The Triangle

for bow control and leverage

Today’s game/exercise is one I call “The Triangle.” It helps increase your bow hand’s awareness of its leverage and control.

The basis of a good sound is the ratio between pressure and speed of the bow. If you press too hard for the speed your bow is moving, you’ll get a scratchy sound, because the rosin gets too many chances to grab at the bowhairs and not let go very easily. If you bow too fast for the pressure you’re using, you’ll get a whistly sound, because the bowhairs swish along the strings instead of grabbing at them to make a solid sound.

There is a third variable in this equation, which is the distance from the bridge, but to avoid this, try to keep the bow midway between the bridge and fingerboard. This gives you the most leeway in controlling your bow sound. We can talk about the distance from the bridge another time; there are some good exercises/games to play with that, including the bonus exercise below.

Triangle

Let’s create a triangle. Place your bowhairs on the strings right in the middle of the bow. Don’t move it — without making a sound, press the bow down into the string and let up. Try it a few times. Use only your forefinger to do this, not the hand or arm.

Notice the triangle made by these three points: thumbtip, middle of forefinger, and the contact point with string. Both the thumb and the string are supporting the bow. The third point is the index finger (pointer) pressing down on the bow stick from above.

In each part of the bow, this triangle takes on a different shape as the contact point with the strings is closer or farther from your hand.

Try placing the bowhairs on the strings near the frog of the bow, and pressing down and up a few times using your index finger pressure without otherwise moving the bow. Do it also at the tip of the bow. It’s harder to bear in here at the frog and the tip because there’s less give in the bowhairs at either end of the bow, as opposed to in the middle. Your hand, and in particular your forefinger, is absorbing in its muscle memory a sense of how much it can press in at each part of the bow.

Leverage

Bowing is about leverage. This exercise reminds your hand of that. You’re allowing the string and the thumb to support the bow (without gripping it with your hand), and the first finger supplies pressure to create a good sound.

Bonus

As a bonus, place your bow in the three different places (frog, middle, and tip) while looking in a mirror. Check that in each place, your bow is parallel to the bridge, and perpendicular to the strings. Take a mental picture of how that feels in each location. Then connect those mental dots by bowing through those three points (using the hand, not the eyes!). The mental pictures you took will inform your muscle memory so that your bow hand can connect those dots and play in a straight line without drifting, probably for a good 10 minutes after doing the exercise — and it can become a habit as you get used to it.

Bowing in a straight line like this allows you to keep your bow in the same place between bridge and fingerboard, making your sound more consistent as you adjust bow speed and pressure to make your fiddle sing.

About the Video below

Enjoy using the video below to guide yourself through the Triangle exercise and get the most out of it. This and 9 other helpful videos are included in Technique Video Group 1 on fiddle-online.com. Out of respect for those who pay a small fee to access those videos, and appreciation for paid subscribers here, this video is only available to paid subscribers.