"dangly elbows" is another, shorter way to think about counterbalancing. Once you've felt what counterbalancing is like, this is a nice shortcut to getting that feeling again without all of the counterbalancing steps.

1. Sniff and Toss
2. Your shelf (chest) is now floating. Check in with your shoulder blades and elbows and let them feel like they're loose and dangling from your shelf.
3. As you play, keep thinking about your shoulder blades and elbows dangling.

How this relates to string crossings:

When crossing from the A to E string (or G to D, or D to A), your elbow drops a little and that changes the angle of your bow from the current string to the next string. Thinking about the elbow dropping works for many students. For some students, though, it results in the elbow moving without the shoulder blade moving at all. If you want your string crossing in this direction to be easier, and the shoulder isn't naturally following the elbow, instead think of this:

1. (assuming you're already dangling shoulder blades and elbows from your shelf)
2. to cross to the next string, feel your right shoulder blade relax and drop just a tiny bit. It will take the rest of the right arm, including the elbow, with it.

This method helps when you are (usually subconsciously) holding with your right shoulder to try to control the bow. If it feels like "cheating" when you're bowing because you're not doing enough work, it's probably perfect. :-)

A few weeks ago I was trying to teach myself spiccato, which no one so far has been able to teach me, and no one has been able to figure out why I can't do it. Now I can--or I almost can: I just need some more mileage to get it consistent.

Anyway, while I was trying everything I could think of to get myself "in the zone" for spiccato, I discovered a way to consistently get the kind of bow-to-string contact I wanted without losing the loose left hand finger technique I needed. It's a different feeling than thinking "finger, bow, go" in Suzuki, though it achieves the same result. Try this:

1. Put on Sandwich #1 and Sandwich #2
2. Now, with your bow on the string (try the A string first), balance your right arm and your bow so that your bow feels like it is exactly in the same plane of balance as your left hand. Use the balance you feel in your left hand and try to match that plane in your bow.
3. Let your bow balance sink slightly lower than your left hand balance--just a touch!
4. As you play: now that your bow is balanced, its work is done. Your loose left hand fingers are now in charge--let them tell the bow when to go.

This sounds really simple, but there's something about thinking about it this way that has made a number of my students suddenly have a perfectly focused, relaxed sound.

This is an exercise adapted from Kato Havas's book "A New Approach to Violin Playing". I was looking for a way to explain that kind of bow technique to kids who have never played the violin, and explain it in an efficient way that's fun to practice.

Nate asks how to cure a jiggly bow in the upper half. Every time I see a jiggly bow, I also see a tight right shoulder. I want the right shoulder totally relaxed. Usually you see the jiggle happen during a down bow, but the cure is to start by relaxing the up bow.

On the up bow, the elbow (dangling) will dip in towards your waist at the beginning of the stroke. You will feel like your arm is traveling underhand, like throwing a ball underhand.

Here's the quickest way I've found to achieve this:

1. "deflate" yourself (hairball)
2. now that you've created a vacuum, open your mouth and let the air rush into you, inflating your whole chest. It should feel effortless. From now on, you never have to breathe in again! Just deflate yourself and create a vacuum, and the inhalation will happen easily.
3. now imagine that your knees are in charge of opening your mouth to let the air in: exhale and straighten your knees, then unlock your knees just the tiniest bit and use that to "pop" the air into yourself.
4. loosen your arms and let them swing back when you exhale, and then let them follow the knee movement as air rushes into you. They will swing slightly forward.

Here is your new way to do up bows:

1. set the bow at the tip.


2. let your arm weight settle into the bow.


3. pop your knees and let the right hand/arm follow the knees' movement, pushing the bow up. You should strive for the feeling that the knees are doing all of the work and the arm is just going along for the ride.

Your shoulder should feel totally relaxed if you are bowing like this. If you leave your arm weight in the bow and leave the shoulder that relaxed, you will be able to play a full down bow without jiggling in the upper half.

This post makes me think about arm weight, another potentially tricky thing to master! More on that later.