No matter their age, beginning violinists are very sensitive to the tone that their instruments make. Unfortunately, achieving a beautiful tone on the violin is not easy for a novice. However, several exercises can help beginning violinists work toward a more pleasing tone.
Violin Bow Hold
To achieve a beautiful, musical tone, the bow hold must first be free of tension, with all fingers able to move at any point during the bow stroke. Many students have tension in two places: their thumb and their pinky. Often, students will extend their pinky in an effort to “grip” or “hold” the bow as they perform a bow stroke. Suzuki, however, recommends that students should achieve a “round” shape when holding the bow (Starr, 64). Dr. Michael Hopkins also recommends that students have a flexible bow hand with the least amount of “squeeze” on the bow.
Violin Bow Stroke
Once a student develops a flexible bow hold, they can begin to use more of the bow in the bow stroke. Suzuki recommends the placement of tapes on the bow to guide the student in using different lengths of bow for different pieces of music (Starr). Dr. Michael Hopkins describes a series of physical motions that the student must achieve to develop a good tone, the most important being that the bow remain parallel to the bridge at all points during the bow stroke.
Tone Exercises
There are several exercises that can prepare the beginning violinist to develop a beautiful tone. Both Paul Rolland and Dr. Michael Hopkins recommend “shadow bowing,” an exercise where students use their shoulder or a toilet-paper tube to develop proper bow motions before the bow is applied to the violin. Rolland recommends placing the tube on the left shoulder to develop the proper forearm, wrist, and hand motions in the bow (right) arm. Once students have developed the proper movements of the forearm, they can then begin to apply these movements to the violin.
Using the physical movements learned through shadow bowing, the student can practice small chunks of music focusing on the proper arm motions. The student should begin by setting the metronome at 60 beats per minute, representing a quarter note. Then, a scale should be selected that the student knows well, so that the focus can remain on the bow motions and the quality of musical tone. Finally, the student can practice the scale by using long tones, playing each note of the scale for two beats, then increasing the number of beats used to play each note. By increasing the length of each note of the scale, the student must adjust the speed of the bow, listen to the tone, and focus on the motions of the arm.
Musical Tone
Having a musical tone is important for all musicians, especially beginners. A musical tone motivates beginner violinists to practice. With simple exercises that can be done at home, the beginning violin player can learn the proper motions to have a beautiful tone.
Resources:
Starr, W. The Suzuki Violinist. Miami: Summy-Birchard. 1976.
Johnson, S. ed. Young Strings In Action: Paul Rolland’s Approach to String Playing. Teacher’s Book volume 1. Farmingdale, NY: Boosey&Hawkes. 1985.
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