happyjet said
Great video.

Thanks...I know alot of folks already do these excercises and I can really vouch for them. Doing them on the bow takes alot more work though, and I envy fiddlerman the way he just grabs his bow and flexes that thing all over the place. I can do it with the bow but slowly and only a little bit, not for any super length of time....I just haven't built up that kind of finger strength yet!

But starting out on a pencil is good. I still do it in my office or at home with my pencil nearby....

The motions, when I do these excercises whether with pencil or bow are exaggerated and I've read they should be. When we play the flexing of the wrist and fingers will be a bit more subtle usually but I've read other Violin instructors say to try to flex the fingers and bend the wrist in a kinda "exaggerated" motion to really loosen things up

happyjet said
I think that you should start using a light pencil and then use heavier ones after you can do it right. Just a suggestion

I guess I'd have to try and find pencils that are a bit larger, all the ones I have are the same size.

Well, when I use the bow, I actually alot of times support it in the middle of the bow with my other hand, while making my bow hold and doing those pull-ups with the fingers and wrist.

I'm gonna see if I can find some bigger pencils from somewhere....I never really thought of that.

Azteca76 said: "Thanks for the share! There were so many things I didn't learn early on in my violin playing. In part was due to no private lessons and probably because I got to busy gigging with mariachis lol If I had YouTube and all these wonderful forums back then ...who knows I probably would never go back to school and just focus on music. I will give them a try."

Ud, dijo que toca Mariachi? Entonces si supongo que sos Mexicano, habla Castellano? Soy estadounidense pero vivo y trabajo, radicado en Buenos Aires Argentina. Mi esposa es argentina y tenemos un hijo de 2 años.

Believe it or not, I discovered this excercise on You-Tube as well. It was a "Cape Breton" Nova Scotian Fiddler named "Andrew" who teaches fiddle and classical Violin in Nova Scotia Canada. I saw his demnonstration of this, and it just clicked for me. Even so, it only helped gbet on the path to having flexible fingers, but their still not as flexible and limber as I'd like them to be.

However, these excercises helped me get started so I thought I'd share just in case if someone wasn't aware of them and would like to give them a try.