Violin Forum/Message Board

[John Cadd]

Banjo and Fiddle by Kroll is a good test of bow control after plucking the starting chords . I wanted to know which finger does the plucking to leave a steady control of the bowing so soon afterwards .Antal Zalai does a good performance of this .
I just played it back at quarter speed and can see he strums with the middle finger but also just realised the bow is tucked into his palm upside down .That`s something I never imagined before . What a fine control mechanism that is for bowing . So the Thumb and Middle finger must control the rotation to bring the hair onto the string . That` a nice piece of reverse engineering for you .
I edited the Middle finger and Thumb as the Rotator controls . That makes more sense .

[John Cadd]

My teacher could play this piece and I always thought it was a kind of ultimate test of violinist ability . How many violin teachers would be happy to demonstrate their style if a pupil made that the test to find a good teacher ? The bow my teacher used had a soft sticky wrapping where normally you find hard string winding . It was some kind of silicone or rubber . I used it just once when he asked me to play minuet in G ,one of my first lessons at ten years old. The sticky ,soft bow was something I noticed right away . Itzak Perlman has something like that on his bow .

[John Cadd]

I need to correct some of my little analysis here .I just looked at a short Itzak Perlman lesson about his Belgian bow hold and I forgot the main contact with the bow is between Thumb and Middle finger so the change from Plucking to Bowing is a roll along the middle finger . That makes more sense and is more secure .The middle finger extends to pluck and the bow rotates into the palm. The first finger just does it`s normal thing to vary the pressure plus the ring finger and pinky . Practice all that separate from the violin . Become very Thumb Conscious . Keep your thumb nail short like Itzak .

[John Cadd]

A different performance of Banjo shows a lady plucking with the forefinger . But apart from the quick gearchange to start bowing she plays it so fast it might set a new time record but musically falls flat as a pancake. This is a perfect case of losing touch with the audience .It`s almost impossible to enjoy it as music . What is the point of racing through it so fast ?