Violin Lesson #49; Sautille Bowing pt. 1

[@pablodiber]

Really thankfull for your videos, I always find your explanations and recommendations to be precise, and they just work. Thank you.

[@professorV]

Thank you, Pablo. Best wishes.

[@manilawrapper]

This. This has saved my audition. And my right arm, haha. Can't fully try this tonight since everyone's sleeping, but after a couple fiddlings, I think I have it, and I can't wait to try it tomorrow morning! Thanks!!

[@bttrflyr1]

Yup. Csardas. Gonna be... fun...

[@sgt.chengis1766]

same

[@SarahIluvatariel]

Todd, you're awesome. :) I remember when I first started violin 2+ years ago, and watched nearly ALL of your videos, so I knew what was coming (like the importance of finger flexibility). Now that I'm starting suzuki book 4, I think it's so cool how far I've come, and that these "WAY-beyond-me" videos are now appropriate for me. :) THANKS!

[@StringlifeOfficial]

This is a great video demonstration. Simon Fischer writes really good notes on sautille, and this is a great explanation & demonstration of the stroke. I always send my students the link to this video, and have recently started my own KZbin violin lesson channel.

[@xoxemil]

Very nice lesson! this is the technique that I really want! I really want to play czardas! :D

[@sm9846]

thank you so much professor very excellent !

[@kimberleedray]

I am doing a deep dive into Sautille to improve my sound in the third mvmt of the Tchaikovsky ... I've watched every video on KZbin and I so appreciate the way you've broken down the finger and wrist movement. There are a lot of nuances to this stroke--David Oistrakh has such a beautiful Sautille. Thanks for the tools on my journey!

[@professorV]

Hi Kimberlee, thanks for the comment and best wishes with your sautille. I couldn’t agree more about Oistrakh, by the way!

[@kimberleedray]

@@professorV another thing I am noticing as I work is the difference between bow holds. Hand pronation--how much of the hand is above vs. below or parallel to the bow makes a huge difference in where the Sautille happens. The balance point is only a starting point--take a look at Heifetz' sautille on the Mozart Rondo, for instance. It is above the middle half of the bow.

[@timeisapathwalkingtounderstand]

It's 5:48 in the morning New York City just found out what is the sautille bowling by reading a comment on Flight of the Bumblebee wow the mysteries of life how we find things out thank you for posting this.

[@czimon]

darn it! i already learned that piece and man was it hard. now i know why that fast part was so hard for me. thank you! this helped a lot.

[@violaplayer1995]

you are amazing!! thankyou soo much!! i was killing myself trying to do really fast spicatto on the moto perpetuo by paganini. this has helped me alot.

[@groovellous1]

So few likes for such an awesome video. Todd, you are an excellent teacher. I'm a teacher too and I have learned so much from you.

[@professorV]

Thanks, groovellous1! That’s very much appreciated. Best Wishes to you and your students!

[@queentantrumofficial]

Another one here for Czardas!

[@CoffeePotsPvP]

Queen Tantrum I just played this song

[@hassaanahmed23]

im at sautille part

[@xiolinorchdork]

Ahh, thank you so much! I've been having a lot of trouble with the fast part in Zigeunerweisen, but hopefully this will help :D

[@anna258]

Thanks alot. Also for people struggling its easy to press down harder when you are bowing down and lift off when bowing up.

[@lindareese4579]

Thank you 😊 dear teacher ❤️

[@ErikWilliamsviolin]

I don't know if this is helpful, but I've had good results with the following steps to achieve sautille stroke in beginners that haven't done the technique before: 1) Without bow in hand, practice "throwing" the limp right hand/wrist towards/away from us using the elbow joint. The hand/wrist should be the "victim" of the elbow's forces, and shouldn't be actively involved whatsoever. When doing this, the knuckles of the right hand should be facing us more than usual (so the wrist can travel in its ergonomic ROM). 2) Same as #1, but adding slight tension to the wrist joint. The movement is still initiated by the elbow, but instead of the hand flopping wildly, the movement becomes more constricted, with the hand "flopping" only about 1" instead of 3". 3) Same as #2, but letting hand rotate slightly back into its natural bow position, with only the pointer-finger-knuckle facing us, rather than the entire array of knuckles. This will add some up/down motion to the movement and thus create a very small "circle" movement, as the direction of the movement (a bit sideways) will be fighting the natural ROM of the wrist (up/down). However, only the teacher should take a mental note of this, as adding too much information to the students directions will end up in tension and in them trying too hard to make a tiny circle happen. As far as the student needs to be concerned, they are still just "throwing" the hand around. 4) Same as #3, but adding rhythm/accents to the movement. We should only focus on the "DOWN* portion of sautille, though, as trying to actively control the up AND the down adds too much input. I recommend "DOWN down DOWN down" (accenting the 1st and 3rd beat). Of course, if we get "DOWN down DOWN down" at a rate of, say, 150 BPM, then the actual speed of the resulting sautille would be 300 BPM because for every "down" there will naturally be an "up" in the movement. 5) Putting bow in hand and doing the same as #4 but with the bow on the A string. In this stage, it's probably helpful for the teacher to make a "safety ring" around the bow so that the student can feel comfortable "throwing" the bow hand around, without the stick either skating out onto the fingerboard or coming back and hitting them in the face. The motion should still feel a bit "wild" at this point, to prevent the hand from tensing up in order to control the bow. The more we to control the bow, the less it will bounce. So the hand must be "wild" and "loose". 6) Leveling the violin strings completely and now doing motion #5 without the "safety ring" of the teacher's hands. If the bow starts working its way towards the fingerboard, then bring the scroll up. If working its way towards our face, bring the scroll down. This way, we're not trying to tense up our right hand to control soundpoint, but rather using the height of the scroll to do so. 7) Now, continue the motion of #6, but starting around the middle of the bow and working our way back towards the frog, about 0.5 inches at a time, until the bow starts to find its "bouncing" point for that given speed. Of course, a faster sautille will have a controllable bouncing point closer to the tip, and a slower sautille will have a bouncing point closer to the frog. 8) Eventually, these steps should lead into the wrist naturally taking over the movement of the elbow, because the body will realize that's more efficient than using the elbow to initiate the sautille. Still, anytime we find ourselves not getting sautille or forgetting exactly how to get it going, using the elbow as a driving factor is a great way of "Restarting" the bouncing. Then we can switch to wrist again. Some general notes I've found: a) Right elbow should be a bit higher than normal, to prevent too much arm weight pulling the bow into the string. This especially needs to be encouraged on D and G. b) Student's violin and bow needs to be tested by teacher first, to ensure that it's capable of doing a comfortable sautille. Also, lack of rosin, or too "powdery/slippery" of a rosin is often a culprit in initial failure of a good sautille. c) almost everyone does a sautille initially with a non-level violin, which will cause a cycle of failure due to the bow wandering outward and then the hand tensing up. Make sure the violin is held "up" more than usual!

[@ShredMentor]

Excellent lesson, you are a great teacher! As a guitarist and guitar teacher, this gives me just one more reason to envy you bowed-string players! :)

[@CrazyIemon]

Wow. This is ridiculously more difficult than I thought it would be.

[@PamelaMou1]

Interestingly I think the best upper intermediate pupil I have who can do this well (The Boy Pagannini piece... all the little hairpins beautifully controlled too!) has always bee a little tight! I think the difference between the fast bouncing semis and "on the string" is actually more to do with a slight tapping movement of the thumb rather than a flexible sideways action, which results in "on the string". Does this make sense?

[@stuntdouble777]

Awesome thank you. This works. I can’t keep my pinky on. Is this a problem?

[@professorV]

No, not a problem at all. I always take the little finger off the stick for Sautille.

[@stuntdouble777]

@@professorV thank you for your reply from New Zealand.

[@professorV]

@@stuntdouble777 very best wishes to you.

[@baileysprojects]

I'm playing that right now! wish me luck1

[@potaylo]

Thank you for this lesson When you played the musical example starting around 3:15 Your right hand was not in the shot. If you do a part 3 please include the right hand in a longer musical example. That said this has to be one of the best videos on the subject if not the best. Thanks again.

[@marcosnegrao9764]

Very good this video.

[@skyepark5722]

Another way to think of doing finger flexibility is rolling your knuckle. Hope that helps you guys mastering sautillé. Good luck!

[@allen764]

I imagine the motion like throwing and catching a tiny ball with my thumb and two adjacent fingers. Starting slow is hard.

[@taylorzhnag]

constant practise definitely helps

[@TheComedydude1]

I was so happy when I learned how to do sautille. Then I realised I was playing off the string and it was supposed to be on the string ;( and I was NOT happy

[@ReplayCovers]

It's like doing raspy voice but with the violin hahaha

[@hlaakso]

I can do the bow stroke but I cant get my fingers to move together with my bow. I can move my fingers fast enough but I cant put them together with the bow movement!

[@fabioamorimm]

esse video é muito bom, é disso que estou falando, agora eu vou tentar tocar a Suite in A minor Op 10 (Sinding)

[@trollhunter60312]

....yeah, cant wait to try this on Csardas. i'm gonna die. haha but thank you for the help :)

[@hansamluk]

thank you todd.

[@mjvmusic]

Interesting. I could already do this just by experimenting, but my control is off. I was still wondering why no one else could ever do it.

[@edwinhuifai]

I've just started to learn sautille on Kayser 19, the bouncing action halts when I put my finger on the board (changing notes). How can I conserve the motion?

[@aykhwang]

The only way I'm able to do it quickly like you is to use the wrist. Is that wrong?

[@gina490990]

@trollhunter60312 u spelled czardas wrong

[@TheStevenOoi]

is this stroke used in tremolo?

[@johncapodilupo6876]

1:35

[@bigIy]

2:54 not really...

[@PATDIsYummy]

I hate this stroke so much

[@DaviSilva-oc7iv]

You will get good at it one day ;)

[@maryma17]

It's so hard!!!!!!!!