The bow’s placement is somewhat random, and we accept that. Don’t let yourself think that you have to be in just the right part of the bow. To learn to be in control of the bow’s energy, remember that any part of the bow will have enormous possibilities if your mind is right there with it. The bow is a miracle of efficiency in how it generates sound and color, but without attention to the lightening-speed changes of playing points, volume and texture can evaporate. I call them “playing points”, to differentiate them from the “sounding points”, which refer to where the bow plays between the bridge and the fingerboard. These pinpoints of power don’t have a name that I know of, but their absences are felt. Try various bowings - spiccato, staccato, and detaché - so that the strength transfers as the bow moves. Create an exercise in which a specific part of the hair takes center stage with a power that is indisputable. To get used to this unusually energetic bounce at the tip, it's important to get familiar with what it feels like, compared bouncing the bow in other parts of the bow. If your mind is drifting, the target can become vague and evasive. When your bow bounces, there should be a magnetic, spontaneous connection between the points of contact. It's unlike a spiccato, which takes place below the middle of the bow. The best stroke for these "in-between" notes (or at least the stroke used most often) is a bouncing bow, at the very tip. Left-hand pizzicato often comes between notes that are supposed to be played with the bow. It’s never at your convenience.įinding the Point of Most Power in the Bow You also learn to be spontaneous, which helps you play in an ensemble. With this exercise, you develop a visual and spatial sense of beats. Then fit the pizzicato halfway inside the beat, plucking an offbeat. The pickup can be physical (lifting the violin) or mental (seeing and hearing it in your imagination.) The second step of the exercise is to feel a longer pickup while visualizing the length of the beat. Start with a short pickup, the shorter the better. Here’s an exercise for finding the most precise moment to pluck with the finger. It’s like having a "freeze-frame" moment, a satisfying experience of rhythmic and technical spontaneity. If that happens, wait a moment before you use it, then strike with a rhythmic precision. Since the other fingers are playing their own notes, it’s easy to forget the fourth finger. So how do you transform the weakest, tiniest finger into a pinpointed powerhouse? First you need to focus your energy and pressure on the fingertip. Very often, it falls to the pinkie to perform the pizzicato. Left-hand pizzicato requires using fingers that are normally engaged in drumming out notes on the fingerboard to pluck the string. After the novelty wears off, it’s replaced with more complicated techniques and virtuosic examples, such as in Paganini's 24th Caprice and Sarasate's "Zigeunerweisen." In these cases, the bow hits the string while the fourth finger plucks the string - so how do you manage that? In these cases, it’s a neat effect and relatively easy to perform, since it’s usually on the open E string. In fact, the little plus sign which denotes a left-hand pizzicato comes up in early repertoire, in books meant for elementary school orchestras and pieces for beginners.
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