Bio-Mechanics : Using your natural structures

Body Balance and Sonority

Your body as a resilient vessel has an essential effect on your sound production. The elasticity of the spine and all joints influence your sound. The rotation (vibration) of the string can and should be felt in the bow and down the spine.

Oneness: Breath, Movement, Body.
(Body= Sound)

1. Line up your body to create a vertical spring coil:
   • The knees over the balls of the feet
   • The hips over the heels of the feet
   • The ribs sit on the pelvis
   • The collarbones and shoulder blades sit on the waist
   • The jaw joint lines up with the collarbone
2. Head faces forward (talking posture) – When you turn your head to look at the fingerboard, your neck/shoulder/chest muscles are contracted.
   • Neck and chest – soft, elastic
   • Root your feet
   • Imagine your spine extending into the floor and send a column of air (or when playing, a river of sound into the floor between your heels)
   • Expand the lower torso (as if breathing into a balloon)
3. Shoulders and elbows – joints should be free and breathing
4. Sink and float

These positions and attitudes allow us to feel the power of polarization: your body energy and your sound project deeply into your root while remaining supported, and conversely reach upward while remaining grounded.

All power comes from leverage and grounding.
Do not confuse strength ( contraction) and power !

Body Mechanics

• -Absorb the impact of your motion in order to stay pliant so that every motion you generate is preceded and ended by relaxation.
• -Use body and joint angles that provide open, flexible options.
  • It is best not to be committed to an angle or gesture that turns inward. This means, as little pronation as possible in the right arm, and centrally located weight in the left arm.
  • The elasticity of your body influences your sound.
  • Support the torso by expanding from the ribs through the bottom of spine when exhaling. This support allows for a free and independent action of both arms.
  • Every joint has pivot point mobility, like a wave.
  • Tension in the neck and shoulders travel through the arm like an infection!
  • If your hand steers the movement, you cannot smoothly guide or change the direction. If your body steers the movement, you feel the arm’s motion guiding the hand.

Stay centered

• The actions we see – motion of right arm, left hand finger action and vibrato- operate best when initiated and led from our central steering points of shoulder blades and lower torso.

Joints and Muscles

• All joints, including the neck and shoulder blades, should be independent and freely mobile, without clenching and with minimal use of muscle power.
• free joints = free muscle action
• delete all excess contraction. We call the result “passive action”

Bow : Weight Distribution

• Use the power of gravity and the weight of your right arm to create leverage on the string – they work for you. Tension and contraction are usually counter-productive, sending energy in contradicting directions or inhibit power.
• Swing your right arm across your body at shoulder level. Then, swing your arm as if walking. Observe that the shoulder blade moves as part of the gesture, but your collarbone does not lift. – This is a good model of action for changing strings and for getting to the frog.
• The center of weight and action is focused in the palm of the hand below the third (ring) finger in both hands.
• The bow at the contact point pulls into the spine, between the shoulder blades or towards the navel, depending on the sound you are looking for.
• Be aware of both the horizontal and the diagonal spin of the string. Send the energy at your bow contact point into the spine, between the shoulder blades or to the bottom of the spine. Various combinations of these elements create your colors.
• Let the string’s vibration guide your bow speed. This means the string guides the bow and the bow guides the arm.

Vibrato

• Use a variety of amplitude, speed, and continuity to support your phrase shape.
• Develop a reflex action that uses balance rather than muscular force : a continuous, even action both on and between notes.
• Listen for the rhythm of the vibrato which is led from the string’s vibration.
• Your goal, as always, is to use as little muscular contraction as possible. For both wrist and arm vibrato, look for a release gesture (falling back and rebounding forward, like a perpetual motion machine). This gesture originates from a release in the wrist or in the lower arm. The release is implemented by a rocking gesture in the fingertip, that feels exactly like the bottom of a rocking chair. NO friction!
• Look for parallel motion in the knuckle line and all finger joints.

Shifting

• Release all resistance (all finger weight and all thumb pressure) before moving.
• Move as minimally as possible. Initiate a swing motion from the large muscle groups.
• Coordinate the action of all your joints on upwards shifts by feeling the motion in this order: upper arm (elbow) , lower arm and wrist. On downwards shifts, knuckle line and thumb, then elbow, lower arm, upper arm. Try to keep the shoulder joint quiet: even passive.
• Be clear on interval recognition and distance traveled (motion recognition) and point of arrival (geography)
• Practice shifting as if you were playing a slide in harmonics, but with full bow weight for “distance traveled.”
• Practice singing the note you are moving to for interval recognition.
• Then, move to that place on the fingerboard from a neutral place (such as arm hanging down, or on the scroll) for point of arrival.

LH Articulation

• Articulate from the knuckle line
• Always release diagonally from the knuckle line when transferring fingers
• Fourth finger guides your hand frame
• Balance of weight – a smaller hand needs to roll forward inside of a position to maintain the integrity of the fourth finger shape.
• Retain shape of finger (integrity of the bridge shape) when lifting from the knuckle.

Coordination

A method leading to finding flow and power in your body and in your music.
Through forty years of working with young musicians, Karen Tuttle’s “Coordination” method has proven to be the most direct way to find flow and power: in technique and in music making.

The main principles of “Coordination” in String Playing:
1) Body resonance has a strong effect on sonority.
2) Body resonance relies on an elastic musculature.
3) An elastic musculature relies on balance and geometric integrity.
4) Remaining in balance while in motion relies on constant release of tension in the muscles and joints.
5) Release of tension relies on recognition of a receptive, relaxed condition.
6) Release in the body, on the string and in the fingerboard is multi-dimensional and occurs in the vertical, diagonal and horizontal directions.
7) The entire bio-mechanism is both grounded (rooted) and soaring, creating the power of polarity.

How “Coordination” works
1) Release points are focused at both ends of the spine.
2) We name the lower torso release “re-pull,” because it is a vertical coiling energy. At the one-third point in a down-bow, release the bottom of the spine into the floor and expand the lower abdomen while exhaling (as if you had a belt placed below your hip bones and were trying to break it open from all sides). At the same time, imagine something pulling your bow up-bow as you are going down-bow, creating resistance. If you are operating with a relaxed and balanced hand, the bow will slow down and become compact as the hand rotates clockwise.
3) We name the upper torso release “over the bow” or “neck release” because the “neck release” creates leverage in the bow arm to carry and coordinate through the bow change. At the two-thirds point in a down-bow, release the top of the spine where it meets the skull by tilting head slightly back and slightly opening the jaw joint. The apex of the release happens after the bow has changed into the up-bow; hence the name “over the bow.” If you have relaxed neck and chest muscles, the bow will gain both leverage (power) and a degree of speed in an “over-the-bow” change.
4) When the body and bow arm are elastic, activating these release points will create change in the drive and pull of the bow as well as the body sensation of being on a wave motion. This will be heard in your sound production.
5) “Re-pull” = concentration of sound intensity
6) Neck release = expansion of sound energy

Musical applications vs. technical applications
The biomechanical “re-pull” and neck release are part of a flowing technique and always occur at the one-third and over the two-thirds points of the bow.
We can conceive of these events as a grid that can overlap with a musical grid, where the bow is used in the “re-pull” (intensifying) and “over the bow” (expanding) modes to mirror tension and release points in the music and also to create transition sounds between notes.
The integration of the two grids creates a constant flow and balance in the technique and body as well as a constant richness of sound production dedicated to transition and function in sound.
In practical terms then, if for reasons of phrasing you want a “re-pull” (or intensifying) sound in the upper-third of the bow (or on an up-bow), you will be simultaneously making a “neck release” for the sake of leverage and continuity of bow change, yet producing a “re-pull” sound by slowing down your bow speed and pulling in your contact point.
The one-third point of “re-pull” and lower torso release can then simultaneously become an expanded sound moment by handling the bow as you would when going “over the bow.”
If playing a quick passage in detaché, it is possible and indeed advisable to “coordinate” the passage work by mapping the musical resistance and expansion moments, and implementing the corresponding body release points.

Time Management

• Prepare a weekly plan and know when and what you are going to practice every day.
• Graph a preparation plan at least two months ahead of a performance date.
• Flag tough spots and time sensitive repertoire. Do these daily.
• Distribute the remainder of your repertoire in a balanced manner.
• If you’re working on a specific change of technique, try using 5 minutes out of every 15 to concentrate on that particular issue.

Thinking About Your Music
Practicing:

• Clarify your intentions
  • Consider character, line, color, contrast, rhetoric, structure, and harmonic tension and release.
  • Stylistic considerations: Use of vibrato, glissandi, articulations, type of slur, dynamic range.
  • What emotional message do you want to project.
• Practice subjective feeling (be emotionally engaged), objective hearing (hear what the sound at the back of the hall is doing), and objective action (use your expressive tools consciously)

Performance:

• Stance and energetic relationship to performing space.
• Develop the ability to visualize your sound moving to the back of the hall.
• Imagine your sound physically touching your listener.
• Hear from the back of the hall
• Create a relationship with your audience.