The Bow Hold Part 2

In part 1 we discussed the basic bow hold. In this part we’ll take an in-depth look at the right hand when we perform a down-bow.

We start at the frog with our bow hold from part 1. It should look like this:

The same from a different angle:

As you can see the fourth finger is bent. The effect is comparable to a shock absorber in a car. The finger acts like a spring because it is bent. Being flexible it filters the movements from our right arm, so the bow wouldn’t scratch even if the bow strokes are not perfect.

The next two photos are made in the middle of the bow:

And again from a different angle:

The fourth finger hasn’t changed much, the third finger stil has full contact to the frog.
The most interesting part begins at the tip of the bow:

We would need a very tense, almost cramped hand if we wanted to preserve our bow hold. But we have to stay relaxed, the hand should remain easy.
The solution: The third finger doesn’t have full contact to the frog any more and the fourth finger isn’t bent that much. That’s no problem for us because we don’t need our shock absorber at the tip. The arm doesn’t have the power to create scratches. Some violinists even leave the bow with the fourth finger, but that’s a matter of how your hand feels like.
Personally I prefer to have contact to the bow, just in case…
Here a second photo from the bow tip: