Straight bowing

July 11, 2025, 3:53 PM · What I would suggest is use a mirror to make surd its straight. Then look at your bow from your perspdctive as a player and memorise what it looks like initially. As time goes on, you should be able to feel it in thr arm muscles too

July 11, 2025, 5:32 PM · The mirror is not the most efficient method. Much more powerful is to rest the screw or nut on a table and the tip on a string. The hand does not support the bow. Now, put your hand on the bow with normal bow hold and slide it up and down the stick from heel to point many times. Because the bow is straight it will teach the arm what to do in order to to keep the bow straight when you are actually playing.
Cheers,
Buri

July 11, 2025, 5:57 PM · Try SHAR's "Bow Tracker"

July 11, 2025, 5:58 PM · There is also a, I think, Simon Fischer exercise which is similar to what Buri suggested. Someone (doesn't need to be a teacher) holds the bow parrallell to the string, and the student guides their hand up and down to get a feel of it.

July 11, 2025, 7:43 PM · A "Bow Tracker" does that for you for as long as you need.

July 11, 2025, 8:07 PM · Also, with the 'sliding bow exercise', the tip could be held with the left hand to maintain stability.
Another good exercise is to 'counter act' the common tendency for the bowing to move in a curved line around the body, thus: +). Deliberately practice bowing with the opposite curve in relation to the body, thus: +(.

July 31, 2025, 11:46 AM · Don't tell anyone, but very few violinists have a really straight stroke!
Except perhaps when practicing..

July 31, 2025, 12:22 PM · Bowing?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qat-bj8T4w

July 31, 2025, 12:58 PM · The mirror is one of the single most valuable tools a musician can use to check form. One can tell if the bow is straight to some degree by looking at the bow to see if the hair remains parallel to the bridge throughout its travel, but what you miss is the bird’s-eye view of the arm, the shoulder, the wrist, and the rest of the bow.

Over time you’ll develop a good sense of these things without the mirror, but even as an accomplished player, it remains a singularly worthwhile tool for assuring that posture and technique aren’t slipping. Sure, you can find a freeze-frame of a famous player bowing crookedly, but that doesn’t mean bow angle is generally unimportant or unimportant to the player; it’s one of the things over which good players and teachers often obsess in their never-ending quest for the best tone.

There’s a certain amount of superstition surrounding famous people who have non-standard technique. The reasoning is that it’s precisely this eccentricity that makes these people great. It ignores the hard work, dedication, and talent that go into the making of a successful professional. The idea of a shortcut to success is always more appealing to those who seek a life of minimal effort, and all kinds of gimmicks are invented and sold to cater to this disposition, perverting the wise saying to “Let the tool do the work” into “Let the tool do the work so you don’t need to put in any effort or learn good form.” In many cases, the eccentric professional has succeeded despite some unusual traits by working diligently to make up for them in other ways, whether consciously or even unconsciously.

July 31, 2025, 11:18 PM · The purpose of straight bowing is not for visual aesthetics, but to prevent the bow hair from wandering off of the optimum point of contact. If the angle of the hair is not 90 o to the string, vector forces will move the bow hair sideways, along the string, which will reverse direction when changing down-up. That effect can be used to keep the bow hair tucked closer to the bridge; = "figure-8 bowing", an intentional small angle.

Edited: August 1, 2025, 12:21 PM · what Stephen and Jake discuss (just lightly gliding your hand along a static straight bow) is really good. what you will notice is, perhaps counterintuitively, to bow straight, in a downbow you have to slightly "push" away your hand, and in an upbow, you slightly bring it in again. it helps to imagine a giant banana with its tip on your bridge and its stem to the right, curved away from you. hence the term "banana bowing", I think invented by the violin pedagogue Drew Lecher. (not a joke!) the reason why it feels like you must follow a curved trajectory, to follow an actually straight line, is that our joints (shoulder, elbow, wrist) work in a circular way.

August 2, 2025, 3:14 AM · Elbow push back,from the frog to the middle ,than elbow push forward from the middle to the tip,than elbow push back from the tip to the middle and push forward from the middle to the frog. Make video to control it

August 2, 2025, 2:02 PM · You don't see it, you feel it.

The bow wants to go straight, don't try to micromanage its track. It's like a good horse, you say "horsey, go there," you don't tell the horse where to place all of its hoofs along the way.

The more you can get out of your bow's way, the easier it is to get a good stroke.

August 2, 2025, 8:37 PM · Andrew, I bought one of those fancy bow trackers from Shar Music. It works. I have a pretty straight bow without it, but I tend to wander either toward the bridge or the finger board. Can’t do that with the bow tracker.

August 3, 2025, 8:33 AM · Posture is a large contributor to straight bowing as well. New players have a tendency to let the scroll drop down, and the bow slides out of position as it follows gravity. Keeping the instrument up so that it’s parallel with the floor helps the bow stay on track a little better. Making a C shape with the wrist while bowing helps to keep the bow straight. These things feel awkward and unnatural at the beginning but feel comfortable and natural after enough conscientious practice. A mirror will help one to monitor things and reinforce good practices through the development of muscle memory. Later on it changes from being a tool for form assessment to one for review.

August 4, 2025, 10:15 AM · You will find the mirror useful for other things as well : keeping the right wrist flexible and not rigid. And improving vibrato (hand or wrist but not both at the same time).

Edited: August 11, 2025, 11:38 AM ·