Bowing: Weight vs Pressure

May 10, 2017, 12:24 PM · Weight, because I use the weight of my arm by relaxing the muscels that hold it more than I use muscels towards the violon.

May 10, 2017, 12:27 PM · I agree, since a gravitational force is what we string players should use to get a good sound out of our instruments, but aren't the strings themselves under actual pressure to vibrate a certain way?

Edited: May 14, 2017, 2:42 PM · The words Weight and Pressure are not used in any scientific sense; they are images which "speak" to appropriate muscles. We still have to squeeze index against thumb when at the tip, and balance with all four fingers at the heel, but Weight will encourage a freer motion than Pressure, and avoid inhibiting the vibrations.

Edited: May 10, 2017, 12:45 PM · Hi Ella, while I agree that if we move our bows fast enough, they will orbit the violin, and not subject our listeners to our terrible noise, pressure is not a force, but rather a pressure, which is to say, pressure is the amount of force distributed over a certain area.

I think you are overcomplicating things with physics that no violinist really needs to know in order to play violin. You are always going to be imparting a force on the violin, and how you get that force can vary. My teacher has taught me to use the natural weight of the arm with a relaxed arm, but I imagine that some successful violinists come from above more with a higher elbow, and the way they impart force is more "active", if you will. I wouldn't play that way, since it seems like it would result in more tension over time.

Heifetz had a pretty high elbow, and he had shoulder problems later in his career (related?). Midori seems like she has a very active right arm with a slightly high elbow - Is that an adaptation for someone with an arm that doesn't weigh that much? Oistrakh had big hamhocks, and he seemed to have a pretty low elbow.

When my teacher talked about hearing and seeing Szeryng play in person, she said that his elbow didn't seem to be as high as it looked (at least relative to the violin), because he held the violin quite high, but then again, he could apparently play quite well when he was sloshed, so maybe it doesn't always pay to imitate the Gods.

May 10, 2017, 12:42 PM · I know everyone gets a good sound out of an instrument differently, but I'm just posting this out of curiosity.

Edited: May 10, 2017, 10:26 PM · There's a very clear and well documented version in piano study. Put simply you can hold your arms in the air all the time and bend the fingers only to put the key down (pressure) or you can drop the weight of your arm into the keyboard (but you wouldn't want to sustain that). On the violin the latter will require all the fingers, through the bow hold, to work quite hard supporting the weight while the former only the index finger to apply the pressure.

May 10, 2017, 2:02 PM · At the frog: weight. (More so on the E than G string.)

At the tip: pressure (More so on the G than in the E string.)

In my humble experience.

May 10, 2017, 2:32 PM · Actually, you apply the bow at position "L" (from the frog) to the strings with a force of "X" that is generated by a combination of the weight of the bow by the force of gravity (with a lever arm of length L - the distance from the right thumb to L) plus force applied to the left of the thumb by a finger (usually index finger) on top of the bow or minus a force applied to the right of the thumb by the pinky.

It's just easier to talk about bow "pressure" and know how it feels and what you are doing!

Edited: May 10, 2017, 4:32 PM ·
Words that can be used to describe this:
force, weight, pressure, push up(thumb),push down(index finger), twist(wrist), rotate hand, pronate(rotate hand and/or forearm so palm is facing downward.

Rotate hand counter-clockwise so force is applied at the index finger to push down on the bow.

Is that about right science majors?

I would say weight and pressure are less correct; whereas, force, rotate and push are closer to what is being done. Semantics?

May 10, 2017, 5:25 PM · YEah, Charles, that's about right/ I used to play string quartets with a Charles Cook, back in the late 1960s-1972. He'd be about 100 now. Must be someone else. He was a physicist, violinist, violist, cellist, and bassist.

May 10, 2017, 10:32 PM · Fischer is the only one (unless Andrew is doing that?) I've come across who writes about the pressure/force on the thumb.

May 11, 2017, 3:52 AM · Bud, I'm not doing that, but since the bow is supported at two points: the string(s) and the thumb, part of the weight of the bow is a force on it. If a player squeezes the bow between the fingers and thumb that will be an additional force, but I try to avoid that except for strokes that require it.

May 11, 2017, 5:10 AM · Would it not be better to talk about Weight/Pressure versus bow speed?

Edited: May 11, 2017, 7:01 AM · The bow hairs exert a force on the strings that is distributed over an area of the string. Us physicists call this pressure.

The strings simply do not care how the pressure is achieved. Only that it occurs.

You, as the player, have several options for applying pressure to the strings through the bow hairs.

You can let gravity pull down on the bow because it has mass.

You can pinch your thumb and forefinger together to rotate the bow harder into the strings.

You can rest the mass of your hand and arm on the bow to let gravity push more pressure into the strings.

You can bend you wrist into the bow to push more pressure into the strings.

You can rotate your forearm into the bow to add more pressure.

You can throw the bow into the strings using a thrust of your fingers.

In terms of bow speed, you are applying a sheer pressure to the strings which is a function of the bow speed (duh) and how much pressure you are putting into the strings. In other words the sheer pressure due to bow speed is limited by how much downward pressure is being forced into the strings.

So if you want to play really loud, you need to increase both pressure into the strings as well as the speed across the strings.

I am sure there are other things I haven't thought of.

In ALL cases except strictly using the weight of the bow, you will feel a corresponding increase in the pressure of the bow against your forefinger. This is the primary feedback mechanism you use to judge how much pressure you are applying to the strings.

Perhaps a more interesting question is, "WHICH method should one use to apply string pressure?" I think it depends on the bowing technique one is executing.

An excellent source the relates different pressure techniques to bowing techniques, check out

http://www.violinmasterclass.com/en/masterclasses/right-hand/bow-grip

Edited: May 11, 2017, 8:48 AM · In a fixed gravitational field, the downward force exerted by an object having a specific mass is called its weight. By use of the muscles in your right hand and arm, you can change the force applied by gravity alone (often you are decreasing it if you consider the weight of your entire bow arm), but the effect is the same as if the object itself was heavier or lighter.

Thus force and weight in this context can be used interchangeably.

Chemistry students often get confused about the difference between weight and mass. The weight depends on the gravitational field, the mass doesn't. That's why weights on the moon are a fraction of what they are on earth. It's a largely academic distinction because most of us do not operate in environments of partial terrestrial gravitation.

Therefore weight and mass can be used interchangeably.

Pressure is force per unit area to which the force is applied. Since the contact area between your strings and your bow is roughly constant, at least in the limit of small changes in force, then force is proportional to pressure.

Therefore force and pressure can be used interchangeably.

The reason these different terms matter to us was explained adequately by Adrian Heath above.

I learned that tone, at least as far as the right hand is concerned, is a combination of contact point (bowing "lane"), downward force/pressure/weight, and bow speed. Fischer has described the interplay of these factors masterfully.

I believe that many violinists feel that "pressure" is directly downward toward the string, whereas "weight" is more about how your arm draws the bow both downward and laterally in some kind of smooth, organized way. However, from the perspective of Newtonian mechanics, that non-perpendicular force/motion can be decomposed into two orthogonal vectors, one of which contributes to downward "pressure" and the other to lateral "bow speed". Thus the three variables described by Fischer are sufficient.

Edited: May 11, 2017, 8:53 AM · Second on Fischer's advice.
That said, as a doubler, I find a great deal of difference between horizontal and vertical positions in bass and cello. I find that the more my arm's weight can go into the bow (Tortellier & Rabbath both use horizontal string angles) the fuller the sound and the more relaxed the player, and I don't think that it is just a matter of the player's perspective.
My legs are not long enough to adopt Tortellier's position and I very much miss the weight that I could put into the strings now that I'm more vertical like Starker. The sound is different even though I would argue that I am still in the same lanes with the same speed and bow "pressure" (stupid short femurs;-(

May 11, 2017, 2:10 PM · These are great thoughts, guys. From an image perspective, weight would be better, I think, if we take physics out of the question, but the physics behind how the bow vibrates the strings is so fascinating.

May 12, 2017, 1:34 AM · I generally use "weight" as a cue to get students to rest the weight of their arm into the strings, and "pressure" as a cue to get them to apply pressure with the index. Physics-wise, it's all essentially the same thing (except in the case of near-vertical bows on the e-string), but the difference in how students perceive and apply the terms is what I tend to focus on.

May 12, 2017, 3:41 AM · Even at the tip, I still like to feel the weight of the arm being transferred to the string via The Pinch.

May 12, 2017, 10:39 AM · To me it's important to recognise this definitely is a matter of semantics - probably pressure is the best technical term for what is happening at the bow/string point but I never use that in lessons. What we are dealing with is the students perception of how to accomplish that pressure and Weight seems to be a better word for encouraging a relaxed right arm.

My teacher used to tell me to "play through the string" which is obviously a nonsensical statement in terms of what is physically possible but it definitely gives a nice sort of imaginary feeling for what we can do to accomplish a good sound.

Having said this I do still use the word press with regards to the index finger when teaching articulation so...

May 12, 2017, 2:05 PM · I like to lean on the bow with the index finger, and maybe middle finger to a degree, not to press on it.

Edited: May 13, 2017, 8:40 AM · What no one has delineated here is exactly which muscles are being used when the index finger 'presses' as opposed to which muscles are used when it is 'leaned' on? (it is pressed?). It's not merely semantics.

May 13, 2017, 9:11 AM · I guess when we lean on the bow instead of pressing on it, I guess we play more relaxed.

May 13, 2017, 10:53 AM · Every movement carried out playing the violin can be described in terms of muscle contractions but never is.

May 13, 2017, 8:13 PM · ..because the lever is fluid and involves all of the muscles from the back to the fingers trying to maintain consistency at the point of contact over a wide range of about a half of a meter.

May 13, 2017, 8:23 PM · Bud wrote, "Every movement carried out playing the violin can be described in terms of muscle contractions but never is." That's true of any pursuit where movement is complex and subtle: Tennis, golf, dance, even bowling. Bodybuilders do talk about individual muscles and they have exercises to develop them specifically.

Edited: May 14, 2017, 1:18 AM · Everything you do involves all your muscles. What I'm asking is which predominate with which technique - weight vs pressure or index pressure vs hand pressure vs arm pressure? In fact to be honest any two different techniques described as muscular contractions would be a start! In piano playing I can tell you which muscle groups are recruited for whatever technique you wish to use. Doesn't anybody here know what they're doing (literally)?

edit: How about this scenario - one person says they press with their index finger, the person next to them says they apply arm weight. Are they contracting the same muscles the same amount? If they're not how do they differ?

May 14, 2017, 7:41 AM · Bud, I agree with you. I think we have a lot of different terms for exactly he same thing. But it's not clear whether that's harmful or helpful.

Edited: May 14, 2017, 8:15 AM · There are three aspects of the physical that teachers must be aware of 1) what it should feel like 2) what image helps get it across and 3) what actually happens anatomically speaking. And let no one say it's too complicated - we got man on the moon after all!

Edited: May 15, 2017, 1:19 PM · Wait till we get to detailed descriptions of fancy bow strokes, staccato, martelato, spiccato, saltelato, ricochet, portato, louré, oh yes and détaché. No two authors, even the Great Pedagogues, use quite the same terms or advice.

Edited: May 16, 2017, 1:52 AM · Strangely one of the great piano pedagogues and writer on arm-weight, Deppe, was a violinist. Anyone seen anything on violin playing by him?

May 16, 2017, 1:24 PM · Bud wrote, "And let no one say it's too complicated - we got man on the moon after all!" Well that's true but our health care system is still a huge mess. The man who promised to fix it once elected recently admitted that he didn't realize it would be so complicated!

May 16, 2017, 1:32 PM · Anything involving politics is complicated - usually by design. Anything involving purely physics - like playing the violin, or getting a man to the moon for that matter - is simple by comparison.

Ranting aside, I think these words like "weight" vs. "pressure" are more psychology than physics. They make you think about the task in different ways, so that two similar-sounding words have very different results. A word like "pressure" might encourage tensing up, or pressing too hard - while terms like "weight" or "sinking into the string" might prompt you to set up those linkages of joints and muscles in your arm and hand in a way that works much better.

May 16, 2017, 7:08 PM · Ive been always taught using the word weight, and I think it works much better than pressure. Weight, I feel, refers to the weight of the right arm, leaning on the bow, then bow leaning on the strings.The word "weight" allows us to explain how we rest our arm onto the bow. We should rarely ever push (pressure) the bow into the string unless its an accent, or effect of some sort.