How The Bow and String Work Together

How The Bow and String Work Together

or… WHY speed, weight, and contact point matter. Have you ever wondered how exactly your violin bow makes the strings vibrate? Why does the bow sometimes get a beautiful sound, and sometimes a horrifying sound? And why are speed, weight, and contact point so crucial to getting a good sound? The answer is actually pretty straightforward.

Top 10 List: Music for Mourning

Top 10 List: Music for Mourning

The large-scale requiems seem to get all the attention, but what about other, smaller-scale works that help us through times of loss, grief, and death? Here’s a Top 10 List (plus several honorable mentions) of elegies and other music of mourning for solo strings and chamber ensembles.

Thumb Tension? Don’t Blame Your Thumb!

Thumb Tension? Don’t Blame Your Thumb!

Every good violin teacher encourages their students to keep a relaxed left thumb, which gently counter-balances the action of the fingers. And every good violin student takes this to heart, trying to keep it relaxed. But what if it won’t give up its grip? What if it takes all of your attention to get it to relax ... but as soon as you focus on something else it clamps down again? The cause might lie elsewhere.