Michael John Sanchez

Making use of your bow hand index finger is one of the most useful concepts to master to play the fiddle— and the hardest. When you’re transitioning, or changing directions with the bow, you only use your index finger. The actual transition should have nothing to do with the other fingers or muscles. Using your index finger on your bow hand is what lets you play fast and efficiently.

Before you put your fingers down on the fiddle’s fingerboard, you need to learn a very important fundamental called keeping your knuckles up. This is one of the two most important fundamentals to get right the first time because it can lead to either great fiddle playing or struggles to find the correct notes.

Think about how many keys/notes a piano has — 88 total. Do you think the fiddle has more or fewer notes? Most people would say a piano is able to play more notes, but actually, the fiddle can play more — each string has over 30 notes! This fact should tell you that putting your fingers in the right spot is pretty important.

You will need to be familiar with the notes on the D and A strings to play the fiddle. If you remember from the notation, notes are identified by the string and the finger number.Now it’s time to put a few progressions into action! Here’s how to set up to pluck a progression: Hold the instrument properly with your chin and shoulder.

Placing fingers properly on the fiddle’s fingerboard is all about proper contact. It doesn’t take pressing down hard, which is a bad habit to get into. You also don’t want to press down so lightly that you don’t get the proper sound. Pressing perfectly requires that you understand exactly how you should place your finger on the string.

When you play the fiddle, it’s important to understand left-thumb position and the position of your wrist. Proper thumb and wrist position sets you up to put your fingers in the proper spots and avoids restricting you down the road, especially when you learn how to do vibrato and shifting. Having a relaxed right hand is very important to avoid bow tension.

Proper finger angles are an important part of playing the fiddle. As you know, bowling is a sport in which you throw a ball down a lane to try to knock ten pins down. You start a little bit behind a certain line and then run up (forward) as close as you can to the line and throw the ball. But what if you had to bowl differently from this?

Most likely, the very first note you play on the fiddle won’t sound the way you want it to. That’s totally normal, even if you have an intensive musical background. The first day you start moving the bow is one of the hardest (sounding) to get through, but don’t worry, you’ll get better with practice. Check here in Chapter 5, Video Clip 8 to start moving the bow across the fiddle strings and then follow these steps: Set the bow at the contact point and make sure you have a proper hold on the bow.

Did you know that most of the bad sounds that come out of the fiddle have something to do with what’s going on in your bow hand? Properly holding the bow is one of the most important parts of playing the fiddle. Placing your fingers properly Placing your fingers correctly on the bow is the first step in getting a clean and beautiful bow stroke.