The BAVS FAQ

I'm left-handed. Should I play 'backwards'?

I'm in discomfort/pain when I play. Help!

My hands seem too small/large/fat/slender. Help!

How can I improve my intonation?

What is the position of the left hand?

How do I hold the bow?

How do I vibrato?

How do I shift between positions?

I'm left-handed. Should I play 'backwards'?

Left-handed violinists are not at any disadvantage. In fact, arguably, they have an advantage, since the delicate and extraordinarily complex precision task of fingering is the domain of the left hand.

Experienced violinists often develop a high degree of ambidexterity, regardless of whether they are left or right-handed. In the course of learning to play, you will develop superb fine-motor control in your left hand, as well as coordinated small and large-muscle control in your entire right arm.

There are certainly players out there who play very well with the hands reversed, but they are very rare. In the classical world, they are extremely rare, and reversed hands can prove problematic when playing in an orchestral setting.

Teachers will generally discourage students from reversing the hands unless a serious medical problem (like badly broken left-hand fingers that never properly healed) prevents using the left hand for fingering.

[Last update: Sun Sep 16 03:30:51 2001.]

I'm in discomfort/pain when I play. Help!

Your teacher will begin by showing you the physical approach that he thinks best. You should not experience any pain, though you may experience muscle fatigue from exercising muscles you haven't used before (in which case, the same prudence should be used as with the start of any new kind of physical exercise).

It is extremely important that you inform your teacher if you are experiencing pain; your teacher should not dismiss this lightly.

A good teacher should realize that what works for him will not necessarily work for all of his students. However, there are also certain principles that you cannot violate, no matter how much more comfortable they are, because they will inhibit your future technical development.

You should take breaks whenever you feel your muscles start to get fatigued. Stretch, relax, take as much time as you need. In the beginning, you may need a break every few minutes. Later, you may be able to play up to an hour without feeling fatigued. A break every 20 minutes or so to stretch out and mentally reset can be a good idea nevertheless, though. Hot showers can be a great muscle relaxant. Be careful about taking medications like Advil and Aleve for the pain; you don't want to mask the symptoms that you are damaging your body through your playing.

Tension is the biggest cause of pain. You need to learn to relax your body when you are playing. This can initially be difficult -- there is a natural fear of dropping the violin or the bow, for instance. Beginners often have a "death grip" upon the violin and/or the bow. If you have this problem, you may find it useful to practice with the scroll of the violin against the wall, or while standing on or over your bed, so that you're not afraid of breaking anything if it drops.

[Last update: Mon Sep 17 04:05:13 2001.]

My hands seem too small/large/fat/slender. Help!

If you have big hands, your greatest problem is likely to be precision; you will need to figure out ways to keep fingers sufficiently close to one another, get fingers out of the way of others, and the like. There are plenty of people with huge hands who play the violin with enormous dexterity and precision, though. Itzhak Perlman has gigantic hands that can span much of the violin's fingerboard at one time. If you really have enormous hands, you might find that cello or viola suits you better, but there's certainly nothing that prevents you from mastering the violin.

If you have small hands, your greatest problem is likely to be reaches. Double-stops in thirds, and extensions, can be made much more difficult by small hands. You may find that you are simply unable to reach unisons, tenths, and other extreme extensions; such reaches are only required in virtuosic repertoire, however, and there is a high likelihood that you will never encounter this problem. For ordinary playing, the important thing to keep in mind is to keep the hand in motion, anticipating the next couple of things you need to do and getting the hand into place appropriately. You may find it beneficial to place the thumb between the first and second fingers, so the hand is better balanced for reaching up with the third and fourth fingers.

If you have really small hands, you might want to consider a 7/8ths violin or "lady's violin", or a full-size violin that has smaller proportions. (Normal-height adults should not play three-quarter-sized violins.) A narrower neck can also help.

[Last update: Sun Sep 16 03:52:24 2001.]

How can I improve my intonation?

Slow practice is the key to good intonation. You must play slowly enough to listen to yourself; if the notes are passing in a blur, you really can't tell exactly what pitches you're playing, and thus you need to slow down to the point where you can hear if a note is right, too flat, or too sharp.

When you practice slowly, mentally "sing" the next note in your head before you place the finger, so you have a reference point to compare the pitch you played against -- if the pitch doesn't match, then it's out of tune. This ability to hear pitches mentally is a crucial skill which you must develop; it is essential to good intonation on a string instrument.

If you are unable to hear the next pitch mentally, try singing it out loud. If you are unable to sing in tune, try using a piano or other reliable pitch-generating device.

If you have problems discerning pitch, you will benefit significantly from ear training classes. Some community colleges have helpful classes. Private voice or music theory teachers will also offer instruction in ear training. A "perfect pitch" CD can help you from a pitch memory standpoint. Also, if you are using a method that has repertoire recordings, like Suzuki, listen to those recordings as much as you can; it'll get the correct pitches "in your ear".

If you cannot tell whether you are flat or sharp, you may benefit from the use of a chromatic tuner. These electronic devices figure out what pitch you are trying to play, and let you know whether you are above the pitch (sharp) or below the pitch (flat). Chromatic tuners are, however, unaware of "tempered" intonation, where the exact pitch of the note changes depending upon the harmonic relationship between the notes; thus, on the violin, they will never give an exact indication of correctness. Thus, you should not obsess about dead-centering the pitch when you are using a chromatic tuner. They are good for getting an approximate idea of in what way you are out of tune. You should be careful to use them as an aid for developing your own ear, rather than as a substitute for listening.

You need to develop a sense of relationships between the fingers, and the concept of aiming for a note rather than just plopping down a finger somewhere in the approximate region of the pitch. You should particularly take note of when fingers are close together vs. far apart (generally, half-step vs. whole-step relationships); you might find it helpful to mark all the half-steps in your music, especially when you're playing in a minor key.

Use as much information as you can when figuring out where a finger should go. You should have the pitch "in your ear", as well as a mental concept of the interval between the current note and the next note. You can also judge distances visually, as well as by tactile feel.

Ideally, you want to drop a finger dead-on to the correct pitch. However, a good player is able to make lightning-fast, listener-inaudible adjustments after the finger is placed, based on that instant comparison of the mental pitch to the actual pitch. Nonetheless, you should be careful not to habitually "weasel" into pitches this way. You can slide a finger to make a correction when you hear that it's wrong, but don't make a habit of it. If you've played notes out of tune, consider going back to that section and practice going between the preceding note and the note that was out of tune; you need to practice hitting the note dead-on, or you'll end up inadvertently practicing in the mistake and correction slide.

Intonation mistakes can often readily be masked with vibrato -- in fact, many good players make minute adjustments on missed notes simply by covering the mistake with vibrato. Don't get into the habit of doing that, though! Regardless of how skilled a player you are, pieces should, from time to time, be practiced without vibrato (and without other ornamentation, like trills). This gives you the opportunity to really hear if all the notes are really in tune. The core pitch absolutely still must be correct, even though vibrato can mitigate the effects of an out-of-tune note.

[Last update: Sun Sep 16 18:08:35 2001.]

What is the position of the left hand?

How do I hold the bow?

How do I vibrato?

How do I shift between positions?