Bouncing bow help
Looking for a little help fixing a bouncing bow problem that I thought I fixed, but came back. On downbows in the middle of the top third of the bow I get a slight skittering. I thought it might be old hair, but my other bow with new hair has the same issue. Maybe it's old rosin (5 years old?) Also I tried adjusting the shoulder rest to get a more flat instrument angle. That seemed to help somewhat, but seemed to move the point of bounce slightly closer to the tip.Could it be my grip? Or rosin? Or my grip? Any suggestions? Thanks!
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The bow is designed to bounce! The stick, the hair, and the strings all act like springs, and the bounce is at a maximum in the middle third of the bow.
Then, paradoxically, some students can't do the spiccato when they want it because something in their bow hold or a rigid right hand prevents it.
What I discovered for myself; with the Franco-Belgian bow hold, delay the change between first finger leverage and arm weight until you pass that balance point in the middle of the bow. The bow wants to bounce when you release the force at that moment. That will be a different spot depending on down-bow or up-bow!
Or; The Russian bow hold prevents the bounce because that cross-over point is much closer to the frog. But- I can't do the light orchestral spiccato with the Russian hold.
Basically, if someone has long arms, they can keep the bow moving parallel to the bridge until the *very tip*.
But if someone has medium/short length arms, they can only keep it moving parallel *almost* all the way to the tip, at which point something has to change in order to use the remaining bow length up, and often this "change" leads to the bow grip slightly pivoting, leading to a tiny period of insecurity, which can lead to a little bounce/skitter.
You have several options to fix this, assuming it is the problem:
1) Hold the violin more in front of you, which will give you more usable bow length.
2) Let the bow go off-parallel as you approach the tip (although this might already be happening, leading to the skittering).
3) Learn to effectively transition from your "normal" bow grip to the "extended" bow grip smoothly. By simply being aware of this, you might be able to improve the transition.
4) Russian bow grip, as Joel has noted, might be worth a look, since it makes that "pivot" seamless, but of course it has its own set of disadvantages.
Other things to note:
a) It isn't necessarily that your arms aren't long enough, but it could also be a lack of wrist flexibility or elbow flexibility in the right arm. Both of those essentially lead to the equivalent of a "Shortened right arm."
b) Videos are always helpful, even if it doesn't show the bouncing. Just seeing how your right arm and bow look during a long, open-string downbow would make diagnosing the problem much simpler.
To continue;--This will sound very strange for most of you, and I don't recommend to anyone, but-
When I play in a classical orchestra I use the F.B. hold. When I do my Mariachi jobs I use the Russian! I find it less fatiguing. We play long hours, always loud, I am competing with 2 trumpets, and the bow is never bounced. Switching like that is not recommended. Tennis players, golfers, baseball hitters, do not change their hold.
Take the bow to a luthier who works with bows, or a bow maker, and see what they say.
I had a G. A. Pfretzchner that bounced (jittered, or skittered) so much, it was absolutely unusable. It jittered especially on string changes.
We have an excellent archetier (bow person) in town, and I took it to him to examine the bow. He straightened and/or improved the camber, and it fixed the problem. In fact, it was one of the two bows that I traded with my luthier in order to purchase my current bow.
If you do it slow enough, you can really find yourself adjusting the hold quite a bit. Make sure that you lead the movement from the heaviness of the elbow (that there's no hitch where you tighten up) and that the rest of the arm follows the lead of the elbow.
I like to think of it as the elbow being the plumb bob getting dragged against its weight on the upbow and the elbow doing the dragging on the downbow.
It never hurts to optimize the software, as Steve notes.
https://www.simonfischeronline.com/uploads/5/7/7/9/57796211/067slowb.pdf
When I have my wits about me (and patience) I try to play a slow 3 octave G major scale up and G minor down first thing every practice session. I think I should follow the advice of Simon Fischer above.
QUOTE: Gordon Shumway Edited: July 6, 2023, 11:29 AM ·
"@Neil "atelier (bow person)"archetier"
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Fixed . . . Thanks.
Now down to one.
Things one might try.
1. measure distance of balance point (i.e., CG) of bow to tip and to screw cap.
2. tape a one-gram mass to tip and try playing -and measure CG of that too.
3. report CG measurements back to us (here) for "advice."
My G. A. Pfretzschner bow "jittered/skittered" because it wasn't properly cambered. Once that was repaired, the bow was fine. It was about a $2000 bow. And, I was wondering how a $5 bow relates to the conversation? I'm not sure that I follow that.
I brought up the fact that I've used plenty of cheap bows as a way of demonstrating that most bows don't skitter, in my experience, and therefore it's statistically more likely that it's a technical issue.
- watching a video of me bowing (my violin was too far to the left for my arm length)
- my teacher’s advice to have a higher right arm helped
- right hand relaxed but also to have some more pronation while bowing down
- at the frog I angle the bow and while bowing down I gave too much of an impulse while flattening the bow (it was just a tiny impulse but enough to have a disturbance in the upper third). To do this later and more gradually helped
- I am doing an exercise recommended by my teacher starting out each and every practice (hope I can explain it, and yes it’s probably „old coffee“ to 90% of the readers here, but wasn’t for me) it’s doing short short up down at the frog then long fast bow stroke to the tip, short down up at the tip, long fast to the frog. All fluid and fast. Getting this under control took me months but helped a lot.
- tension in my shoulders and therefore not enough flexibility (hours in front of the computer yeah) to really move and keep my right shoulder back. Still working on this one.
QUOTE: Erik Williams - July 16, 2023, 4:26 AM
"Neil Poulsen, what I'm saying is it's much, much more likely that the issue is his technique, and not his bow. But, since he won't post a video, it's all speculation.
I brought up the fact that I've used plenty of cheap bows as a way of demonstrating that most bows don't skitter, in my experience, and therefore it's statistically more likely that it's a technical issue."
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It's not about whether a bow is expensive, or inexpensive. It's about whether it's properly cambered, and if it's straight side to side. And, your argument isn't so much statistical as it is anecdotal. I've been told by two experts, my luthier and my bow specialist (who makes bows as a profession), that poor cambering can cause the kind of jittery/bouncy bow that the OP describes, and we also have it from the OP that he/she doesn't believe that the problem is due to technique.
Anyway, it's easy enough for a good bow person or luthier to examine bow, should the OP desire to follow that avenue of inquiry.
QUOTE: Erik Williams - July 16, 2023, 4:26 AM
"Neil Poulsen, what I'm saying is it's much, much more likely that the issue is his technique, and not his bow. But, since he won't post a video, it's all speculation.
I brought up the fact that I've used plenty of cheap bows as a way of demonstrating that most bows don't skitter, in my experience, and therefore it's statistically more likely that it's a technical issue."
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It's not about whether a bow is expensive, or inexpensive. It's about whether it's properly cambered, and if it's straight side to side. And, your argument isn't so much statistical as it is anecdotal. I've been told by two experts, my luthier and my bow specialist (who makes bows as a profession), that poor cambering can cause the kind of jittery/bouncy bow that the OP describes, and we also have it from the OP that he/she doesn't believe that the problem is due to technique.
Anyway, it's easy enough for a good bow person or luthier to examine the bow, should the OP desire to follow that avenue of inquiry.
This might also account for why the OP is OK with a viola bow.
"I've been told by two experts, my luthier and my bow specialist (who makes bows as a profession), that poor cambering can cause the kind of jittery/bouncy bow that the OP describes, and we also have it from the OP that he/she doesn't believe that the problem is due to technique."
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Sure, lots of things *CAN* cause bouncy bows. But I think you'll find very few experienced teachers who would agree with your assessment that the *first* thing we should suspect is the bow itself, and not the technique. Anyone with a modicum of common sense would say "let's check the technique first, and if that doesn't work, then we'll check the bow out."
If we were discussing an experienced, professional-level player, then we would probably bypass this step, since we assume that they already have developed their technique to the point where it's highly unlikely to be the problem.
And I think this is likely why you and I are really disagreeing; I'm making the assumption that the OP is a beginner or perhaps even an intermediate level. I'm doing this based on the content of his post, as it's highly unlikely a high-level player would ask the questions he's asking.
You, on the other hand, are assuming that the OP is already experienced enough of a player to correctly assess his own problem, since you appear to trust that his own opinion of his technique is valid.
I would bet actual $$$ that the OP's issue is technique, and that the reason he doesn't get skittering on his viola is because the viola requires a player to press down harder in order to get sufficient tone.
But, as usual, no video = no real answers.
I have found one possible way to work on this problem is the practice of WBs on the differnet SPs. If one plays a WB at MM80 on SP5 (next to the fingerboard) virtually no pressure is required to produce the best possible sound and adjustments during the stroke are concomitantly small. Then one drops to around MM72 and doing WBs on SP4, there is a small increase in required pressure to produce the best possible sound. Then SP3 slower tempo and so on.
For some people it may help to begin with about 10 cms in the middle of the bow using a progressively longer stroke until a WB is achieved then gradually reduce back.
(The 2nd of these exercises comes from Simon Fischer’s basics. The first one probably does too but I didn’t get it from there :))
Cheers,
Buri
I can't believe this . . . ? I'm merely taking the OP at his/her word.
Clearly, I've made my point . . . . time to move on.
In other words, "find out what to do before doing something irreversible."
My wife's father and mother both died from medical errors. True they died 16 years apart and they were 82 and 87 years old, respectively - but it's the same principle.
Edit - my luthier confirmed the camber is off. I knew I wasn't going crazy!
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One solution was "start the stroke closer to the frog".
The other solution may have been learning martelé very early on, so that the general answer might be, place the bow on the string, then start the bow stroke. Galamian, I see, is very keen on martelé. If you're a beginner, learn it if you don't know it.