Drumming (on fiddle)

Great game for limbering your left hand

Muscles don’t like to be told what to do — they just like to be reminded. Since our brains can’t very well make our muscles do something they’ve never done before, we learn physical movements through regular exercises that help us do what we need to do. If our brains get involved at all, it’s going to be to remind those muscles of what they have done before, and to give them a pep talk (you got this!).

In playing the violin, the left hand needs to be efficient; otherwise we get tired. If our left hand works too hard, by pressing too much, or squeezing the neck, or trying to hold up the fiddle, we get bogged down when we want to play fast and clean notes.

Today’s game is great for players of all levels. It sets beginners up for a good way to hold the violin, allowing the learner’s body to teach itself a good position. For experienced players, it reminds them how easy fingering the notes can be. It’s not hard to get buried in playing difficult finger patterns, press too hard, and forget how effortlessly the fingers can move. Interspersing playing with the drumming game allows you to remind your fingers not to work too hard.

Give this game a try every time you pick up the fiddle; it only takes 30 seconds. The more days you try it, the more your wrist, elbow, and shoulder will learn to allow your left hand the freedom to play efficiently and cleanly.

The video at the bottom of this post will take you through what we’re about to discuss. Here’s how to do it—

A. Hold the violin like a guitar with your right hand, the back of the fiddle against your belly. Your right hand, all by itself, should be able to swivel the violin up to your collarbone, to playing position. Try it a few times; this is the right hand’s job!

B. Shake out your left hand and hold it out relaxed as if you were going to shake someone’s hand with it.

C. Now don’t move your left hand! With the right hand, place the neck of the fiddle into your left hand without trying to reach for it. Keep the left hand as relaxed as in paragraph B. Place the side of your left thumb* into the curve between the fingerboard and the pegbox. Leave space underneath (thumb tip no higher than the fingerboard).

D. Keep your hand relaxed, avoid grabbing hold of the neck, and simply bend the fingers of your left hand so the fingertips can reach the strings. Drum them mindlessly on the fingerboard, as if drumming fingers on a table, waiting for someone. The only parts of your hand touching the fiddle will be your fingertips and the side of your thumb.* (Note that the first finger is not perpendicular to the neck; it aims toward your right shoulder.)

E. After your left fingers are drumming happily and mindlessly for about 10 seconds (don’t look at them, they get self-conscious!), keep drumming but now secretly use your right hand to slowly swivel the fiddle up to playing position (another 10 seconds – feels like a very long time). Don’t tell the left hand this is happening! (If the drumming pauses for even a split second, it means the left hand is trying to help – we don’t want it to do anything but drum those fingertips). Once you get the fiddle up to playing position, keep drumming there for another 10 seconds, and you’re done! Take a look: Thumb still on the side of neck? Only thumb and fingertips touching the fiddle, with no contact underneath? Wrist still as straight as it was when you held it like a guitar?

*There are two ways to place the thumb. I like the “hitchhiker” position — look at the palm of your left hand and you’ll see that the thumb is to the left of all the fingers. In this position, the side of the thumb fits into the side of the violin neck. The other position is the “fist” position — make a fist and notice where your thumb is, usually opposite the middle finger. In this position, the flat of the thumb can rest against the neck of the violin. The hitchhiker position requires that you not press with your thumb (which is good, but for some, it’s hard to avoid) — if you press, it will be with the flat of the thumb, and in hitchhiker position, this would twist the base of the thumb.

Remember, from section E above, that you can take 10 seconds to get the fingers drumming when you hold it down like a guitar, 10 seconds to slowly bring the fiddle up while drumming without a pause, and another 10 seconds to drum once in position. That’s it! 30 seconds total. Great to do, but no need to overdo.

This exercise/game may not stop you from pressing your fingers or squeezing the neck at times, but keeping it in the mix regularly reminds your fingers and wrist how easy it can be to play. We don’t use frets, so we can let the fingers effortlessly tap down and spring up. As they say, we fiddlers may be high-strung but we never fret.

About the video below

Sometimes working with a brief video guides us through an important and helpful game/exercise like Drumming, while being reminded as we go through it how best to think about it. This exercise opens up lots of possibilities and benefits the more you do it.

The video below is #7 out of 10 videos in Technique Video Group 1 on my site fiddle-online.com. Out of respect for those who pay a small fee to access these videos on that site, and out of appreciation for those who are paid subscribers here, this video is only available to paid subscribers.