Bow Angle Exercise Beginners Intermediate Cello School Suzuki ABRSM Student Tips with Sarnia
Homework and prep studies.

hi everyone so i'm just going to do a little exercise with you it's very very good for um practicing a straight bow and therefore improving your tone so we're going to do a c scale and we're going to do it near the frog in the middle of the bow and at the tip okay so let's do the frog end

did you notice in the mirror that your bow every time you change a string has to really change direction and it's really obvious when you're near the frog let's do it in the middle you don't notice so much do you there's not so much maneuvering around because when you're in the middle of the bow it's that's where we're used to playing you see so interesting i mean we still have to change direction but our hand doesn't look so bent up if you like let's try right at the tip let's try that get ready

sorry i did a flat let's do it again

it's quite difficult isn't it i mean you can you're really good

you can really get i'm right at the tip and i my arm has to stretch so far out

it's a really it's such a good way of i mean we're we're okay i think um i mean look at your body just you're is it almost if you're running on when you're doing it on the a now look when you move to the um the g string look at your body now um i mean your arms are almost horizontal aren't they

what happens when you get to this eight you're on the tip when you get to this a i mean i'm not a big person but my arm is really

what you see

i love this exercise it's just fabulous really try if you can to get as close to the um the ends don't worry about um uh you know fingering and things like that or if you make a mistake i did there i made a did i make a b flat or i did something don't worry about that what you're looking at you're studying in the mirror

the extent to which you can stretch your arm and the reason this is really good is because it tells your brain when you're coming round to these notes what sort of angles you need to be at and doing of course the thing when you're using the tip you've got to be careful you don't actually stab your cello because you're over compensating so um my chair has got a few injury marks on it from doing that um when i was at speed so there we go i hope that helps but just a bit of fun really um but try it and see try it if you're learning the the scales and you've just started your cello just use the middle give yourself a break don't have to push yourself just yet