Thanks for your extreme careful explanation of the "Advanced Bowing Techniques" for Cello which I encountered just in the moment having to deal with a covid-19-infection: So I am sitting fascinated in my bed with my old school-bow, playing around the "magic trick" and the other seven techniques........ Thanks, a lot!
Fantastic presentation - so clear and sequential. Thank you for sharing your bowing expertise with us. Cellists can really benefit from this instruction. I received this type of coaching from my teacher, Toby Saks, at the University of Washington. She was a long-time student of Leonard Rose and former member of the New York Philharmonic.
Thank you all for your feedback, both positive and negative, on this video. The recent posting of a short silent-film clip entitled: “Bronislaw Huberman Shows How to Play the Violin” is extremely important to see, especially just after its 40-second mark, which vividly illustrates my point here. Huberman was a world-famous pupil of Joseph Joachim-and Johannes Brahms’s favorite violinist. Enjoy!
thanks for the video. I'm having a very hard time with the first step in the magic trick. do you have any advice to prevent the bow from slipping out from underneath the pinky? should the index finger curl much under the bow?
@@jstaub1125 Then your pinky isn’t at a functional angle to the stick; if you have a mental picture of it pushing straight down from above, then of course it will slip off forwards, as I mentioned in the video. Get it all the way behind the stick, so the finger forms between a 45-degree to 90-degree angle with the frog-the finger is closer to parallel with the floor, while the frog is closer to parallel with the wall. The pinky doesn’t just push down, it also pushes outward.
If a cellist lost their little finger, could they still play. Of course they could. How often do you play the cello with the bow off of the strings? The two most important digits on the bow hand are the index finger and thumb.
Hi, Matt: Try to concentrate your attention on your pinky’s flexor muscles and to keep them engaged, so that there’s always a slight convex arch throughout all three knuckles in all your fingers. When we “straighten” them, we don’t ever mean that we want any of our fingers to get truly straight; if they did, they’d lose all their springiness and elasticity, both of which are necessary. Thanks, great comment from you!
Thank you so much for these detailed explanations. I have a question regarding the thumb. During the first exercices without the cords, I feel a certain tension in the thumb while moving and I feel I add some extra pressure to make sure I hold the bow. How do we position the thumb (very rounded or not) and what are we supposed to feel while doing the exercises? Thank you again!
Hi, Laura: Any temptation to squeeze the thumbs when we feel things going wrong is to chase after a completely false sense of security. Squeeze, then the wrist locks and the whole apparatus becomes non-functional. The actual problems you face are the angle of the tip bone of your thumb where it meets the bow stick, and the point on the round surface of the stick where the thumb is placed-and the two are closely related. To deal with the second problem first, if you place the thumb too high or too low against the bow’s rounded surface then, respectively, it will begin slipping over or, more usually under, the stick. The first order of business is therefore to notice carefully which direction it tends to slip, whether down or up, and correct it through trial and error until you feel it reliably balanced against the center of the curve. The thumb angle, though, is the crux of your question; its necessary flexibility is entirely dependent on how far the distel (closest to the thumb-nail) knuckle of the thumb can flex and straighten once that point is reliably felt. That area of play is the thumb’s “balance zone”-not balance point-because the freedom of its flexion movement in that knuckle is limited by how far the angle of its tip bone can safely change, on either side of the center of the bow’s rounded surface, before it starts to slip in either direction. Again, find it by trial and error, with-very important-a completely relaxed hand. Never spread or contort your fingers to conform to any (naggingly false) sense of security!
I should add, by the way, that the thumb contacts the bow at the very tip of its distel bone. Some people, unfortunately, contact the stick or even frog with a part of the distel bone more or less close to, but not at, the very tip; playing this way compels the cellist to squeeze the bow between thumb and fingers to get any sound at all. Sound production must never come from the thumb; it must come from the back and torso. The job of the fingers and thumb is only to control articulation.
Hi, Johan-this is the only video I made on this topic, but you’re right, a complete collé techniques demonstration demands one or two more videos. They would largely be based on the G minor Duport étude, the one that oscillates between three strings, number 7 in many publications. Motionless-arm practice of that étude at the bow’s extreme tip creates great resistance for the “adductor pollicis” muscle (the one crossing between the base of the thumb and the top of the metacarpal). Doing the same thing at the extreme heel of the bow creates similarly stiff resistance for the “hypothenar” muscles-the “karate-chop” muscles on the pinky-side edge of the palm. At the heel, that étude needs to be practiced both on-string and off-string. Variations beginning downbow, then upbow-both on and off string-equal four variants right there. Subtracting one finger at a time, while practicing the same étude, equals sixteen more variants. When you’ve conditioned, balanced and strengthened your right hand through a few months of that regimen, then you’ll realize clearly why it’s easiest to play in the middle of the bow, where the tension is spread evenly across the metacarpal. You’ll find the very highest degree of bow mastery through that path-and you can teach yourself, even with what I’ve provided here.
@@mylesjordan9970 Thank you for the extra information. But I do not understand what you mean by "Subtracting one finger at a time, ...". Can you explain that please?
@@SamynJohan Simply lifting the index finger from the bow as you work completely changes the balance of the hand, placing the greatest point of resistance toward the middle fingers, which eventually rise to the occasion. Similarly, removing the pinky creates another imbalance that educates your hand. When you can play more or less comfortably on the three strings of the Duport without moving your arm at all, on-string and off-string, the resulting flexibility and balance of the whole hand becomes transformational to your right-hand technique.
This is wrong. Watch the masterclass of Jerome Perno. The pink finger should be on parallel with other fingers on the surface of the frog, not on the bow stick itself. Of course, it's more difficult to achieve it's stability in that place, but the benefits would be huge: you would be able to do the smooth bow changes with mostly your fingers without that weird wrist's moves showed on video. And the exercise he shows is wrong too. You should practise a different one with your FINGERS only. At the start, it could be difficult, but again, you will achieve much better control of the bow at the end.
Why does this have to be wrong just because its not what you’ve been taught. With my teacher I’ve done these exercises for a while and they’ve helped alot.
There is nothing wrong here. Not everyone teaches the same way. We need to look at many teachers and learn from all of them. This is one of the best teachers I've seen.
Completely ignorant. For the record, I disagree with a lot of what is said in this video, but the idea that there's a single correct way to do things and everything else is wrong is absurd. There are tradeoffs to the different schools of playing and ideally you become adaptable. People often say imprecise things about the fundamental principles behind their playing, but the manifestation of those ideas are true in their own right and again have tradeoffs. Get your head on straight
Thanks for your extreme careful explanation of the "Advanced Bowing Techniques" for Cello which I encountered just in the moment having to deal with a covid-19-infection: So I am sitting fascinated in my bed with my old school-bow, playing around the "magic trick" and the other seven techniques........ Thanks, a lot!
Fantastic presentation - so clear and sequential. Thank you for sharing your bowing expertise with us. Cellists can really benefit from this instruction. I received this type of coaching from my teacher, Toby Saks, at the University of Washington. She was a long-time student of Leonard Rose and former member of the New York Philharmonic.
I particularly liked the Rostropovich impersonation. It was like he was in the room! Great instruction THANKS, I am trying it now...
Thank you all for your feedback, both positive and negative, on this video. The recent posting of a short silent-film clip entitled: “Bronislaw Huberman Shows How to Play the Violin” is extremely important to see, especially just after its 40-second mark, which vividly illustrates my point here. Huberman was a world-famous pupil of Joseph Joachim-and Johannes Brahms’s favorite violinist. Enjoy!
thanks for the video. I'm having a very hard time with the first step in the magic trick. do you have any advice to prevent the bow from slipping out from underneath the pinky? should the index finger curl much under the bow?
@@jstaub1125 Hi, James: Slipping off in which direction? Over the front? Behind the stick?
@@mylesjordan9970 it slips off over the front, and often the bow will roll beneath it.
@@jstaub1125 Then your pinky isn’t at a functional angle to the stick; if you have a mental picture of it pushing straight down from above, then of course it will slip off forwards, as I mentioned in the video. Get it all the way behind the stick, so the finger forms between a 45-degree to 90-degree angle with the frog-the finger is closer to parallel with the floor, while the frog is closer to parallel with the wall. The pinky doesn’t just push down, it also pushes outward.
@@mylesjordan9970 I'll try that, thanks very much
Thank You so much!
Thank you..
Hi, excelente video has been very useful for Learning, Thanks You.
If a cellist lost their little finger, could they still play. Of course they could. How often do you play the cello with the bow off of the strings? The two most important digits on the bow hand are the index finger and thumb.
super hard to do this being double jointed, my pinky only goes straight on the first exercise right now, but I will keep working on it!
Hi, Matt: Try to concentrate your attention on your pinky’s flexor muscles and to keep them engaged, so that there’s always a slight convex arch throughout all three knuckles in all your fingers. When we “straighten” them, we don’t ever mean that we want any of our fingers to get truly straight; if they did, they’d lose all their springiness and elasticity, both of which are necessary. Thanks, great comment from you!
Thank you so much for these detailed explanations.
I have a question regarding the thumb.
During the first exercices without the cords, I feel a certain tension in the thumb while moving and I feel I add some extra pressure to make sure I hold the bow.
How do we position the thumb (very rounded or not) and what are we supposed to feel while doing the exercises?
Thank you again!
Hi, Laura: Any temptation to squeeze the thumbs when we feel things going wrong is to chase after a completely false sense of security. Squeeze, then the wrist locks and the whole apparatus becomes non-functional. The actual problems you face are the angle of the tip bone of your thumb where it meets the bow stick, and the point on the round surface of the stick where the thumb is placed-and the two are closely related. To deal with the second problem first, if you place the thumb too high or too low against the bow’s rounded surface then, respectively, it will begin slipping over or, more usually under, the stick. The first order of business is therefore to notice carefully which direction it tends to slip, whether down or up, and correct it through trial and error until you feel it reliably balanced against the center of the curve. The thumb angle, though, is the crux of your question; its necessary flexibility is entirely dependent on how far the distel (closest to the thumb-nail) knuckle of the thumb can flex and straighten once that point is reliably felt. That area of play is the thumb’s “balance zone”-not balance point-because the freedom of its flexion movement in that knuckle is limited by how far the angle of its tip bone can safely change, on either side of the center of the bow’s rounded surface, before it starts to slip in either direction. Again, find it by trial and error, with-very important-a completely relaxed hand. Never spread or contort your fingers to conform to any (naggingly false) sense of security!
I should add, by the way, that the thumb contacts the bow at the very tip of its distel bone. Some people, unfortunately, contact the stick or even frog with a part of the distel bone more or less close to, but not at, the very tip; playing this way compels the cellist to squeeze the bow between thumb and fingers to get any sound at all. Sound production must never come from the thumb; it must come from the back and torso. The job of the fingers and thumb is only to control articulation.
Hi Myles, thanks for these useful exercises. Do you happen to have a similar video for work at the tip of the bow?
Hi, Johan-this is the only video I made on this topic, but you’re right, a complete collé techniques demonstration demands one or two more videos. They would largely be based on the G minor Duport étude, the one that oscillates between three strings, number 7 in many publications. Motionless-arm practice of that étude at the bow’s extreme tip creates great resistance for the “adductor pollicis” muscle (the one crossing between the base of the thumb and the top of the metacarpal). Doing the same thing at the extreme heel of the bow creates similarly stiff resistance for the “hypothenar” muscles-the “karate-chop” muscles on the pinky-side edge of the palm. At the heel, that étude needs to be practiced both on-string and off-string. Variations beginning downbow, then upbow-both on and off string-equal four variants right there. Subtracting one finger at a time, while practicing the same étude, equals sixteen more variants. When you’ve conditioned, balanced and strengthened your right hand through a few months of that regimen, then you’ll realize clearly why it’s easiest to play in the middle of the bow, where the tension is spread evenly across the metacarpal. You’ll find the very highest degree of bow mastery through that path-and you can teach yourself, even with what I’ve provided here.
@@mylesjordan9970 Thank you for the extra information. But I do not understand what you mean by "Subtracting one finger at a time, ...". Can you explain that please?
@@SamynJohan Simply lifting the index finger from the bow as you work completely changes the balance of the hand, placing the greatest point of resistance toward the middle fingers, which eventually rise to the occasion. Similarly, removing the pinky creates another imbalance that educates your hand. When you can play more or less comfortably on the three strings of the Duport without moving your arm at all, on-string and off-string, the resulting flexibility and balance of the whole hand becomes transformational to your right-hand technique.
@@mylesjordan9970 Thank you! I Will certainly work with all these guidelines.
This is wrong. Watch the masterclass of Jerome Perno. The pink finger should be on parallel with other fingers on the surface of the frog, not on the bow stick itself. Of course, it's more difficult to achieve it's stability in that place, but the benefits would be huge: you would be able to do the smooth bow changes with mostly your fingers without that weird wrist's moves showed on video.
And the exercise he shows is wrong too. You should practise a different one with your FINGERS only. At the start, it could be difficult, but again, you will achieve much better control of the bow at the end.
Why does this have to be wrong just because its not what you’ve been taught. With my teacher I’ve done these exercises for a while and they’ve helped alot.
There is nothing wrong here. Not everyone teaches the same way. We need to look at many teachers and learn from all of them. This is one of the best teachers I've seen.
Completely ignorant. For the record, I disagree with a lot of what is said in this video, but the idea that there's a single correct way to do things and everything else is wrong is absurd. There are tradeoffs to the different schools of playing and ideally you become adaptable. People often say imprecise things about the fundamental principles behind their playing, but the manifestation of those ideas are true in their own right and again have tradeoffs. Get your head on straight
@@aidanmays7825 Why swear in order to make your point? That reveals a state of ignorance....
@@jonathanpalmer3949 Fixed it for you, but I don't actually think it does. But you're right, it makes it easier for the ignorant to ignore you