The Bow Arm PART 2

Continuing off of the last blog that I posted, I will write about "The Three Main factors [of the bow]: Speed, Pressure, and Sounding Point" (Galamian, 55). If you change any one of these three factors, you have to change at least one of the other two. Galamian says, "[the] increase of pressure with constant sounding point requires an increase of speed in the bow... increase of pressure with constant speed of bow stroke requires the sounding point to move toward the bridge...decrease of pressure with constant speed of bow requires the sounding point to move toward the fingerboard... [and lastly,] slower speed with constant pressure requires a move toward the bridge," (55). When talking about the speed, "[the] increase of speed will mean increase in sound; decrease in motion, decrease in sound. One of the most frequent faults found in this connection is that many players waste too much bow at the beginning of the stoke and therefore run out of bow toward the end," (Galamian, 56) When you have two notes in a 4/4 count one has 3 beats (a dotted half note); the second has one beat (a quarter note), the player usually "[will] want to stay in the same part of the bow, the speed of the up-bow will have to be three times as fast as that of the down-bow" (Galamian, 56).

I will now talk about Pressure, the second of the three main factors. "The pressure that the bow applies to the strings can derive either from the weight of the bow, the weight of the arm and hand, from controlled muscular action, or from a combination of these factors," (Galamian, 57) At the tip, the bow is at its lightest. As the bow gets closer to the frog the bows weight is at its heaviest. "The main point is that [the bow] must not, under any circumstances, take effect as a dead weight, inelastic and inarticulate, that would crush the vibrations of the string or, at best, produce a tone of inferior quality... Any stiffness in any joint between finger tips and shoulder is a spring 'out of commission' that will hinder the transmission of energy," (Galamian, 57). Changing the amount of pressure by slouching can also change the quality of the sound. Pressure if very important because, if you change it in anyway the quality of the sound and the message you try to send through the music can also change.
BAD POSTURE:

GOOD POSTURE:
The last of the three main factors is the sounding point, "tone production if the sounding point," (Galamian, 58). "Other factors in addition to speed and pressure have an influence on the location of the sounding point. These are the length, the thickness, and the tension of the strings itself," (58). The main thing to understand is the sounding point is closer to the bridge, the thinner the string is. This also happens when you are shifting into higher positions; the sounding point is farther away from the bridge as you get higher up the string, (Galamian, 58). 
    There are two main thing about the bow arm that are important. The first is the bowing patterns. There are several; the first is legato. Legato is "the slurring of two or more notes on one bow stroke," (Galamian, 64).

The second kind of stroke is Détaché. Détaché is when "a separate bow is taken for each note and the stroke is smooth and even throughout with no variation of pressure," (Galamian, 67).

 Next is the Spiccato. Galamian says Spiccato is when "the bow is dropped from the air and leaves the strings again after every note," (75).

The next stroke is Staccato. Staccato "is a succession of short, clearly separated, and constant-articulated strokes on one bow, performed while the hair of the bow remains in permanent contact with the string, "(Galamian, 78).

The last important thing you have to watch for while playing is chords. There are three main chords. The first is broken chords; "if a three-note chord is broken, the usual procedure is to attack the low and middle notes together before the beat and then to move over to the highest note in such a way that the middle and high note are sounded together exactly on the beat," (Galamian, 88).

 

The second is "unbroken chords of three notes, when attacked simultaneously, can either be sustained throughout, or else, after the simultaneous attack, only one or two notes held out," (89).

WHAT IS THE MOST IMPORTANT IN THIS  BLOG? WHAT WILL HELP YOU THE MOST?

Galamian, Ivan. "Ivan Galamian: A Biographical Sketch." Principles of Violin:
     Playing & Teaching. Mineola, New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 2013.
     vii-108. Rpt. in Ivan Galamian: A Biographical Sketch. N.p.: n.p., n.d. N.
     pag. Print.