Rotate the the elbow more to reduce left hand tension?
I wanted to clear up a couple issues I had regarding holding the violin and to see if I have the correct train of thought here. For a long time I had pain/tension in my left hand which would spread to me forearm. I believe this was from twisting my hand too much when I played because the pain would become greater when I played on the D and G strings and especially with the 4th finger.
Anyway, I began to bring my left elbow more to the right when I played and then seemed to help with some of the tension in my left hand/arm. The left hand seems to be more on top of the fingerboard without so much twisting action of the wrist. The problem now is that I seem to be getting pains in my left shoulder and with that my right shoulder likes to follow. Maybe I have somewhat of a frozen shoulder? The left shoulder seems to be strained when I bring the elbow to the right, but it definately is an improvement from the hand/forearm pain I had before which was really crippling. I was wondering how active a role swinging the elbow to the right is for some of you players. Also if you were to play with your elbow more to the left, wouldn't you need to twist your wrist more, especailly if you have shorter fingers? I don't use a shoulder rest either, but do use a small circular foam pad.
Replies (12)
I was taught in Lessons and Studio that just as we should do stretching exercises before excercising it's the same when it comes to playing our violin, one thing is to spread ypour fingers as wide as you can (both hands at the same time) for a count of 10 then relax them. I do 5 reps of this. Then make my knucles flat while I clench my finer tips like a cat's claw 10 reps. This helps as well as holding my arms out in front of me, whatever muscles I may use I stretch out, and then relax for a while then play. Also I hold my left arm with hand up, fingers relaxed and rotate my arm and wrist like How Queen Elizabeth waves...I rotate till I feel resistance and hold it for a 10 count, 10 reps. As time goes by I increase the frequency of the reps. BUT DON'T OVER EXTEND YOURSELF!
Also, I was asked to asume the left hand posture (without holding the violin) and was asked what feels the most natural? For me I needed to bring the left hand's palm closer to the neck and my fingers fell naturaly closer to where they should be and 50% of pain and strain went away. I was pulling my palm away from the neck thinking I needed to play more at the finger tips. Whatever feels the most natural will be the most effective, with some exceptions.
Just suggestions.
Marina how long/short are your fingers/arms? I have been noticing the same thing, Royce. Slightly collapsing the palm inward has allowed me to have a more relaxed left hand. This is contrary to what I was taught.
I'm very happy with my first, second, and third finger. They are long and work as a great team... we don't speak about the other one (he's length challenged and comes up a little more than halfway to third)
I believe that gently pulling the left elbow in a small arc, to the right and toward the player can be very beneficial. The main point is to conceive of this (and so many other aspects of violin technique) as a gentle movement, rather than as a static position. As the point of the left elbow traces a little arc under it (clockwise as seen from above), the left hand fingers become more and more nearly perpendicular to the string. This greatly facilitates the action of the fourth finger, especially as one proceeds from E string toward G string. It can make the difference between loathing or enjoying the playing of double stop thirds!
The difference between pain and comfort will often correlate with the difference between a forced static position and a gentle movement. Watching Heifetz and Milstein videos can be a great lesson in this principal. Nothing is still, hence struggling or jerky movements are not to be seen in their playing. Everything is floating and gently adjusting all the time.
Much of what Oliver says was also imparted to me in lessons and also in Studio. This up coming Monday in Studio we're going to watch a vidio of Heifetz playing with the emphasis of left hand technique.
Playing without pain may be something that evolves over the years as our bodies change.
My first 30 violin years were played without a shoulder rest; the next 37 years with shoulder rests, and now, the past year without shoulder rests - and even with different chin rests on different instruments - I've even moved some chinrest positions.
There are a few principles that seem to hold (from my own experience and what I have observed of others):
• The further to the left you point the scroll, the less you have to twist your arm to reach the 4th finger well (in other words, to line up your left hand most comfortably for fingering and vibrato).
• A fixed, over the tailpiece chinrest may force you into head,neck, and arm positions that do not work for you. Alternate chinrests to the left of the endbutton can be moved to help provide "best" placement of the chinrest for left hand position. There may be an ideal ("perfect") chinrest for you; it's certainly worth looking for. I found the perfect chinrest 40 years ago and bought 4 of them; one has been lost, but the others still work for me (on most violins - there are other violins that these chinrests are not quite right on).
• Hand size seems to have a big effect on what works best in terms of positioning the violin neck on the thumb. Some small handed people seem to work well with the thumb well under the nexk. People with big hands (like Perlman) seem to drop the neck further into the thumb crotch. As far as I can tell there are good reasons for these differences - among them: it "cuts off" the effective fingerlength of a larger hand and allowss for better balance for vibrato motions.
• Most shoulder rests limit the motion of the violin while we play it. Some of us like that because it makes a more stable platform for vibrato and shifting. For others, it prevents rotation of the instrument that we want to get to different strings with fingers and bow in certain ways. For me, arthritis forced me to forgo any shoulder rests about a year ago, so I could rotate the violin to get to (and up) the G string and maintain some semblance of vibrato. A cortisone shot last month provided complete (probably temporary) relief, but I still now prefer playing without shoulder rests.
• This onhe is beyond my experience, but it seeems that there are individual personal characteristics that would affect how far to the left individuals hold their violin for best results. A related factor would be in what direction relative to the instrument (or to your body's centerline) you point your nose while you are playing. Notice how Zukermann looks straingt ahead, but points his fiddle way to the left (that's what works for me). Heifetz, on the other hand, seemed to look more down the instrument. This latter position can lead to neck strain.
I think it is worthwile to consider all aspects of our playing posture whenever we run into some problem. It may be necessary to make changes to gain further progress, or even to remain at our present performance level. Even a change that can take weeks or months to affect will be worth the time and effort.
"Thumb crotch" This will be my vocabulary word of the day
Maestro Victor- I tried what you mentioned, about pointing the scroll a bit more to the left. I noticed alot of improvement including intonation! And what you mentioned about big hands, I also find it works better for me if I have the neck a bit more in the Thumb Web (thumb crotch). Thank you for sharing your insights!
Please also consider checking out violinistinbalance.com which shows how people of various sizes and shapes in neck, arms, shoulders, etc. were helped to adjust their violin and bows to suit them more ideally.
Wow that site is really an eye opener. Something every violinist should check out. It's Interesting to note that almost every violinist ended up with a custom chin rest that was anywhere from 3-5.5(!) cm tall. They almost all preferred the chin rest centered or a little to the left of the center. The chin rest seemed to be the most drastic change as they look nothing like their old chin rests and nothing like anything on the market! It Seems like every chin rest on the market is for short necked people and then we wonder why so many people have pain because they have to either crank up the shoulder rest so the chin rest can meet the jaw or bend the neck too far downward and tense the shoulder up to fill the space (exactly what I do). It Looks like these chin rest companies need to get their act together! The SAS in my opinion is not a very good design and I believe somewhat more damaging to the instrument. I want an extra high Stuber! I think I will make the trip to a luthier in LA this weekend to see if they can do just that.
I like this principle: Fit the violin to you, not you to the violin.
So, I wonder whether you are holding the fiddle pointing too much straight ahead, forcing the left arm and hand to twist a lot?
I have found that such tension can be reduced by
bringing the instrument round to the left, shifting the point of contact between the violin and your collar bone further round on the lower left bout, more on the bend than at the tailpiece.
gc
PS, whoops, didn't see Andrew's post above: I agree with him.
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March 19, 2008 at 09:12 PM · You'll get opposing views on this but I was taught to play without shoulder rest, left elbow pointed to the left, hand twisted. If I bring my elbow to the right more, then my fingertips seem to be right on top of the string which causes me to make a narow brittle sound, as opposed to the other way which allows me to lay the pads on my fingers flat on the string and make a round rich sound.