I am a new violin teacher and notice that my new students ages 6 and 8 would rather prefer to bow near the frog than at the upper half of the bow. I think that it puts more strain to their arm to bow at the upper half than at the lower half. Are there disadvantages to let them bow at the lower half until their muscles get stronger? How long does it take before they can bow straight as bowing at the upper half makes them bow crooked.?

Jimmy

First of all, may I ask if you have had lessons in how to teach and what to teach? I do not intend to offend, but this is something which should have been covered when you were taking advanced level training yourself. Learning how to teach is a very important aspect of teaching and your own technique needs to be rock solid before taking on beginners, especially young children, since their co-ordination is not as developed as that of an older child or an adult.

All pupils, regardless of age should be taught to use the entire bow from day one. Allowing them to restrict themselves to a small portion of the bow leads to all sorts of problems in the long run and potentially habits that will stunt advancement in their playing.

If they are bowing crookedly near the tip, then they are drawing the arm too far back and using the shoulder. The maximum amount of bow used should be proportional to the length of the players arm, not the actual amount of bow hair. When the arm is almost straight, the arm should stop and return an up bow, not simply keep going because they may not have reached the point of the bow.

Holding the bow at the frog end, by the winder and guiding the bow will help a pupil 'feel' how the bow should move, but, this assumes you have also given them the correct instructions about how the fingers, wrist, forearm and upper arm should move in response. If none of the latter is instilled in them first, then they will always bow as though they are trying to saw a lump of wood in half.

I teach my students to bow with the upper half only for the first few weeks. Then they play the same pieces again but using the lower half. Then I bring in using different parts of the bow for different note lengths, ie half bows for crotchets, whole bows (taking their arm length into account) for minims, slower whole bows for dotted minims and semibreves. Later on they use whole bows for all notes for a while; this gives them experience in using many different bow speeds. When quavers come in, I get them to use whole bows for crotchets, little bows at each end for quavers. Finally they start guaging their own bow lengths and speeds according to the music.

This way they get used to being aware of which part of the bow they're using and to different bow speeds. I find far too much violin teaching doesn't take bow usage into account and get very fed up sorting out inherited students' bow problems, so am very much in agreement with Amanda here!