Open String Work, Motion Study and Learning From the Skeletal System

OPEN STRING WORK OUT ON ALL STRINGS
So much of string teaching involves the teacher telling a student what to do, what to fix. And yet, for so many years I felt a key element was missing - namely the student's ability to discern comfort from discomfort, and it's relationship to playing with ease and naturalness. Motion Studies, designed to help the beginning student and advancing player to use the arm and particularly power from the back muscles and torso to get maximum sound and beauty of tone, can be an important component to the advancing player.

All violin or viola playing incorporates many of the same principals understood by science and physics. The question is whether the student can make physical sense of that principal when approaching technique. For example, producing a beautiful rich tone requires the use of gravity to one’s advantage. Gravity makes it possible to power the bow by dropping the weight of the arm and back into the violin string with the bow as the shock absorber to that weight.

This is most effectively done with a modified circular motion. But where does the circle derive? Commonly we look to the arm, perhaps the shoulder and a vague notion the back is involved. Most people assume it's a muscular issue. But while the muscles are involved and give clues, the real source of movement is initiated by the functionality of the skeletal system. The rippling movements of a flexible skeleton along with the 'butterfly wing' type movement of the shoulder and rib cage, make possible the use of the entire torso. Much like butterfly wings open out from the thorax, there is a similar opening out of the chest and arms, with the vertebrae functioning like a fulcrum.
1. Start with arms relaxed to one’s side.
2. Begin to make circles with arms as you raise them into the air.
3. Complete circle with both arms, allowing them to naturally cross in the middle as they come down.
4. Repeat

As this study is done, notice:
1. The effort to raise the arms in the air
2. The natural ease in lowering them because of gravity, which allows the weight of the arms to fall in the direction of the floor.
3. When playing violin or viola, this same weighty feeling can be applied to drawing a sound on the violin.
4. The whole bow scales are a particularly good chance to develop sound.

This circular feeling can be applied when holding the bow and violin. In particular scales are a perfect opportunity to develop sound, power as well as accurate intonation and a good rhythmic sense.

It may seem like using the bow involves arm movement, but that’s not all! The entire torso is involved in playing violin. While it seems obvious to most people that playing a violin requires the use of arms and somehow the back assists, it is the torso itself that initiates these movements and once that connection is made, the movements of the arms can become fluid and balanced.