bow Archives

Conversation with Hans Jorgen Jensen (April, 2006)

Interview by Tim Janof Hans Jørgen Jensen is currently Professor of Cello at Northwestern University and a faculty member of both Meadowmount School of Music and The National Arts Center's Young Artist Program. Mr. Jensen received a Soloist Diploma from the Royal Academy of Music in Denmark as a student of Asger Lund Christiansen and studied with Leonard Rose and Channing Robbins at the Juilliard School. In addition, he studied with Pierre Fournier in Geneva, Switzerland. At Juilliard he studied chamber music with Robert Mann and Earl Carlyss. From 1979 to 1987 he was Professor of Cello at the School of Music at the University of Houston. He has been a guest professor at the School of Music at the University of Southern California, the Tokyo College of Music, and [...]

By Tim Janof|2024-07-24T19:45:40-04:00August 5th, 2019|Categories: Internet Cello Society Archive, Interviews|Tags: ICS, Bach, Hans Jensen, Beethoven, Hans Jorgen Jensen, bow, CelloMind, vibrato, Christiansen, Northwestern, tennis ball, competitions, adapting, height, Internet Cello Society, hand size, Pedagogy, Internet Cello Society Archive|

Master Class Report: János Starker 2/29/01

Benaroya Hall, Seattle, USA, 2/29/01 The following are my notes from the master class Janos Starker gave in Seattle. 10 minutes before the class was to start, Seattle experienced a 6.8 earthquake. Apparently, Janos Starker was calm as can be backstage when it happened. The class ended up starting only 1/2 hour late. —by Tim Janoff Left Hand Anticipated Shift -- Slide before the bow change and land on the note at the bow change. Delayed Shift -- Slide after the bow change. Thumb Placement in Thumb Position -- A hitchhiking thumb allows more overtones, but it is harder to play in tune. Placing the thumb on the neighboring string is more solid, but it allows fewer overtones. The technique of the future is to place the thumb beneath the [...]

By Tim Janof|2024-07-24T19:45:16-04:00August 5th, 2019|Categories: Artists, Internet Cello Society Archive|Tags: ICS, bow, Internet Cello Society Archive, Janos Starker, Technique, Philosophy, Starker, Masterclass, left hand, Internet Cello Society, Pedagogy|

Presence on Stage (Part 5 – The Breath)

The Breath "The bow must be a living thing at all times, and all living things need to breathe" - Steven Isserlis, cellist. For me, the breath is the thing that binds all of this together. No-wonder it is at the root of so many spiritual practices! It is inspiration and expression, tension and release, taking in and letting go, expansion and contraction. It is not ‘ours’ though it passes through us, and it connects us with ourselves, our bodies and the audience. With all living things. The ocean breathes, trees breathe….It is everything we are and everything music is. When we are aligned and in harmony, we feel as if we are being breathed, just as we can, in performance, feel like the music is playing us. Working with [...]

By Ruth Phillips|2024-08-05T12:53:51-04:00September 16th, 2018|Categories: Performance, Playing Healthy|Tags: breath, inside-out, bow, Practice, breathing|

Emanuel Feuermann and the Art of Phrasing

There has been a long-running debate in the string-playing world regarding the 'Golden Age' of string playing, generally considered to span the 1920s to the 1960s. While many today are happy to listen to and model their playing on more contemporary players, there has been a persistent argument made that the players of that era—Heifetz, Feuermann, Kreisler, Oistrach, Casals, and numerous others—played in a different way than more recent players. It is easy to dismiss this argument as the eternal 'nothing is as good as it used to be' meme and, when painted with too broad a brush, such generalizations quickly fall apart. The string players of that era were, after all, a group of vividly different players with different approaches—as are today's players. Yet when one begins to examine [...]

By Brinton Smith|2024-08-05T13:00:01-04:00May 18th, 2018|Categories: Artists|Tags: Technique, Habits, legato, Feuermann, Casals, bow, vibrato, phrasing, practicing|

The Most Erogenous Region of the Cello

Search for resistance—enjoy the friction! I have been considering the topic “sounding point” (contact point, in German) for a long time now. Where bow hair and string meet is where everything we have to offer—regarding material, technique, power and ease—is channeled. This is the origin of the sound! This is where the action is! Isn't the sounding point therefore the most erogenous region of the cello? But at first a little anecdote: After the Christmas mass the priest stood at the exit, shaking the hands of the parishioners and wishing them a Merry Christmas. What a nice gesture! So I took his hand in return. But it felt like a rubber glove filled with jelly. By intuition I tried to get a grip. (“There must be bones somewhere in this [...]

By Stefanie Buller|2024-08-08T15:25:01-04:00April 19th, 2017|Categories: Technique, Playing Healthy|Tags: bow, tension, Alexander Technique, contact point|

100 Cello Warm-Ups and Exercises Blog 8: Open String Warm-Ups Part 2 — by Robert Jesselson

Part Two of Open String Warm-Ups will continue with exercises for sautille, bow changes, string crossings, dynamics, etc. Bouncy Bow Exercise: This exercise is a great way to work on sautille, building it up from spiccato to the fast, uncontrolled sautille stroke. […]

By Robert Jesselson|2023-12-18T13:33:42-05:00October 12th, 2015|Categories: 100 Cello Warm-ups and Exercises, In the Practice Room, Playing Healthy, Teaching, Videos|Tags: bow changes, CelloBlog, Robert Jesselson, bow, Cello Exercises, cellobello, Open String Warm-Ups, dynamics|

100 Cello Warm-Ups and Exercises Blog 7: Open String Warm-Ups Part 1 — by Robert Jesselson

On most days I like to warm up with open strings. I love the sound of the open strings, and the feeling of the natural vibrations against my chest. I like to listen to the fundamental pitch, and then try to hear some of the overtones that make the tone color – a pure sound which connects me back to the earliest sounds of music, the aural “ur-sound” of the first stringed instrument played by a human being. […]

By Robert Jesselson|2023-12-13T02:21:01-05:00October 5th, 2015|Categories: 100 Cello Warm-ups and Exercises, In the Practice Room, Playing Healthy, Teaching, Videos|Tags: open strings, CelloBlog, Robert Jesselson, bow, Cello Exercises, right hand, Warming Up, cellobello|

On How to Play the Baroque Cello: Vibrato (Part 2) — by Guy Fishman

In last week’s post, I attempted to set out the basic arguments made by those musicians who, for over four centuries, advocated a judicious approach to the application of vibrato to stringed instrument sound, and those who, for the last ninety years or so, have championed a more continuous presence for this expressive tool. Members of the former group adhered to the original attribution of vibrato as an ornament that is most highly effective when employed sparingly, where those who belong to the latter group see it as an indispensable component of good tone production. Two things should be kept in mind. The first is that each statement constitutes what is largely a philosophical stance, although the latter is supported by the overwhelming majority of live and recorded playing on [...]

By Guy Fishman|2021-05-31T14:18:35-04:00November 24th, 2014|Categories: Artistic Vision, Baroque, In the Practice Room, Self Discovery|Tags: Flesch, arm vibrato, Haydn, bow vibrato, bow, finger vibrato, vibrato, cellobello, Baroque, Guy Fishman, CelloBlog|

A String Player’s Guide to the Ivory Ban

If you plan to travel abroad this summer, you may need a passport… for your bow. Horror stories have been circulating about the confiscation of string players’ bows at international borders due to the recent “ivory ban.” On Saturday, May 31st, seven bows belonging to members of the Budapest Festival Orchestra were seized at JFK Airport (these did not have proper documentation, and have since been released). More alarming – a bow owned by a double-bassist in the Bavarian Radio Orchestra has been held at JFK since the orchestra passed through in mid-May, as it was found to contain a piece of bone from […]

By Jennifer Loux|2018-11-30T20:40:03-05:00June 9th, 2014|Categories: Cello Travel, Technology|Tags: bow, Cello Travel, airport customs, international customs, US Customs, CITES, Jennifer Loux, US Fish and Wildlife Services|

The Swan — by Arnold Steinhardt

When I was eleven years old, my violin teacher assigned me The Swan by Camille Saint-Saëns. I had no idea that The Swan was a famous cello solo or that it was part of a much larger work, “The Carnival of the Animals.” I had never even heard of its composer, Saint-Saëns, or seen his name in print before. I wondered why there was a funny line between his two-word last name and what could be the purpose of those strange dots perched on top. And was Saint-Saëns actually a saint? I thought that The Swan was very pretty and probably associated the music’s title with its general mood in some vague way. As a child, I often saw swans gliding regally through the water on the lake near where [...]

By Arnold Steinhardt|2017-09-22T04:04:13-04:00September 10th, 2013|Categories: Artistic Vision, Interpersonal Relationships, Performance, Self Discovery, Teaching|Tags: phrasing alterations, Boston Symphony Orchestra, intonation, essence, respect, piano, creativity, accompany, exceptions, melody, re-evaluate, phrase, assistant concertmaster, phrasing, extended melodies, arpeggios, rocking, artistry, Camille Saint-Saëns, improvement, fiddlers, string quartets, scientists, Beethoven, Carnival of the Animals, Hess, Boston, sections of music, bow, child, ideas, intimate, changes, swaying, vibrato, CIM, Jules Eskin, bow control, The Swan, cello, connections, singing, Mary, musicality, tone production, cellobello, depth, discussion, musical essence, Cleveland Institute of Music, violin master-class, music, difference, musicianship, permier music school, Cleveland Orchestra, work, beauty, double major|

THINKING IN A NEW WAY—Overcoming Habits (Part 6 of 6): Putting it All Together — by Selma Gokcen

"You get away from all your old preconceived ideas because you are getting away from your old habits." —F.M. Alexander We come to the end of this six part series, having touched on various aspects of cello technique, bringing the principles of the Alexander Technique to the most basic work of balancing the instrument, then using the bow and the left hand. Once this basic work is accomplished, the next stage is to take a new piece of music and to begin to work with it for a few minutes each day. Instead of aiming for the goal—which is to get the piece learned and which can produce all sorts of accompanying reactions—we can take away the goal entirely, and use those few minutes while we work on the piece [...]

By Selma Gokcen|2023-11-13T13:21:02-05:00March 11th, 2013|Categories: Alexander Technique for Cellists, Beyond the Traditional, Playing Healthy|Tags: cello, physical pleasure of playing, Selma, balancing the instrument, cellobello, place of silence, thinking, breath flowing, music, Preconceived ideas, musical expression, conceptions, Experience, pressure in the sound, freedom, evaluate, phrasing, psycho-physical, cello technique, exploring our habits, re-training of musicians, muscular tension, framework for self-study, Alexander Technique, refining sensation and awareness, nervous system, fundamental knowledge, Gokcen, self-study, Six Part Series, inner composer, movement, subconscious patterns of learning, Thinking in a new way, bow, lasting value of Alexander Technique, working with music, aiming for a goal, tension, left hand, reactions, automatic|

About Those New Year’s Bow Resolutions…. — by Wayne Burak

New Year’s resolutions get significant attention right about now! Whether the subject is your living space, personal finance, diet, or exercise, every topic seems to be on the table. But what about the personal needs of your favorite bow—you know, the one that plays beside you in all of your performances and rehearsals? The one you have promised your eternal love and gratitude to, if it helps you get through the nearly impossible piece or gig? Hmm, did I think that, you ask? Bows have long memories, and yes at some point, you did promise. That is why your bow demands attention now! Think of it like dinner, a movie, and a new outfit for your bow. But before we talk more of bows, let’s assume that you have already handled [...]

By Wayne Burak|2017-10-30T05:16:53-04:00January 21st, 2013|Categories: Luthiers, Playing Healthy, Technology|Tags: fresh bow rehair, music, humidity, frog position, frog, instrument cases, Burak, accessories, latches, bow grip, New Year's resolutions, pernambuco, bow rehair, organization of sheet music, strings, Brazilwood, pearl eye, Wayne, cello bow, bow, rock stops, organization, cello strings, tension, rosin, computer back up, cello, sheet music, attention, computers, cellobello, warp, cello cases|

The Holy Sextet (Part 2) — by Brant Taylor

Part 1 began an exploration of three bow variables that—in addition to the three well-known concepts of weight, speed, and contact point—make up a sextet of basics that should be known and practiced to maximize your control over the string with the bow. We discussed the first and most important, bow angle, in Part 1. The remaining two variables may seem relatively minor, but they are by no means unimportant. If practicing means attempting to find solutions to the challenges of successful instrumental control, you should attempt to understand every potential reason for success or failure with the bow. FLATNESS OF HAIR, or how much of the hair makes contact with the string. Many cellists hold the bow with the stick tilted up (toward the fingerboard) to some degree. This means that [...]

By Brant Taylor|2017-09-01T21:58:08-04:00December 4th, 2012|Categories: In the Practice Room, Self Discovery|Tags: contact point, Brant, Pinchas, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Zukerman, CSO, variables, Taylor, bow strokes, cellists, Brant Taylor, Bach, frog, Concerto, bow, success, weight, Technique, cello, Shostakovich, cellobello|

Defining the Intangible — by Melissa Kraut

Several years ago I was asked to contribute to an article for Strings Magazine on "what teachers look for in an incoming student." I was excited about the article—what a fantastic idea—a compilation of suggestions from teachers who listen to 100+ cellists a year auditioning for music schools! Despite my best intentions, I still haven't crafted a contribution. (Here is where I should publicly apologize to the cellist, who is no doubt reading this entry, for the 3 year delay in responding to your request). My neglect was not for lack of interest, or lack of knowledge or experience on the subject. It came down to the difficulty in putting words to something that is so nebulous—defining the intangible. The title for this entry popped into my head during audition [...]

By Melissa Kraut|2024-01-22T02:00:58-05:00April 11th, 2011|Categories: Auditions, Teaching|Tags: possibility, Auditions, suggestions, expression, quality, Experience, commitment, Concerto, reflection, clarity, connection, career, skill, intonation, intentions, bow, Strings Magazine, sound production, potential, bow speed, imagination, passion, tone, success, musicianship, vibrato, Technique, articulation, cello, Kraut, Development, cellobello, Melissa, knowledge, students|