Violin Practice: Bowing on the Fingerboard

Video Transcript

"Sometimes, although not often, you're going to be bowing on the fingerboard. Typically, when that happens, is it's in a section where you want a kind of muted sound. And, most of the time you're actually just using mute, which is a little piece that actually goes right over your bridge. It keeps your bridge from vibrating so like, it keeps the sound from coming out and really kind of stifles the sound a bit. Usually, you won't see something like that in terms of muting by playing over the fingerboard unless you're playing really in orchestra. It's a good idea to get in the habit of playing over the fingerboard if you don't have a mute. Although you really should get a mute for that type of playing. But, usually, when you have a section where it's suppose to be very, very quiet, and it'll indicate it in your music, one trick that you can do is play over the fingerboard, it creates a very kind of eerie sound. (Demo) And it creates a similar sound as if you had a mute over your bridge and that the string is not vibrating as loud. So, therefore, the sound is different."