Posted on May 17, 2008 by Abigail McHugh in Bow Angle - Bow Hold/Bow Arm

The teacher sits in front of the student and holds the student’s bow on the string at the tip, perfectly parallel to the bridge and fingerboard. The student sets his bow hold on the bow and then slides that bow hold along the length of the stick, feeling the path that the arm travels to do this. This is the path that the arm would need to take if it were controlling the bow. Make sure that the student maintains a good bow hold, which does not change its relative angle to the stick as it moves! You can point out to the student how the angle of the wrist changes in relation to the hand as it moves from tip to frog. (At the frog the acute angle is on the right side of the wrist, while at the tip the acute angle is on the left side.) Try this on all four strings, to allow the student to feel how completely different the path of the arm is on each string. The teacher needs to be quite careful to hold the bow straight on the string, or else the exercise becomes completely counterproductive.