Searching through different violin forums and discussion boards, we see people claiming that learning violin is hard. For example, some people claim the violin needs coordinations between the left and right hands while others point to the issue of intonation since the violin is fretless. Many people did not realize that learning the violin is similar to a muscle training from the get-go. I will try to break it down in this post.
Holding a violin
Professional violinists make it look so easy and natural to hold their violins. For beginners, holding the violin is pretty difficult. Usually, this is probably your first lesson either you learn with a teacher or an online course. You will realize that holding the violin is one of the most unnatural movements to our bodies.
In my first lesson, my teacher has asked me to hold the violin in our first lesson; she wanted to check the level of the violin. At the beginning, I thought I had to press my chin down to hold the violin. I was wrong.
Holding a violin is by simply placing our heads on the chinrest. The weight of our heads, which approximately 11 lbs or 5 kg, is enough to hold the violin. If you are using a shoulder rest, the left shoulder should not be raised. If you try holding the violin without the shoulder rest, your shoulder will raise a bit. This will create tensions on your shoulder and neck and we do not like tensions. We need our left shoulder to be able to move freely.
Holding a bow
Holding a bow is deceptively simple; it is not. The bow hold is addressed in the beginning of the lesson too. Some adults might think that their right hands and fingers are strong enough to hold the bows; they have forgotten how weak their pinkies are. The pinkie needs to be strong enough to hold approximately the weight of the bow, which is about 60 grams.
My teacher has given me a few exercises to strengthen the right hand fingers. At the beginning, I only did these exercises for 30 seconds each day. Overdoing these exercises can cause tendonitis. Imagine you go to the gym or do yoga for the first time, you would not want to lift 50 lbs dumbbells or expect your body to be flexible.
Next post, I will dive into more details of the left and the right hand; how different muscles are engaging in holding and learning the violins.