Right Hand and Tone Color
The right arm, hand, and bow are responsible for tone quality, rhythm, dynamics, articulation, and certain (but not all) changes in timbre. The bow is held in the right hand with the thumb bent underneath the frog to support it and the other fingers loosely touching the wood. The middle and ring fingers are usually wrapped around the frog, although in some cases (such as in baroque performance practice) the whole hand holds the stick above the frog. Holding the little finger curved and resting on the near facet of the octagonal shape of the stick, next to the facet on top of the stick, allows that finger to "unweight" the bow, using the thumb as a fulcrum. The most important thing in bowing is that bowing action should be initiated and solely dependent upon movement of right hand, not by forearm, upper arm, and shoulder. Flexion and extension of these parts should be passive led by right hand action. Otherwise, subtle and delicate bowing control is impossible, leading to excessive tension in right arm, making bow control hard.
Read more about this topic: Playing The Violin
Famous quotes containing the words hand, tone and/or color:
““Don’t let him cut my hand off—
The doctor, when he comes. Don’t let him, sister!”
So. But the hand was gone already.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“We often contradict an opinion when it is actually only the tone with which it was put forward that is uncongenial to us.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“Painting seems to be to the eye what dancing is to the limbs. When that has educated the frame to self-possession, to nimbleness, to grace, the steps of the dancing-master are better forgotten; so painting teaches me the splendor of color and the expression of form, and as I see many pictures and higher genius in the art, I see the boundless opulence of the pencil, the indifferency in which the artist stands free to choose out of the possible forms.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)