Uzi said
Nicely done Mark.   I'll start by saying that based upon your set up, I'm going to guess that you are already a musician of some sort. You exhibit great finger flexibility, wrist movement and a good bow stroke in general.  Very impressive for a beginner. There are a couple of issues that I notice that you can work on.  First, your little finger is straight and does not maintain contact with the bow.  This is a not a huge problem, but each finger has it's job to perform.  The little finger is used to press downward on the bow to reduce the amount of pressure that the bow is exerting on the strings -- when required.  Secondly, your contact point (the point where the bow touches the strings) wanders around quite a bit.  This is due to a bow stroke that is not kept perpendicular to the strings. To get the best possible tone, the combination of bow speed, bow pressure and contact point much be purposely adjusted to achieve the best sound. I would suggest spending some time experimenting with bow pressure, speed and sounding point to perfect your bow stroke by bowing on open strings.  

This is incredibly helpful, Uzi.  I will pay attention to this concept.  One of my main barriers to improvement has been - I admit it - my resistance to doing things the right way.  I've played other instruments, yes, but I'm taking the violin as an experiment to see what happens when I "follow the instructions".  I guess as I'm getting older, I'm realizing that better outcomes depend on the quality of each individual step.  For example anybody can take sugar, flour, eggs and water and make something that resembles a cake, but it takes a different process and a lot more patience to make "good cake".  

Thanks for helping me with these ingredients!!

ADK-Mark

damfino said
I watched this last night, but will have to watch it again. I did think you were doing very well  

You've got the idea down to use your fingers and wrist as little shock absorbers. 

 

I will rewatch either at lunch or after work so I can take a better look based on your question about your wrist, but I think overall you're doing great    

That means a lot to me Damfino.  I think there's a certain hopefulness and ease-of-playing that I've seen in your playing.   I watch my own video and I see more "seriousness" than I was aware of, both in the strings and in my overall presentation.  That's a good tip about taking things a bit lighter and using fingers as shock absorbers.  Excellent feedback!

ADK-Mark