Violin bow trembling? 2 tips

What to do if your bow starts to shake during a violin performance situation?

It happens to the best of us: you’re in the middle of a solo performance, or having a lesson with your teacher, or in the quitest moment during an orchestra concert, all of a sudden your bow goes: “trrrrrrrrrrr…”

As a violinist, when I listen to someone’s solo recital or am sitting in an audition jury, when I hear someone’s bow’s shaking, that’s one of the least important things I care about personally. I know that many of my fellow violinist colleagues won’t care much either, if it happens occasionally and to a moderate degree. A candidate will not get kicked out of the audition just because his or her bow shakes. There are much more important things in a performance situation, such as interpretation and level of musicianship.

But of course, if the shaking happens to an extreme, it might start to prevent the natural flow of the music, and exacerbate self-consciousness, which puts you out of the moment.

Is there a solution? Unfortunately, there is no one-size-fits-all answer to this, since there are different reasons for bow shaking. But a general tip I can give is to shift your focus on your musical interpretation instead.

Also, sometimes there might be technical reasons of a bow’s shaking: some bows are more inclined to shake than others. Personally, I find that bows which are a lot lighter at the tip tend to shake more, because most of the shaking happens in the upper half of the bow, where it is lighter.

In this case, if you have the possibility, I’d encourage you to also try other bows that are slightly heavier at the tip, or experiment with a lighter winding on your current bow, to get the frog lighter (e.g. fish bone or silk thread is lighter than silver).

Did you have any such experiences during a concert or audition, and how did you deal with it? Please leave me a comment below - and if you got value of this post, I warmly invite you to share it with your friends.