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Crooked pinky finger complicates teaching bow hold

Teaching: Have you ever encountered a student with a severly crooked pinky finger at the first joint (right hand)?

From Jennifer Chianta
Posted January 15, 2005 at 05:50 AM

blank.

From Sarah Wallin
Posted on January 16, 2005 at 11:17 PM

Hiya! I, as a youngster, used to have a perpetually collapsing pinky, mostly because my highest joint (toward the pinky tip) is double-jointed. I'm not sure if this is anything similar to your little student's situation, but one of my first teachers stuck a thick, Dr. Scholl's-type donut cushion (used for healing corns on the feet!) at the end of my bow. That gave my pinky somewhere to rest, at the proper point on the bow, and gain support from the cushion. Also, I did some exercises to strengthen my pinky and train it not to collapse. Some bow exercises I've done include: "Windshield wiper", where you hold the bow straight up and down and then rotate it back and forth, always keeping the pinky rounded while the weight of the bow changes; and "Spider Crawl", crawling the bow hold up and back down the whole length of the stick, again, watching for the un-collapsing pinky.

Hope that helps! Good luck!

From Sam Li
Posted on January 17, 2005 at 12:55 AM

Repeat this mantra to yourself. There - Is - No - Such - Thing - As - A - Proper - Bow hold. Keep repeating it. Then let's see if you can help develop a personally adapted bow hold instead of trying to force the poor kid into a cookie-cutter form that is obviously NOT correct.
Would you try to force him into the wrong size shoe?

From Inge S
Posted on January 17, 2005 at 01:41 AM

Sam, as opposed to the idea of carbon copy holds, would you agree to the idea of the various roles the fingers play in the hold so there is some kind of a general idea to the hold so the fingers can optimally fulfill those roles? If a collapsed pinkie is a weak pinkie, are there ways of strengthening it?

From Sam Li
Posted on January 17, 2005 at 03:10 AM

Absolutely, but - If we're dealing with a malformed finger, perhaps we're better off not using it and allowing the others to adapt. Take a good look at the funky bow hold that Charlie Daniels uses. There's a reason he holds it like that you know.

From Inge S
Posted on January 17, 2005 at 03:27 AM

Yes, I see what you're saying. If it's actually malformed as opposed to being simply weak and thus bending. I'm wondering -- when teachers get students that have a malformation, missing finger (I've heard of one case) and so on -- do they put themselves in their students' shoes and try to see what strategies they might adopt? It can't all just be up to a beginning student. Or does the teacher just observe carefully to see what might be done as the student with the handicap progresses?

From Andrew Dubar
Posted on January 17, 2005 at 04:44 AM

I agree with Sam Li.
We should not confuse "THE BOW HOLD" with "holding the bow." To illustrate the point, there are a few one armed violinists in this world that use a prosthetic arm to bow with. One such person I read about recently is attending a premier conservatory in the U.S. and can, by all accounts, perform the usual required bowings. Another, still a teenager, is raising money to go to a conservatory. So, with that in mind, it should not be too much of a stretch to allow the student to find a hold that works for them. The hold may change over time as the student progresses and discovers what is needed for the different attacks and bowing styles. I think the adage "whatever it takes" applies in this case. There is no right or wrong hold, just the one or ones that work for the student.

From Sam Li
Posted on January 17, 2005 at 06:40 AM

In every picture I've ever seen of Maestro Heifetz playing, the pinkie is completely off the bow. For those who don't know, Charlie Daniels is missing half his right hand ring finger from a woodshop accident. So both these men would have "incorrect" bow grips, right?

From Andrew Dubar
Posted on January 17, 2005 at 11:59 AM

"Incorrect" in whose eyes?

From Sam Li
Posted on January 18, 2005 at 03:33 AM

Not mine, I've got a funky bowgrip too.

From Jennifer Chianta
Posted on January 18, 2005 at 11:45 PM

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