Top 5 Myths of Bowing for Cellists
A prime example of how we cellists can lose track of our string is with “bow angle”. We tend to think there’s a correct angle for our bow to face the string and therefore a correct angle for our upper arm to open relative to our chest and our forearm to open relative to our upper arm. In other words, we think of bow angle as a geometry equation and often we use a mirror to solve it.
Yet our string (and therefore our sound) does not care about any of this. Our string cares about the angle at which *it* is moved and whether that is happening with or without sheering our bow hair. And these are things we can feel directly in our string without needing to look or measure abstractly.
There’s a feeling of maximum flexibility when moving the string perpendicularly to itself (because those are the only directions our string can actually go). And there’s a feeling of maximum resistance when moving our bow hair perpendicular to our string (because there is no sheering and therefore direct friction).
Once we tap into this feeling of flexibility in the string and resistance in the bow, it is so much easier to find a “straight” bow in any configuration of our instrument or body. We can change chair height, endpin length, go baroque, go modern, or even switch to violin and immediately find a “straight” bow just based on this feeling of flexibility in our string and resistance in our bow. More than that, we will feel and sound so much better connecting to our string through sensation instead of abstract angles.
And of course we don’t have to play with a straight bow, we can use all kind of angles for various reasons depending on the sound we want and each of those has a particular feeling we can tap into as well.
To sum up, bowing is not an angle of our bow or body, it’s a feeling in our string. It’s not a math equation, it’s a sensual tug of war. No mirrors and no looking needed when following our own sensations instead.
If you’d like to explore your string angle, check out my online workshop for cellists called Bowing With Your Whole Self.
