In this post, I will cover one very important part of right hand technique when playing in the middle of the bow. It is a vital aspect of right hand posture as it can solve many problems and help avoid bad habits quite easily. The term "square position" has been critical for my approach to teaching bow arm technique because of how easy it is to understand. I borrow it from a renowned Russian-American violin teacher Ivan Galamian. As he explains in his book, square position is a position of the right hand in which the bow contacts the string near the middle.* *As the length of everyone’s arm i ..read more

The task of any teacher who is helping a beginner take his first steps with the cello is to help bring the hands of the student and the instrument together in as natural a way as could possibly be achieved. So what I would like to discuss is the default position of the left hand, the shape from which all other hand movements derive. The instrument has to be an extension not only of the soul, but more importantly of the physical body of the performer. Unfortunately I notice too many students and sometimes even professionals (especially in Asia) have the tendency to shape th ..read more

I remember being constantly reminded of this by all my teachers as a child. I just thought of it as an annoying little thing I had to do to get to playing what I wanted to play. Thankfully he was very insistent and I had no choice but to pay attention to it constantly in the beginning. Unfortunately very few teachers bother with any explanations to justify such a universal rule of thumb (sorry ). And I myself only began to see it's value when I had to come back to the basics of bow hold much later. With self analysis and slow practice on difficult passages I began to notice that tension alway ..read more

In this post, I will cover one very important part of right hand technique when playing in the middle of the bow. It is a vital aspect of right hand posture as it can solve many problems and help avoid bad habits quite easily. The term "square position" has been critical for my approach to teaching bow arm technique because of how easy it is to understand. I borrow it from a renowned Russian-American violin teacher Ivan Galamian. As he explains in his book, square position is a position of the right hand in which the bow contacts the string near the middle.* *As the length of everyone’s arm i ..read more

The task of any teacher who is helping a beginner take his first steps with the cello is to help bring the hands of the student and the instrument together in as natural a way as could possibly be achieved. So what I would like to discuss is the default position of the left hand, the shape from which all other hand movements derive. The instrument has to be an extension not only of the soul, but more importantly of the physical body of the performer. Unfortunately I notice too many students and sometimes even professionals (especially in Asia) have the tendency to shape th ..read more

I remember being constantly reminded of this by all my teachers as a child. I just thought of it as an annoying little thing I had to do to get to playing what I wanted to play. Thankfully he was very insistent and I had no choice but to pay attention to it constantly in the beginning. Unfortunately very few teachers bother with any explanations to justify such a universal rule of thumb (sorry ). And I myself only began to see it's value when I had to come back to the basics of bow hold much later. With self analysis and slow practice on difficult passages I began to notice that tension alway ..read more