3 ms·

>> you want the finger to land normal to the board for any given string. > > It's not clear to me why that would be. Tone and tension. You have to use a lot

>> you want the finger to land normal to the board for any given string. > > It's not clear to me why that would be. Tone and tension. You have to use a lot more force to push the string down, if you hit it at an angle. To clarify, I mean normal mostly in the plane perpendicular to the string (across the body). If your elbow is rotated too far backwards and you're trying to play on the G string, your finger will end up nearly parallel with the fingerboard. To reach the G string, you'll have to extend the fingers (at least, with my sized hands). Do not avoid the higher string though, as this too will affect tone. The strongest and also most relaxed hand position is naturally curled (mostly a fist, but you can't really play the left hand that way... You can the right hand however). By rotating the elbow, you preserve that relaxed hand position on all strings in lower positions. > When I decided I didn't have time to maintain both a Baroque and a modern technique, I ended up merging them. Haven't used a shoulder rest in years, but I do use a low, center mount chinrest with a gel pad on it. When you seek left hand balance, you want to minimize downward force, so you can apply equal upward force with your thumb (this is roughly balance). With a shoulder rest (or I fear, a tall chin rest), you can also apply supporting force via the chin and the rest, but that's a source of tension if you're not careful. You can still perform many shifts with little downward pressure, if you leave the thumb immobile during the shift (either moving before or after). Some shifts where both move are still possible. After lots of practice (perhaps less for you, since you are already accustomed to playing without a shoulder rest -- I wasn't yet), you can get it to a minimum even in Concertos like the Tchaikovsky. > I don't have access to a music library anymore, so the Babitz stuff looks like it might be hard to find, but the Martinic-Jercic book looks really interesting. Thanks! I have a PDF of the Babitz that I scanned while at school if you are curious. It's a collection of his short articles in other publications. And to clarify in case it might not've been obvious, I studied under Boro. I don't have any monetary interest in his book, but I do think he made a lot of sense.

madhadron 6y ago
> ...To clarify, I mean normal mostly in the plane perpendicular to the string (across the body)... Ah, we're talking about exactly the same thing. Just a question of how we phrase it. > After lots of practice (perhaps less for you, since you are already accustomed to playing without a shoulder rest -- I wasn't yet), you can get it to a minimum even in Concertos like the Tchaikovsky. I tried to go full Baroque first where I shifted around an immobile thumb. Despite having big hands, there's that down shift in the first movement of the Mendelssohn. I spent a few weeks trying to figure out how to reliably make that shift without using the chin, and never found a way. So at this point I ideally only apply pressure to the chin rest when I need to do a downshift, and only just enough to keep it the violin from pulling away from my neck. I've found Ricci's recommendation of glissando scales to be a great way of training this (as well as so much else): ascend without touching the violin with your chin. Descend with as little pressure on the violin as you can manage.

madhadron 6y ago

> ...To clarify, I mean normal mostly in the plane perpendicular to the string (across the body)... Ah, we're talking about exactly the same thing. Just a question of how we phrase it. > After lots of practice (perhaps less for you, since you are already accustomed to playing without a shoulder rest -- I wasn't yet), you can get it to a minimum even in Concertos like the Tchaikovsky. I tried to go full Baroque first where I shifted around an immobile thumb. Despite having big hands, there's that down shift in the first movement of the Mendelssohn. I spent a few weeks trying to figure out how to reliably make that shift without using the chin, and never found a way. So at this point I ideally only apply pressure to the chin rest when I need to do a downshift, and only just enough to keep it the violin from pulling away from my neck. I've found Ricci's recommendation of glissando scales to be a great way of training this (as well as so much else): ascend without touching the violin with your chin. Descend with as little pressure on the violin as you can manage.