Squeezing right hand thumb

[bmanbill]

I have a student who has persistent trouble with his French bow thumb. I've tried a few things to get him to treat it more delicately but perhaps you experts out there have some specific things I can tell him/show him to get him to stop squeezing?

thanks,

bill

[Eli_Upright12]

put a tack where he squeezes his thumb. thats the old method for getting players not to choke the neck. Im only kidding though.

[Jeff Guevin]

I switched to German, but with the French I found (with Diana Gannett's help) that my problems with my thumb were:

a) Tension coming from my index finger: a thicker wrap around the stick, such as some rubber tubing, can help.
b) Not using the weight of my right arm effectively, trying to push the bow into the string. This was due to not realizing how heavy an arm really is. The exercise we used: my teacher held my arm up while I worked to completely relax it, and once I succeeded I could feel how hard it was for her to hold it up.

HTH.

[jallenbass]

1. Hold the bow as if it were an egg.
2. Use a sticky rosin such as Carlsson or Nymans
3. Use only the weight of the bow for quite awhile.
4. Bow closer to the fingerboard.
5. Only hold the bow with the ends of the fingers.
6. Play mp- mf.
7. Change strings with the whole arm and not by twisting the wrist.

After he can play consistently without tension he can then start to look at arm weight, bow placement and louder dynamics. I learned this from one of John Schaefer's students who played in the Cleveland Orchestra. Even though I haven't really practiced much in the last 10 years I can still play with pretty much the same level of technique as when I was practicing.