The lower half of the bow offers a unique set of challenges. Because of the frog, it's heavier, meaning you have to transfer the weight of the bow into your hand to keep the scratchy noises at bay.

Keeping the bow straight in the lower half can be tricky as well. You also want to avoid the dreaded t-rex arm. I'll explain

Now that you've worked on the mechanics of playing in each part of the bow, it's time to combine the lower half, middle, and upper half of the bow and play whole bows.

Start every practice session experimenting with whole bows (I do!)

I'll show you how to experiment with various speeds. Watch the following lessons for this week and incorporate whole bows into your practice routine.

Alright, hold on. The topic of right hand finger flexibility is a big one. Let me give you a heads up: you won't master finger flexibility in one week. It's something that will take time to develop.

And while it might be something you master slowly, it's oh so worth it.

Finger flexibility is what gives your bow sound smoothness and control. It's going to help with bow changes, long bows, and playing fast.

For this week, we're going to focus on finger flexibility with longer bows. Watch these videos and work on these exercises for this week.

Now that you've worked on some pronation and supination on longer notes, let's talk about how that applies when you are playing faster passages.

If you can relax your fingers and let them absorb the shock at faster tempos, you'll discover you can play even faster, with less bow, and better coordination between left and right hand! Win win. It's all in the right hand finger flexibility.

There are two types of "changes" when it comes to the bow. Changes from down bow to up bow and vice versa. And changes in strings.

Anytime you change one of these two things, you introduce the possibility for some unwanted noises. Learning to smooth out your changes will lead to a better bow technique and a richer sound.

For the next month, we're going to be talking about producing a gorgeous tone. But we've covered a lot so far, so use this week to review past concepts or troubleshoot any issues.

Review these resources and lessons to make sure everything is working correctly.

Up until now, we've been focusing more on what NOT to do. We've taken lots of steps to ensure we're avoiding bad habits and bad technique so we can prevent unwanted noises and sounds.

Now we're going to talk about what to do to produce a better sound and that's where tone comes in.

Tone is much more than just a sound, it's the quality and depth of your sound.

You want to strive to have a good, rich tone regardless of what tempo, dynamic, or style you're playing.

Weight is one aspect of tone, but it's not the entire picture. There are three variables that affect tone: weight, speed, and contact point.

I used to teach these three variables in stages with weeks or months in between introducing each concept. Then I realized you have to teach all three together, or at least in close succession.

Why? Because if you change one of the three variables, you HAVE to change the other two. They always exist in this perfect ratio with each other.

This might sound complicated, but you've probably already been adjusting these three variables without even realizing it.

Let's get a better understanding of the variables and how they contribute to a wide variety of lovely sounds!

I'm going to throw in a fancy bow stroke called martelé. This might seem somewhat random compared to all of the concepts we've been discussing, but martelé is my favorite bow stroke for whipping your bow arm into shape!

It requires you to think about finger control, weight, speed, contact point, and getting a good start and end to each stroke.

If you want to learn to have better control over your bow, include martelé into your everyday warm-up!

When it comes to bow exercises, the slow bow is king. It may seem somewhat anti-climatic, but being able to draw your bow evenly across the string from frog to tip at a slow speed requires an understanding of all the concepts we've talked about thus far.

To be able to do it well you must understand bow hold, arm position, transfer of weight, pronation, supination, bow angle, contact point, and speed control.

Strive to practice slow bows everyday on open strings. I'll show you my Slow Bow Challenge exercise to help you get the bow slower and slower!