Any problems with bow hair facing away from the bridge?

November 1, 2025, 12:25 PM · Is this a paying student? I wouldn't recommend it.

But if the student has no other options for lessons, it's not a position of the wrist that allows the smooth transmission of arm weight. You probably have to have a weird bowhold too. There are a number of strokes you won't be able to do. You won't develop a good sound.

I think I've heard a downbow staccato taught that way; so yeah, pointless.

November 1, 2025, 12:59 PM · It's how Heifetz did down-bow staccato.

November 1, 2025, 1:44 PM · The bow hold must allow for different angles of the hair, for reasons of variations in sound and for the many shades of spiccato. (Down-bow spiccato is irrelevant here.)

For example, one would use a different amount of tilt for a classical spicatto than for, say, Prokofiev's "Death of Tybalt" scene.

Tilting the bow back towards the bow is indicative of a poor/lazy bow hand/arm, and will limit a student of classical music, just as flat left-hand fingers or a left elbow pointed far to the left.
If you're talking a country or Celtic fiddle, I guess who cares?
But these basic elements of technique evolved over the centuries for a good reason.

It's your job as a teacher to clean up this student's poor technique...or the next teacher will have to. If it's even possible by that point.

Edited: November 1, 2025, 4:03 PM · IF his bow hold is otherwise normal, F.-B. or Russian, have him set up to play on a middle open string, middle of the bow, 90 o angle at the elbow. You grab the frog, he releases the bow, you turn it so that the hair is facing the bridge, about 30 o, The next facet over of the octagon frog is now facing up. The student then holds the bow with his usual shape of the hand. The 4th finger is on that next facet, feels like it is on top. For a full bow stroke, the hair will be flat when at the tip, and on edge, 45 o angle when at the frog. The hair facing the fingerboard is for a few special effects.

November 1, 2025, 4:36 PM · I don't understand what is meant by "facing the bow hair" toward or away from the bridge. Ideally, the hair is used at the most effective sounding point on the string (which can vary from one violin to another) for the desired sound.

Did you mean to ask about different ways of angling the bow stick, relative to the hair?

November 1, 2025, 6:28 PM · I think the idea of the usual bow tilt is for the bow hair to grip and "challenge" the string as it rises toward the bridge. Tilt the other way and your bow might drift toward the fingerboard. Of course this is advice taught to beginners. Heifetz and those in his class can make anything work.

November 1, 2025, 8:32 PM · I don't think the question is whether you are bowing parallel to the string or at an angle to it, but rather that the stick is rotated (along its long axis) towards the bridge relative to the bow hair, which is not a way anyone plays, except maybe in a one-off extended technique like downbow staccato.

Some people play with a flat hair and their hand putting downward force, but most people, most of the time, play with a bow tilted with the stick away from the bridge, like you were engaging the throttle on a motorcycle.

November 1, 2025, 10:01 PM · There's no reason for someone to be playing with the hair facing out unless there's some other problem with their bow hand up the chain.

November 1, 2025, 10:28 PM · Raymond I think Cotton has the right point. If the student is doing this with their bow, then you should be looking for something else about their bow grip or hand position or something else that is mechanically wrong or at least unorthodox that will slow the student's progress in the long run.

Often students are taught to start tilted at the frog and then flatten the hair (bring the bow perpendicular) as they draw. And that seems to happen pretty naturally. What about your student? Does the bow just get more and more mis-tilted as (s)he draws?