August 30, 2023 Homework Poco Players

These are short videos working on bow hold, posture, bow movements, and more. They also show some great examples of what a good posture and a good bow hold on a little person looks like 🙂 Follow along with your student. I recommend pausing and repeating each exercise a few times, more if your child seems to have trouble with a certain exercise, I recommend more repetitions.

Please also continue with the exercises from the last couple of weeks. It is important to have lots of review to establish good habits.

1) Assisted Bow Hold: Another way to get your child into a good bow hold. Start with the student making a circle with the middle fingers and thumb, then slide the bow in their hand as the teacher does in the video. Really checking for relaxed hands and the pinky and thumb to be bent:

2)Shoulder Bowing and Rhythm:

3)Follow along the video with the various games and exercises. Feel free to pause to repeat a game/exercise or take another look. First year students should avoid the horizontal bow exercises for now, as we will need time to build that kind of strength in their pinky.

4)  Posture Game: Only attempt if your student can hold the violin without their hand with no slipping or issues already. If your child is still unable to hold only with the head, work first on getting them to put the violin on the left collarbone and jaw on the chinrest, and then putting enough weight on the violin with their head that it can stay in place.