Violin Techniques: Timing With Left Hand

Video Transcript

"So another aspect that Galamian touched on a lot in terms of timing was by using your left hand almost as if it is a metronome. Doing this by putting down the fingers in rhythm in a way that outlines the beats very clearly. It is a good thing to exaggerate this in the beginning and he really stressed really exaggerating a lot of things with your left hand from the very beginning so that you are giving yourself, not only a chance to learn the notes via intonation, but to really get the timing down and get your fingers into a position where they are really learning finger patterns and they are learning, not only the patterns of the sections, but really learning the timing. So, you can not only use your metronome to keep time but he believed that in using your left hand to keep that time as well. So even when you get into a really difficult passages, passages that have slightly more complicated timing section, by getting in the habit of using that left hand those more difficult sections will be easier to play."