Picking Strings for a Violin

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Part of the video series: Beginner Violin Instruction

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Summary: Start playing the violin, the world's most classy musical instrument, today; learn to finger pick strings on a violin in this free video music lesson on playing beginner violin.

Views: 723 | Tags: beginner, string, instrument, play, sheet, musical, violin, musiclessons, string instruments

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About the Expert

Amy Oliver Amy Oliver began violin in early 1990 and has been playing ever since. She has taught lessons for small children and taken lessons from players and conductors... read more

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Video Transcript

Picking Strings for a Violin

When you first take your bow out of your violin case it should look limp; all of the strings should be loose, and your bow should be in a complete nice arc. What you want to do with your bow is make sure that you take the tension screw, and turn it to the right. Just like the old saying goes; righty-tighty; lefty loosey. Never turn your bow too far to the left, or you'll remove the tension screw, the frog, and pretty much put your bow in a state of disaster. What you want to do is turn your bow to the right; your tension screw. As you're turning your tension screw; you'll see that the bow hairs move further and further away from the bow. In order to make the perfect arc 4 playing the violin, there's a small technique that you can learn; which is placing your bow on your fingers. You'll see if I start to let go it stops being balanced; which means that my bow is not in the correct form for playing the violin. So we turn just a little bit more, and we're in the right location. Never turn your tension screw too far to the right, or you'll completely straighten out your bow; like this, and you'll get a strong rasping sound on your violin or possibly no sound at all. Another thing that you want to make sure you have done with your bow while you're playing it on your violin; is that you've rosined it correctly. Never, ever check the rosin by touching the side of the hair that will be playing on the strings of the violin. If you do that the oils from your skin will get on there, make the hair slick, promote decay of the horsehair, and you'll have no sound on your violin.