24 Aug Violin Bow Finger Technique

To develop a smooth and even sound on the violin, the movement of our fingers holding the bow plays an important role. The two functions of the fingers are to control the bows direction and to absorb the raw movement of our bow-arm.

The fingers on the violin bow are the most active during a bow change towards the end of a bow stroke. Often times the fingers movement looks passive from the outside. But there is an important active part in the finger movement on the bow, which I will describe in this article. Also if we can actively move the fingers it is much easier to control the passive part of the movement as well.

Bow change at the frog

At the frog, when changing from an up-bow to a down-bow, we start curling the fingers and flatten the wrist right before the bow change. This part of the movement happens actively right when the bow-arm starts to change its direction to the down-bow. The fingers and wrist actively continue our bow stroke while the arm is already preparing the direction change. At the moment the bow changes direction, the fingers and wrist start absorbing the arms movement passively. The fingers curl more and the wrist flattens further.

Bow change at the tip

The ability to use our fingers at the tip of the bow depends on the length of our arms, but even with shorter arms, it can be beneficial to practice using the fingers for bow changes in the upper part of the bow. Ideally when changing the bow from a down-bow to an up-bow we straighten our fingers towards the end of the bow stroke. Simultanuously with the arms initiation of the direction change the fingers and wrist actively continue the down-bow movement. This movement transfers over into a passive one absorbing the up-bow movement of the arm. The fingers continue to straighten passively and the wrist raises while absorbing the arms movement.

Practicing tips

The active movement of the fingers followed by the passive one happens in a split second. To learn the movement and our control over it slow practice is recommended. We can practice the movement only with the bow as I show in the video as well as directly on the violin. When we practice the finger movement on the violin at the outer ends of our bow, we want to use just very little arm movement and mainly practice the transition between the up-bow and down-bow from the fingers and the wrist. When we straighten our fingers at the tip of the bow we have to be careful not to lock our joints. At the frog when curling the fingers and lowering the wrist our arms position needs to be high enough so that our thumb doesn’t hit the violin.

If you want to learn more about bowing technique join my course Sound of the Violin.