Trying out Maxim Vengerov’s Violin Bow Exercise | Violin Lounge TV #441
This exercise can improve your bow control and sound quality, but when done the wrong way it can be very dangerous for your violin playing
Make sure to watch this video to the end:
The exercise is to hold the bow at the tip instead of at the frog
Because of this the bow will feel very heavy for your fingers and this is great training for finger action, bow control and sound quality.
WARNING: If your fingers (especially pinky!) are not strong enough to maintain a good bow hold and the right finger action, do NOT do this exercise!
When you perform this exercise with a stiff pinky and wrist, this will only secure a bad habit. It will be even harder to learn to bow smoothly with a good sound. Instead try out on of these daily warming up exercises for the bow hand.
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What was the effect of this violin bow exercise by Maxim Vengerov on your playing?
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Recently in a local in-person lesson I was discussing how to maintain fingers and wrist looseness while adding arm weight for Kreutzer 2. My issue was that index finger weight was a problem for finger flexibility. We tried hanging my small backpack onto my bow arm (less than a kilogram) and the results were really resonant! I posted this to a violin group and several people mentioned this Vengerov excercise. It’s definitely worth trying! My backpack “improvisation” is a bit sloppy but some people use .5 kilogram Velcro attached arm weights (and ankle weights) to work out and I think this might have some application in this context-what do you think?
Hmmm, I guess 5 kg is a bit too much. Indeed a weight on your arm might have you bow a bit more ‘weightless’ without it. On the other side when done wrong it might tense up things, so be a bit cautious.