Violin Technique: The Real Reason to Practice Collé Bow Stroke

November 14, 2024, 1:10 PM · Since collé and finger movement in general seem to be a hot topic on this site right now I would like to offer my experiences in this area. First of all let’s clarify what we are talking about.

Galamian defines collé as "a short, precise stroke that starts from a prepared, controlled state at the beginning of the stroke and uses finger movement to create a quick lift and release. It’s often characterized by a light, articulate attack, followed by an immediate release of the bow from the string." It is useful to think of it as pizzicato done with the bow.

The finger movement we will be discussing mainly concerns the flattening of the hand/curling of the knuckles as we change from an up bow to a down bow at the heel.

I take the above finger movement as a start point because it is actually one of the great misunderstandings in violin history. Personally, I think knowing a little about this helps broaden our understanding of the role of the fingers. The misunderstanding is generally regarded as originating in the works of the great teacher Carl Flesch, although it is not entirely clear whether he made a serious mistake or the problem stems more from translation. Anyway, Flesch put a lot of emphasis on finger action while changing the bow, and in order to facilitate this skill he recommended practicing playing short strokes using only the fingers, particularly in the lower hall and at the heel.

This came to be viewed as the basis of a smooth bow change which was generally explained and taught as follows by a great many teachers: "As the bow approaches the heel (frog) the bow arm changes direction while the fingers continue the up-stroke for a miniscule time period , somewhat like a brush stroke in calligraphy where the handle is pointing one way and the hairs another for a brief instant."

It certainly is a very seductive explanation, and I and many other players around the mid to late 20th century spent inordinate amounts of time trying to get this right. Unfortunately, the reality is that once one tries consciously to do this part of the up bow with the fingers, the bow speed increases. It is almost impossible to do otherwise, and if you do get it, it will never be consistent. But we persevered...!

I console myself about the number of hours I spent on this with an anecdote I heard concerning a conversation between Jospeh Gingold and Dorothy DeLay. It seems that Gingold asked Delay if the technique worked and she responded that the bow will inevitably speed up. Apparently Gingold laughed and wryly commented, "Great! Now I can stop practicing it..."

In my final year at the RCM I changed teachers and queried this technique. The explanation I then received was that after the bow changes the hand and knuckles flatten. So there I was, stuck between two explanations. After I graduated, I had a few lessons from Erick Gruenberg, and after listening to my description of the two he just smiled and said the second version was correct. The reason is quite simple I think, and it takes us to the heart of what this issue is really about.

The fingers are (as Galamian noted) the suspension or springs of the bow arm. They have to respond in a maximally efficient way to what the bow demands the bow arm does. (Remember that "correct bow movement" dictates arm movement, and not the other way round :)) Thus, there may well be curling before the down bow starts and flattening after, or whatever. The fingers are simply reacting as is appropriate for that person’s physique.

The crux of the matter is that you can, within reason, change bow in a huge variety of ways because the key factor is actually bow speed. How you achieve that end is (as Galamian notes) pretty much up to you. Personally I have found that paying attention to the whole arm movement, driven by the muscle just behind the elbow, perhaps visualizing the arm as a T-bar is highly effective.

However, this does not negate the fact that we need to do exercises to get highly flexible and responsive fingers, which is why my students practice with a pencil from day one and (hopefully) never stop working at this finger action whenever no one is looking at them. It is rather annoying that, with the advent of the computer, pencils have become less prevalent in daily life!

Furthermore, the short strokes on the string done with the fingers only should indeed be part of the daily practice regimen. In order to test the fingers, hold the bow up in front of you horizontally with a normal bow hold. Grab the bow in the middle with the left hand and push it to the right or pull it to the left as often as you which. The fingers should remain in position without gripping as they change shape in response to the movement of the bow.

Turning then to the collé Galamian described: This has been around for ages, and one of my favorite exercises of all time has always been to do an up bow collé at the heel and a down bow collé at the point and vice versa. This superb exercise combines controlling the bow in the air as well as collé. It is one of the greatest technique builders there is. I recently saw it demonstrated on YouTube using half bows at first and this is quite reasonable. The exercise was one of Thibaud’s favorites and actually bears his name, for some people at least. If you check out Dounis’ collécted works you will find that he considers this collé done jumping from one part of the bow to another is fundamental. As is his wont, he writes out has pages of variations, all based on Kreutzer no 2.

Hope this was of some interest.
Buri

You might also like:

* * *

Enjoying Violinist.com? Click here to sign up for our free, bi-weekly email newsletter. And if you've already signed up, please invite your friends! Thank you.

Replies

Laurie Niles

November 16, 2024 at 01:46 AM · Buri, thank you for all this food for thought! I also was taught this same idea about the "paintbrush" finger movement at the bow change, and I did "collé" as an introduction. I think that ultimately it was helpful to work more mobility into my bow hand. However, the problem I encounter with students is that they confuse the "active" use of the fingers - such as in collé - with what needs to be a sort of "passive" role that they would take at a typical bow change. For example, the bristles of a paintbrush simply follow the motion of the stick to which it is attached. But the bow-hand fingers are connected to a brain, which might activate them in more of a contrived way.