Now that we know how to hold a bow, and we know how to hold our violin, we need to know how to operate our ball, how to use the thing, how to how to make our bow work so that our violin sounds good when we play it. So when we have our violin ready, and we have our bow ready, we have to keep in mind where to place the bow on the violin. And where we're going to place it is somewhere in between where the bridge is. So these are some common components that we need to figure out. This is what we call the fingerboard here, and this is the bridge. Well, the fingerboard eventually runs out and it just kind of hangs there where you see this wood part in the middle.

And then here's the bridge of your violin. So we're going to be somewhere in between point where the the fingerboard ends Where the bridge is. So when you're using your bow across here, it kind of looks like this. Right? So we're not going to make sure we're in make sure that our bow isn't on top of the fingerboard. And it doesn't not going to come up and touch this bridge.

And he want to go show you a couple examples of that. So when we're talking about when not to get too close to the bridge, or not to get too close to the fingerboard. There's some reasons behind it and some pitfalls that we can fall into. And by just showing you what those are, it can hopefully help you realize if you hear something that's going wrong, recognize what's happening, and then make a correction. So all I'm going to do is play the A string or the second string. So these strings is the string the little The string can be called the first string and that's okay right now.

And then the second string is the second biggest string or the A string. The D string is the third string, and the fourth string is the big fat string. So I'm gonna play the second string or the A string and just see how it sounds. You get a good, solid sound out of that if I get too close to the bridge. Wisdom, I move the ball away from the brain. And I'm going to get close to the bridge.

You get that whistling sound again. So if you ever hear that whistling sound, we're especially for somebody that doesn't quite sound right. Chances are your bow is getting too close to the bridge. Same thing can happen if you move down low or pass where the fingerboard is when we start to change strings, and We're not there yet changing strings, we're just playing one string, it can be really easy to hit other strings. Also, there's a difference in the tonality of the violin. So I'll give you an example of playing with your bow somewhere in the middle here.

I'll play with the ball a little bit further down. Right. So when we have our ball in the proper position, it sounds better. We're going to make sure that our bow is halfway in between the bridge and the fingerboard. And there's some different tone things that we can do as an advanced player by getting it a little closer to the bridge and a little farther away closer to the fingerboard. But for right now, as a beginner player, we're going to make sure that our bow is kind of halfway in between.

The next thing that we need to talk about is when we finally get our bow up to our strings What part of the bow Am I going to try to use? It's really typical of a very beginner person to start out close to their frog. And this is typical because it feels like it feels as though you have more control over the bow at the very beginning, when your hand is closer to the strings, versus being very far away from the strings, it feels odd and you feel like you're out of control. But we're going to do instead is with our bone, we're going to make sure that we're in that middle part of our bone. So this is going to be the mid part of our bow right here. Once I find the midpoint of my bow, right about there, I take the tip of my bow which is right there and I scoot my fingers in both of them at the same time.

Once I have about six inches on either side, this is going to be the beginning point of my bow and endpoint of my bowl. So when I'm using it on the strings, pretend my finger is where the string is, there's going to be from right about there, right about there. So we're really close to the tip. Right? So going back and forth between about just six inches on the ball. And that's where we start.

The reason why we use this part of the bow is because it's the easiest for a beginner to get a good sound right. Now, if we start with our bow, and kind of where the frog is, it can sound really gritty if we don't move our boat fast enough. That's a horrible sound. Now, if we recognize we're getting some gritty sounds, and I'll show you an example, besides this one, if I move my boat too slow at any point, even if I'm up here, it'll it'll sound like this. It's not a good time that we want to have. So how do I rectify this, what I want to do to make a clean sound and not get that scratchy sound is two things.

Either I'm pressing too hard on the strings, which is a possibility, or I'm moving the boat slowly. I can be doing both of the things wrong. So I can have less pressure on the strings and I can move the boat faster. Now, I don't hear that, that grading the sound that we had anymore. We also talked about those whistles that we had only we're too close to the bridge. So if we hear those things, we know we know how to correct them.

So we're going to focus on about this point of the bow, set it on our string somewhere halfway in between the bridge and the fingerboard and one of The drawbacks by being just simply a human being, and trying to use your bow, because you have this elbow thing, and you have the shoulder thing. And when you work it from the elbow, or the shoulder, it creates an arc. So from this point creates an arc like motion, from the point of my fingers to about down here, where they meet again, and we want our bow to go straight. But how can we get straight if we make this arc like motion? When we use our boat for the first time, it's typical that a person holding the bow will want to use their shoulder like this. And notice how it's hard to see it in this video, but I'm keeping my elbow locked so it's not moving back and forth.

So very typical. I would say it's good 90% chance, the first time we try it, we're only going to move from the shoulder. And that's not something we want to do. Instead, we want to move from our elbow, which we still have that arc motion. So I'm going to stop using my shoulder. And now I'm going to use my elbow instead, I still have the arc motion, but I have less of an arc motion, seeing the big arc motion.

And when I get it to my elbow, I have less of an arc of motion for my vote to be able to use. Right. So even if I had my bone my hand you can kind of see the arc motion that happens. So I'm looks like I'm, I'm swiping across them the violin, instead of bringing it straight across. Right? So we can do a lot of things to be able to resolve this one of this one of the things that we can do is the use of our wrist.

And when we are at the very beginning of us playing, we're only using This small of a bow from this point to this point. So when you're ready, we're going to do this together. And we're going to set the bow down, right about there, it's going to be on the A string or the second string of little strings. The first string, the second string is the second string or a string. So we're going to set it down together. And I want you to specifically see my wrist, the angle of my wrist.

So when it comes up, you can kind of see the rest bend upwards. So I have an angle here. This is the bend that we're looking at. And as I get the boat down, you can kind of see that my right wrist is straightened out in this angle here. However, when you see it in real motion, you're not going to see the hand. Move any different at an angle, it'll fall.

The same angle as I go up, and I go down. So it'll never wish wash back and forth, that the hand is staying on the same plane as I go up and down. And this helps correct the arc of motion that I had before. Now, we're not using a big bowl bowl, like I'm showing, we're only using this little part of our bowl yet. So we're going to try to try to get that bowl. And this is going to be a perfect exercise for you to do in front of the mirror.

So you're seeing just like, I'm seeing myself in front of this monitor that I had, I see this my monitor and I can see myself and you're going to be in front of mirror just like just like I'm seeing myself, you want to be able to see yourself to so that you can see make sure that your bow isn't going some crazy way, but instead of going straight across the strings. Alright, so let's do this together and we're going to be on the A string of the second string, and I'm going to start right out there in my bow. And I'm going to count to 321. And we're going to play your violin for the first time. So it's three to one little ball. And that's it.

I did that. Now, it's okay at this point to have a slight delay. And what I mean by having a slight delay is, oh, check my teacher, I just saw him do it, and then I'm going direct. So check out and then you go, Ah, that's a slight delay, so you're not doing it exactly at the same time as me, and that's totally okay. Now, we're going to have that what we call a down bow. So if our bow is going towards the ground, we call it a down bow.

And if my bow is going up towards the ceiling, it's called an up bow. Now I'm going to do a couple downs again, and we're going to reset the balance of down and then I'm going to pick up the bow and reset it and do another down. Pick up The bone reset I'm going to do another down. Right now we're getting used to down bows, we're going to do the same thing, but for up bows. So I'm going to have my bow, touch the A string or the second string. And I'm going to go up towards the ceiling up and I reset, and I'm wanting to play them on a string gives a three to one.

And now we're playing a bows. At the very beginning, when we were doing this just as an exercise to just use our bowl for the first time, every time after this for a while, we're going to try to never pick up our bow, and that's why we've had to do it at the beginning is to show you what it feels to pick up your bow. But after this we're going to do down bows followed by an up bow, but it's going to be really important that the bone never gets lifted up off the strings. What I mean by that is, let's say I do it down, I want to make sure that the bow doesn't come up off the strings. When I go to doing the same thing, I don't want the boat to come up off the strings like I'm showing you. Instead, we're gonna bring our boat to a complete stop.

Stops there, but it's still setting on strings. And then I'm going to do an abode comes to a complete stop. I don't even do another down though. Now, when we're doing just as practicing, we're just kind of feeling out or violent for the first time with both. What we're going to try to do is we're going to try to do up or down bows and oppose on every string. So the first string ie the A string, second string, D string Or the third string and the big fat G string.

Now, when we're doing these different strings, it's going to be really important. And it's going to be a little bit differently later when we hold our bow slightly different, but for right now, our elbow is the thing that dictates what string you're bowing on. And we're thinking about it as the tip of our elbow, the tip of our elbow. If I bring the tip of my elbow upwards, I'm pulling out playing a lower string. If I bring the tip of my elbow downwards, I'm playing a higher sounding string, or an E string or an A string. So the way we have to think about it is so that when we're playing when we're playing notes on our violin or their strings on their violin, we want to make sure that that Angle of our bow doesn't dip down like this, it does, I'm going to hit multiple strings.

Now, instead, we want to make sure that our elbow stays at the same angle all the time, when when we're using our bow, that that helps us stay on the same string all at the same time. So I want to use my D string, this time, that's the third string. Notice this time my elbow isn't coming down or coming up, it's just staying on the same spot. I'm gonna do the same thing but on my fourth string, and you're encouraged to do this with me. So when I go over to my G string, I want you to go ahead and try to play along. And notice when I do that, my elbow comes up higher in the air.

So I'm a now my fourth string, the big fat G string. I'm going to play that a couple times. To switch all the way over to my E string or the little bitty string, the first string, and from the fourth string, notice how high my elbow is up in the air, I'm going to go all the way out to my E string and see how far it had to come down to hit the Eastern. Now, take some time to start playing around with just your strings without putting any fingers on the strings. If you find yourself holding the violin and your fingers are touching the strings, they won't be able to ring out. So just get them out of the way.

Now when we, when I say get them out of the way, that means they're not touching the strings. And you can hold your fingers up in the air if you'd like. They don't happen. They can just be resting but just make sure they're not touching the strings. And you'll be good to go for next lesson. We'll see you there.