Bowing through a tube
The Magic Bowing Machine is your secret weapon for teaching straight, beautiful bowing!
Once a student has a beautiful bow hold, it comes time to teach them to move the bow effectively to produce the best sound. My favorite tool for teaching this is something you probably already have at home and costs virtually nothing.
This magic bowing machine works with the bow or with a wooden dowl or silent bow. It's the secret weapon for training your students to use the correct muscles to move the bow effectively and ensure that their first sounds on the instrument are sweet and clear.
The first step is to mark off the center of the bow with colorful tape, butterfly clips, or some cute bow markers. Then have students rest an empty toilet paper tube on their left shoulder. Insert the bow into the magic bowing machine until only the bottom bow marker is visible. Have students draw the bow down until the upper mark appears, and then go back up.
Bowing through the tube forces the arm to move only from the elbow. The left shoulder is my favorite place to put the bowing machine, but you can experiment with the tube placement to more closely mimic the setup of the violin.
Once students understand the concept of up bow and down bow, they are ready to start rhythms! You can use the rhythm cards and games from this post as shadow bowing exercises, introduce the Twinkle Rhythms (future post coming soon!), or practice the bowing pattern of a new piece with the magic bowing machine.
When I taught middle school orchestra, I usually reserved a day for students to decorate their tubes with stickers, glitter, googly eyes, tape, or markers. We would spend several weeks practicing rhythms with the bowing machines until everyone had a beautiful bow hold, understood the concepts of up and down bow, and used the correct arm motion and the entire middle portion of the bow. Then we were ready to make our first sounds on the strings!!
If advancing students struggle to produce a good sound and keep a straight bow, doing a few minutes of daily warmup with the magic bowing machine is a great trainer to reinforce the correct bowing motion. You may also insert straws into the F-holes of the instrument, placing the bow in between the straws and bridge. Not only does this keep the bow from wandering onto the fingerboard, but it also helps students find the "sweet spot" for the most effective sounding point on the string.
Another tool I have found helpful for young ones who still struggle once we begin bowing on the strings is the Bow Force. It collapses easily to fit in the case and will not damage the instrument, move around, or rattle like similar products I've tried. And of course, if no magic bowing machine is available, shadow bowing vertically in the air or upside down on the left elbow are always tried and true strategies for isolating rhythm and right-hand skills.
Have any fun shadow bow suggestions? What tricks in your teacher tool bag work well for reinforcing the correct bowing motion? Join Violin Club on social media or comment below, and let's keep the conversation going!