n today's video, we are going to be discussing the proper position on your shoulder. Now, grab your violin because you're going to really want to take notes and participate in this quick YouTube tutorial. Hi, my name is Eric and I am your guide to Becoming a Better Violinist. Posture is something that we've talked about on the channel if you're new here, but to recap, good posture will allow you to have better playing.
Now we've never really talked about the position of where the violin is supposed to be on their shoulder. So I wanna discuss that with you for just a moment here. So recently in my violin lessons with my students, I've been seeing kind of a bit of a trend, um, on my students part, where, where we are really neglecting the placement of how this part of the violin sits.
On our collarbone. Now. Our collarbone is what helps us really get a good, comfortable position. I found that in my playing with a pronounced collarbone. When I have the, when I have the body of the violin, the back of the violin really sitting, I. On my collarbone. That really enables me to be, um, really free with my instrument.
And some people like to play without shoulder rest. Some people like to play with shoulders such as myself. I like having a shoulders with me just to add a little bit of that extra comfort due to my neck length. So when it comes to the actual placement of the violin, I've been noticing a lot of students.
Holding their violin like this. If you don't know what's wrong with this image, let me explain. When it comes to position, you wanna make sure that your violin comes straight to the body. It should be as simple as that. We don't want to do anything crazy like this, where the vi, where I'm facing you in the violin kind of to the side because when I twist my head, not only am I really, really tense here, but my vision.
On the on the fingerboard is off. My line of sight is more centered towards the thumb of my left thumb here. Now we wanna make sure that whenever we are doing posture specific, it takes like 10 seconds to do in the practice room in front of a mirror. Just to have this awareness really helps you. So when you're going.
In front of the, uh, when you're going in front of the mirror observing your violent posture, you want the violin to come to you. And that's exactly how I would address this issue. Make sure that you're holding your violin, you know, left hand in first position, right hand, um, near the chin rest, and just kind of let the violin go to the shoulder.
Because I've noticed that a lot of my students, they kind of bring the violin from down here and then they end up playing this way. Another violin student said that this is violin beard. I think that's hilarious. I've never used that term, but I'm gonna use it from now on. So you don't wanna have the violin, beard.
You want the violence, maybe almost like coming from above or from directly from the outside going into the shoulder. And you, and this is going to help you with a couple things. It's gonna help you with your line of sight, with your vision. It's gonna help you just look and be comfortable with how the fingers go on the fingerboard.
A lot of times you may see double vision, like double strings. That's just because you know, because our eyes are so close together and you look. Um, closer to the edge of the finger, edge of the fingerboard versus the first position. I find that if I actually look at my fingers versus looking at the string, I have, uh, a better chance.
I'm not seeing as much double vision with the strings. So that's a common problem that I see and hear amongst adult students and young beginner students. So when you are really approaching. This, uh, this way, you're, you're just gonna have a little bit more comfort. Now, there's another reason why you want to have this posture here.
This is primarily to get the bow involved. So when you have your bow with you, when you're playing with me in this tutorial, you have your violin. Let's say it's correctly placed. You want the bow to be perpendicular to the string. I've talked about this multiple times on the channel, but we don't want to have a crooked bow this way.
Or that way. We want to have a good solid, 90 degree angle between the bow hair and the string. Not only so that we can have a good down bow sound, but we can have a good up bow sound. Very important that we try to acknowledge that if we have a different position with our viol instead of this, but this, when you do a, when you do a down bow, it may feel as though you're doing a straight bow, but look what's happening here.
I do a down. And I'm going automatically over the fingerboard. That's not a good sign, and you'll never get a good, clear sound when you do it this way. So a lot of the bow problems that you may experiencing with the sound actually may not be a right hand problem after all. It could be a position and a posture problem.
So when you're over here, just make sure, um, something that is really common in Suzuki method that your nose is to your scroll. Notice to scroll very simple that you try to get that so that way you are in line of sight of your fingers. That really helps just so that way you understand how your fingers are, you know, trying to be placed on the fingerboard, but also just for the sound quality of the right hand.
So when you're playing,
so that way you're playing really clearly on all the notes. Now, it could be as basic as doing a down bow long bow and an up bow long bow. You will notice that you, if your posture is correct, let's just do an example here. So I'm gonna put, I'm gonna stand right here. I'm gonna sit right here, very square, and I'm gonna put my violin to its side.
It is very not even if I try to do a down bow, it's very hard to see, but if I do a down bow, you can see how my entire bow hold is really, um, not comfortable. My, my, uh, wrist is down. My pinky is flat. We want to have a good bow hold bow grip, and actually I just released a bow hold course on this very topic.
If you're having trouble with bow hold, I'll leave a link in the YouTube description below so that way you can take a look at that. But the posture. And the right hand, they kind of work hand in hand. I had a, um, I had a masterclass with Joseph Silverstein, who was a former concert of Boston Symphony Orchestra, former Utah Symphony, uh, music director, and he always talked about how the left hand and the right hand, they both work simultaneously together.
It's very difficult to separate one from the other. And I think this is very much the case where if you have your posture here, if your left hand is kind of. Um, incorrect here. That's what it's going to lead to. If your posture is, if your violent is to the side and your left hand is really uncomfortable, and then your right hand will all of a sudden be uncomfortable, you really want to be careful about that.
So when you are practicing at home, you wanna make sure that. You are just being really intentional with how you're practicing in front of the mirror. How your, how your posture is really good. And of course, remember that your shoulders need to go down. You want your neck to be aligned with your spine.
You don't want your neck to be going out here. Um, especially in such a digital world. You know, all of us are looking at our smartphones downward. We never look at our smartphones upward. So our posture really does suffer as a result. You wanna be careful about that. Good straight. Straight neck that goes directly over our spine so that way we don't feel fatigue.
Our violin goes up this way. And our bow perpendicular to the string.