Anybody ever try putting the pinky and ring fingers behind the frog? I used to hold the bow with the thumb underneath the frog, Kevin Burke told me he'd seen various fiddlers, most notably Sean Maguire, hold the bow with the thumb under the frog, but for me it slows down the bowed triplets. Today I tried putting the pinky/ring finger behind the frog, and it seems to give the power of the thumb-on-the-bottom hold with the "dexterity" of the standard holds, which don't work for me at all. Suddenly I can play all those snappy reels - Boys of the Lough, Farrell O'Gara.
I don't think it's my fiddle or bow holding me back - every other axe I've tried has higher action ( I make my own bridges and want an easy playing fiddle first and foremost) and nothing in their bows seemed dramatically revealing, either.
It always bothers me thinking about all the much better fiddles out there I could be playing. Plus all those fiddlers who got such a fantastic sound and great music out of these old beaters with a set of Black Diamonds on them.
I always loved this anecdote from the jazz/rock/jazz-rock drummer Billy Cobham, who asked jazz great Buddy Rich how he could hop on anyone's set and play like nobody's business. Well, Buddy explained that he practices rudiments on pillows - aside from being totally silent (good in hotels on the road, at home with the wife, etc.) a pillow is totally unforgiving to practice drumming on - no rebound at all, you have to do all the work, and after enough of that kind of practice the worst set of drums in the world will be a snap.
I just recently switched my grip and moved my thumb under the frog. It was done in conjunction with many other changes to the way that I approach bowing, most notably having all motion being initiated by wrist and forearm. (I had and still have a great deal of extraneous motion coming from the upper part of my arm).
Putting your thumb under the frog works well if you subscribe to having minimal motion in your bowing and using pressure to generate your dynamics, ala Sean Maguire - watching him fiddling in Come West Along the Road - it defies physics how he could be absolutely thrashing the sh*t out of that tune using only 1/2" of bow. (Though personally I think a great deal of it was gotten through sheer will and glaring it out of his fiddle!)
Immediately upon switching I lost the ability to consistently execute bowed triplets as you described. I'm interested to try out this idea of yours for placement of the 3rd and 4th fingers.
I have a violin student who was told by her school teacher to put her thumb under the frog, and I've found that it causes a few problems. It limits her wrist movement, and her grip becomes hard and tense after a few notes. I might have her try your placement of the 3rd and 4th fingers, since the "proper" method doesn't seem to be working for her. Thanks for the idea, Kevin!
Funny enough, six months into learning the fiddle I switched from the classical grip my first teacher showed me to use to the one I'm using now - thumb under the frog. It just felt more stable and I certainly was getting much better tone out of the instrument because it was easier to keep the bow perpendicular to the strings.
I probably played that way for the next year and a half. Then I started working on using more wrist and getting my fingers involved in initiating the bow movement, and realized that having the thumb under the frog was locking my wrist.
So I moved my thumb then under the stick, bending the thumb such that the tip of the thumb was what was touching the stick, and the back of the thumb/nail was resting against the hairs. The problem that developed (aside from a grotesque oily buildup on the hairs!) was that my upper arm started moving around to help compensate for the inability of my hand and wrist to keep the bow perpendicular to the strings. I wasn't remotely aware of this until I had it pointed out to me about one month ago.
I do know that since changing over, playing at any speed feels effortless, and a slight pain I've had on the left side of my neck for the last six months has disappeared. So I'm going to play this way for a little while and really focus on minimizing upper arm/body movement, and then maybe muck around with my grip again down the road. It's a process sure enough.
The thumb under the frog (now there's a tune title if ever I saw one!) grip dates back to a classical French style of the 18th century, I believe.
I think its success depends very much on the player's anatomy. A small hand and a short thumb? - possibly not advised. I've tried it out on the fiddle and it works ok for me, but I've got to think to do it; left to my own devices I'll revert to the standard hold. I haven't found any overriding advantage. I tried it briefly on the cello bow - which has a much larger frog than you'll ever find on a fiddle or even viola bow. It didn't work at all - I'd need a much larger hand - which led me to the thought at the beginning of this paragraph.
Kevin, you say that you "make my own bridges and want an easy playing fiddle first and foremost". You may not think there is a connection here with the way you hold your bow, but there probably is. I think you should rethink your bridge philosophy. If you make your bridge with the intent of getting a good sound out of your fiddle and learn to put in that bit more of an effort, you may well find your right arm responds accordingly
In direct response to this thread I've just given thumb under frog a try. Didn't have to make any particular adjustments to my playing style, didn't notice any particular locking up of my wrist, didn't notice any particular advantage, but didn't notice any particular disadvantage either.
Maybe it's just my anatomy . . .or spending a lot of time beating on 2x4s with Black Diamond strings tuned an octave low or something.
With thumb under the frog, you will lose (or limit) the ablility to to change the vertical position of the bow (amount of hair contact on the string), and also kill the figure-of-eight pattern when playing detached notes (U-D-U-D with the bow leaving the string between each note). Sharp, crisp, snappy triplets will be fudged also. All this may not show up at first, but it probably will soon.
Well, that's classic fiddle/bow/hand physics for you, but there will alway be surprising exceptions............
I can agree with the caveat that there are great fiddlers using all kinds of grips. There are many facets that make up being a great fiddler, anyway.
Johnny McGreavey, a great fiddler from Chicaga (RIP)--used the thumb-under-frog bow grip, with all other fingers on the stick. He wasn't an explosive fiddler though, say, like Eileen Ivers, or many others, who often as not use thumb and two fingers on the bow, tip of thumb between hair and stick, chocked up (ie., held part way up the bow towards its center of gravity).
Holding it choked up lightens its weight on the strings, for less inertia, less volume & dynamics, less stability; but more speed, flexibility, maneuverability.
I'd describe McGreavey's bow-hand as a supportive claw-shape encasing the frog, all fingers on the stick--rather than a tenuous grip like the real whippers, E.Ivers, Jerry Holland, who sometimes play with thumb and only one finger, choked up, up the bow.
Watching someone like Frankie F. Gavin (the "f" expletive is reserved for outstanding fiddlers or characters--admired or despised--so a number of fiddlers have that middle initial when I refer to them, pardon me Frankie , one can see the whole arm used as a whip. Flexibility and muscle control down to the fingertips produce the final flicking motion, which propels, cushions and extends the bow stroke. The upper arm (at least subtly, sometimes with tremendous power & speed) initiates movement of the bow.
Minimal upper arm movement--sometimes isn't enough. Sure, for fastest playing of shortest strokes, it's necessary.. However, at the extreme, if the elbow is stationary, as in on the table, against the wall or against your ribs--if elbow and upper arm aren't on the same plane as the bow--this rocking from side to side of bowhair on strings is inevitable.
Bowhair angle on string affects tone and volume. Drawing the bow from the elbow which is on the same plane as the frog makes it possible to be drawn in a straight line on one plane. Only one arc, the horizontal arc which naturally faces inward around the body, needs to be compensated for to produce a straight line. To do this it's necessary to draw an arc facing outward--and this requires arm & elbow movement. If the elbow is on a different plane than the frog and the stick, then there are two arcs, horizontal *and* vertical, to compensate for, and a straight line is impossible.
It's also impossible to play near the frog (with a flexed and light grip) without the pinky to press down on top of the stick to lighten & stabilize it--otherwise the bow's weight on the string becomes almost infinite. Unless one is playing that well-known comic tune, 'Jailbreak.'
One needs bent thumb and fingers with strength coursing to fingertips, the wrist to move flexibly so the top of palm is always at the same angle to the string played, all together which produce a gentle, flexible whip action, longer (from upper arm) for long strokes, but perhaps only in fingers/wrist for short strokes or shredding, a la Johnny Cunningham (RIP).
I'm afraid I've yak yak yakked, from bow-grip to bowing per se, but it's all related, it seems to me--to producing that flexible, but geometrically aligned whip-action--known as good bowing.
More bow hold yack
More bow hold yack
Anybody ever try putting the pinky and ring fingers behind the frog? I used to hold the bow with the thumb underneath the frog, Kevin Burke told me he'd seen various fiddlers, most notably Sean Maguire, hold the bow with the thumb under the frog, but for me it slows down the bowed triplets. Today I tried putting the pinky/ring finger behind the frog, and it seems to give the power of the thumb-on-the-bottom hold with the "dexterity" of the standard holds, which don't work for me at all. Suddenly I can play all those snappy reels - Boys of the Lough, Farrell O'Gara.
I don't think it's my fiddle or bow holding me back - every other axe I've tried has higher action ( I make my own bridges and want an easy playing fiddle first and foremost) and nothing in their bows seemed dramatically revealing, either.
It always bothers me thinking about all the much better fiddles out there I could be playing. Plus all those fiddlers who got such a fantastic sound and great music out of these old beaters with a set of Black Diamonds on them.
I always loved this anecdote from the jazz/rock/jazz-rock drummer Billy Cobham, who asked jazz great Buddy Rich how he could hop on anyone's set and play like nobody's business. Well, Buddy explained that he practices rudiments on pillows - aside from being totally silent (good in hotels on the road, at home with the wife, etc.) a pillow is totally unforgiving to practice drumming on - no rebound at all, you have to do all the work, and after enough of that kind of practice the worst set of drums in the world will be a snap.
# Posted on July 26th 2005 by KLR
Re: More bow hold yack
I just recently switched my grip and moved my thumb under the frog. It was done in conjunction with many other changes to the way that I approach bowing, most notably having all motion being initiated by wrist and forearm. (I had and still have a great deal of extraneous motion coming from the upper part of my arm).
Putting your thumb under the frog works well if you subscribe to having minimal motion in your bowing and using pressure to generate your dynamics, ala Sean Maguire - watching him fiddling in Come West Along the Road - it defies physics how he could be absolutely thrashing the sh*t out of that tune using only 1/2" of bow. (Though personally I think a great deal of it was gotten through sheer will and glaring it out of his fiddle!)
Immediately upon switching I lost the ability to consistently execute bowed triplets as you described. I'm interested to try out this idea of yours for placement of the 3rd and 4th fingers.
# Posted on July 26th 2005 by _Steph_
Re: More bow hold yack
I have a violin student who was told by her school teacher to put her thumb under the frog, and I've found that it causes a few problems. It limits her wrist movement, and her grip becomes hard and tense after a few notes. I might have her try your placement of the 3rd and 4th fingers, since the "proper" method doesn't seem to be working for her. Thanks for the idea, Kevin!
# Posted on July 26th 2005 by Fiddlekit
Re: More bow hold yack
Funny enough, six months into learning the fiddle I switched from the classical grip my first teacher showed me to use to the one I'm using now - thumb under the frog. It just felt more stable and I certainly was getting much better tone out of the instrument because it was easier to keep the bow perpendicular to the strings.
I probably played that way for the next year and a half. Then I started working on using more wrist and getting my fingers involved in initiating the bow movement, and realized that having the thumb under the frog was locking my wrist.
So I moved my thumb then under the stick, bending the thumb such that the tip of the thumb was what was touching the stick, and the back of the thumb/nail was resting against the hairs. The problem that developed (aside from a grotesque oily buildup on the hairs!) was that my upper arm started moving around to help compensate for the inability of my hand and wrist to keep the bow perpendicular to the strings. I wasn't remotely aware of this until I had it pointed out to me about one month ago.
I do know that since changing over, playing at any speed feels effortless, and a slight pain I've had on the left side of my neck for the last six months has disappeared. So I'm going to play this way for a little while and really focus on minimizing upper arm/body movement, and then maybe muck around with my grip again down the road. It's a process sure enough.
# Posted on July 26th 2005 by _Steph_
Re: More bow hold yack
The thumb under the frog (now there's a tune title if ever I saw one!) grip dates back to a classical French style of the 18th century, I believe.
I think its success depends very much on the player's anatomy. A small hand and a short thumb? - possibly not advised. I've tried it out on the fiddle and it works ok for me, but I've got to think to do it; left to my own devices I'll revert to the standard hold. I haven't found any overriding advantage. I tried it briefly on the cello bow - which has a much larger frog than you'll ever find on a fiddle or even viola bow. It didn't work at all - I'd need a much larger hand - which led me to the thought at the beginning of this paragraph.
Trevor
# Posted on July 26th 2005 by Trevor Jennings
Re: More bow hold yack
Kevin, you say that you "make my own bridges and want an easy playing fiddle first and foremost". You may not think there is a connection here with the way you hold your bow, but there probably is. I think you should rethink your bridge philosophy. If you make your bridge with the intent of getting a good sound out of your fiddle and learn to put in that bit more of an effort, you may well find your right arm responds accordingly
# Posted on July 27th 2005 by ...
Re: More bow hold yack
In direct response to this thread I've just given thumb under frog a try. Didn't have to make any particular adjustments to my playing style, didn't notice any particular locking up of my wrist, didn't notice any particular advantage, but didn't notice any particular disadvantage either.
Maybe it's just my anatomy . . .or spending a lot of time beating on 2x4s with Black Diamond strings tuned an octave low or something.
KFG
# Posted on July 27th 2005 by KFG
Re: More bow hold yack
With thumb under the frog, you will lose (or limit) the ablility to to change the vertical position of the bow (amount of hair contact on the string), and also kill the figure-of-eight pattern when playing detached notes (U-D-U-D with the bow leaving the string between each note). Sharp, crisp, snappy triplets will be fudged also. All this may not show up at first, but it probably will soon.
Well, that's classic fiddle/bow/hand physics for you, but there will alway be surprising exceptions............
Jim
# Posted on July 27th 2005 by Worldfiddler
Re: More bow hold yack
Somebody told me that James Kelly was teaching this hold for a while. Don't think he still is, though.
# Posted on July 27th 2005 by Zina Lee
Re: More bow hold yack
I can agree with the caveat that there are great fiddlers using all kinds of grips. There are many facets that make up being a great fiddler, anyway.
, one can see the whole arm used as a whip. Flexibility and muscle control down to the fingertips produce the final flicking motion, which propels, cushions and extends the bow stroke. The upper arm (at least subtly, sometimes with tremendous power & speed) initiates movement of the bow.
Johnny McGreavey, a great fiddler from Chicaga (RIP)--used the thumb-under-frog bow grip, with all other fingers on the stick. He wasn't an explosive fiddler though, say, like Eileen Ivers, or many others, who often as not use thumb and two fingers on the bow, tip of thumb between hair and stick, chocked up (ie., held part way up the bow towards its center of gravity).
Holding it choked up lightens its weight on the strings, for less inertia, less volume & dynamics, less stability; but more speed, flexibility, maneuverability.
I'd describe McGreavey's bow-hand as a supportive claw-shape encasing the frog, all fingers on the stick--rather than a tenuous grip like the real whippers, E.Ivers, Jerry Holland, who sometimes play with thumb and only one finger, choked up, up the bow.
Watching someone like Frankie F. Gavin (the "f" expletive is reserved for outstanding fiddlers or characters--admired or despised--so a number of fiddlers have that middle initial when I refer to them, pardon me Frankie
Minimal upper arm movement--sometimes isn't enough. Sure, for fastest playing of shortest strokes, it's necessary.. However, at the extreme, if the elbow is stationary, as in on the table, against the wall or against your ribs--if elbow and upper arm aren't on the same plane as the bow--this rocking from side to side of bowhair on strings is inevitable.
Bowhair angle on string affects tone and volume. Drawing the bow from the elbow which is on the same plane as the frog makes it possible to be drawn in a straight line on one plane. Only one arc, the horizontal arc which naturally faces inward around the body, needs to be compensated for to produce a straight line. To do this it's necessary to draw an arc facing outward--and this requires arm & elbow movement. If the elbow is on a different plane than the frog and the stick, then there are two arcs, horizontal *and* vertical, to compensate for, and a straight line is impossible.
It's also impossible to play near the frog (with a flexed and light grip) without the pinky to press down on top of the stick to lighten & stabilize it--otherwise the bow's weight on the string becomes almost infinite. Unless one is playing that well-known comic tune, 'Jailbreak.'
One needs bent thumb and fingers with strength coursing to fingertips, the wrist to move flexibly so the top of palm is always at the same angle to the string played, all together which produce a gentle, flexible whip action, longer (from upper arm) for long strokes, but perhaps only in fingers/wrist for short strokes or shredding, a la Johnny Cunningham (RIP).
I'm afraid I've yak yak yakked, from bow-grip to bowing per se, but it's all related, it seems to me--to producing that flexible, but geometrically aligned whip-action--known as good bowing.
My ten-yen worth..
Jim
# Posted on July 28th 2005 by jimmydearing