November 28th, 2009 by Clayton Haslop

A couple days ago I received a query asking how to play ponticello easily and to great effect. Now in case you don’t already know, ponticello is a kind of special effect. And it is produced when the bow tracks so close to the bridge that the string is forced to produce higher frequencies than are part of the normal overtone series. The result is a kind of eerie, slightly scratchy color to the sound.

Now, there are two issues that make the execution of this effect a little more challenging than drawing a straight tone.

First, it is critical that the bow track right next to the bridge without fail. You’ll notice that when you draw a normal tone the bow can move back and forth between bridge and fingerboard to somewhat without negatively impacting the sound – one does like to avoid this, however. As soon as the bow wanders from the bridge in ponticello, the effect disappears immediately.

The second issue is control. Because the bow is not fully ‘in the string,’ as we say, there is a greater tendency for hidden tensions in the bow arm to manifest in just the sort of wanderings mentioned above.

Sometimes, in the case of the bow suddenly passing OVER the bridge (and this happens to everyone at one time or another), this ‘wandering’ becomes more akin to an alarming betrayal.

So, how to practice this technique so it is secure and well behaved.

First thing I would do is slow, quiet, long bows ponticello – that is, with the bow right next to the bridge – to get in touch with the bow stroke, from tip to frog. Once you’ve gotten a sense of the bow placement and the relaxed unfolding of the bow arm, you can begin playing some scales and arpeggios using the entire length of the bow; very smooth, no spaces between the notes. At first you may want to play single notes per bow. As the ease of maintaining bow control increases, however, I suggest you slur notes together, reaching eight or twelve to a stroke.

Gradually you will also increase the weight on the string – relaxed arm weight.

Now, ponticello is also often called for in combination with tremolo, a fast, repeated, and unmeasured stroking of one note. And to practice this variant I recommend arriving at tremolo by starting at a slow rate of speed using just the forearm. From there gradually increase the speed and narrow the travel of the bow. As you stroke more rapidly begin to add arm weight, if, that is, you need to perform the effect in forte.

The secret to this is the purity of your detach, really. Understand that I do not use my wrist – unless I’m feeling quite lazy – to produce my tremolo; simply the forearm. The elbow joint must be absolutely free of restriction.

The bottom line is, Ponticello really forces you to separate the vertical weight of the arm from the relaxed horizontal movements of the arm. It requires absolute freedom in the joints of the right arm. And these together make it an excellent tool for sharpening the efficiency and purity of your bow arm.

Clayton Haslop is Concertmaster (leader) on hundreds of movie soundtracks, including The Matrix movies, Titanic, Avatar, Ratatouille, The Incredibles, Star Trek, Up, Jurassic Park, Apollo- and The Perfect Storm. Haslop creates bestselling Instructional DVD courses used by beginning to professional violinists worldwide.

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November 11th, 2009 by Clayton Haslop

Today’s article should be very helpful to you, IF, that is, you are like most violinists and can always use an insight or two to keep your right arm technique sharp.

You see, most players have four main challenges where it comes to their bow-arm; keeping it straight, keeping it horizontal, achieving clean, non-disruptive string crossings, and coordinating changes of string and direction with the left hand.

Now, you may think of disagreeing with me. You may be thinking, ‘my biggest problem is with spiccato, I can do all those other things.’

If that’s the case, I’d say, you’d be wise to pay attention, your spiccato difficulties may have more to do with these things than you think.

Actually today I’m just going to discuss the first two challenges – keeping the bow straight and keeping it horizontal. For most of us ‘straight’ is pretty well understood to mean parallel to the bridge. What is less understood, in my experience, is the need for the components of the bow arm to facilitate the horizontal travel of the bow.

And for these to happen there are exactly 3 joints we have that must ALLOW them to happen – the wrist, the elbow and the shoulder.

Take the wrist – one of the most common no-nos I see is a raising of the wrist at the frog. Raising the wrist immediately takes one component of your bow-arm out of the horizontal plane of movement that is so necessary to an efficient, seamless bow.

So how should the wrist flex? The wrist must flex forward and remain within the ‘plane of motion’ the bow arm inhabits, while also maintaining the bow in a position parallel to the bridge.

This idea of staying in the plane of motion also extends to the elbow. I see a lot of players introducing unnecessary complications to their bow-arm by elevating and lowering the elbow in the course of drawing a full bow.

And then they wonder why the bow ‘chatters’ on the string, or why they have difficulty with quick string crossings and such. Well, there’s just too much going on, and all that contrary energy is getting fed right into the bow stick.

Finally, there’s the shoulder. How fresh is the memory of my father standing next to me tapping my shoulder to get it to relax during my early years of practice.

Though relaxed, the muscles in the shoulder must nonetheless control critical movements of the upper arm that comes into play at the lower part of the bow and during string crossings.

I’ll talk more about string crossings tomorrow, yet for now it is important to understand that, although the shoulder is bearing the weight of the arm and bow, it must nonetheless be relaxed, and that it plays a critical role in moving the bow straight and horizontally at the frog.

This is to say, you cannot confuse the vertical movements involved in string crossings with the lateral movements of the upper arm involved in bowing.

This morning I again made a worthwhile investment into my practice by playing Kreutzer Etude #2 at the extreme frog. You might be interested to know that for me to accomplish it, at tempo, from top to bottom with a really smooth detach bowing, I ‘belly breathed’ like a stallion in heat. You’ve got to keep the upper body absolutely relaxed to do this, and belly-breathing is a secret every violinist should know to facilitate this.

Clayton Haslop is the Concertmaster on many Hollywood movie soundtracks including The Matrix movies, Titanic, Avatar, Ratatouille, The Incredibles, Star Trek, Up, Jurassic Park, Apollo- and The Perfect Storm. Clayton Haslop’s bestselling Instructional DVD courses are used by beginning violinists to professionals worldwide.

advice, Careers, education, entertainment, how to play violin, learn to play violin, Motivational, music, music education, violin lesson DVD, violin teacher