeks - much more than I would have anticipated. I practice about 30 minutes/day and it's actually paying off - it's nice to now see my bow hand relaxed and extension with my elbow [instead of moving my upper arm]. At times, I'd rest my left arm against my body for support, but I stopped doing that very early from what I just watched... My posture was also off a bit initially - I'd tilt my head instead of turning my neck to hold the violin. So yeah, there's been a lot of improvement and much more to come!

I've learned to bow at the frog and tip, so I'll work on whole bow strokes this week. Hopefully I'll have enough time to get to left-hand placement over the weekend.

Ah, Posture

This is my second week of actually bowing the violin and I must say I've learned loads... some by accident and some with reading n such.

My tone seems to have improved and I've gained more control of the bow, thus there's not nearly as much "bouncing" and "scrapping" when I practice. Of course there's still A LOT - just not as bad. A few major things that I've been trying to focus on this week: better control while bowing at the tip, unintentionally touching other strings, and posture... good ole posture.

While browsing the net for info on muscles involved in playing the violin I came across a book on posture: How Muscles Learn: Teaching Violin With The Body In Mind by Susan Kempter. It's a brief read (96 pgs) and it seemed pretty informative, from the few pages that I've read. I tried to change a few things in my stance and the angle of my neck - boy did that help! ...My current chinrest isn't as uncomfortable as I thought... it was me the whole time. : )

Just a Bow

What a dull week... You know when you start something new and anticipate the time you'll experience what's great about it. Like reading a well polished book or starting an exciting new class? Well, that's where I'm at and where I'll be for several months.

I've greatly improved my ability to ID written notes just by using the Violin Fingering Drill on eMusic Theory (check my resources page) and gradually working on my timing using a metronome. On the other end, bow handling progress was a little uncomfortable initially

Naturally, I don't regularly exert the muscles needed to bow soooo it seemed as though I couldn't "make them work" when I wanted too - particularly muscles of the little finger. Ha, I don't even type with my little fingers... they're like "accessory fingers" to me. Anyway, I've posted a short clip below that shows bow handling progression through-out the week (Mon, Wed, & Fri).