Fingerings and Bowings – Part One

Finding the right fingerings and bowings (F&B) is like buying shoes: even if you know your size and taste, you still have to try several pairs until you find what fits.

F&B are among the most important tools for self-expression we have in an art where almost everything is dictated. Yet even advanced students often choose (or are forced) to adopt the markings of their teacher, or of a random edition they downloaded for free online.

In this first part, I will try to dissuade you from blindly following what your teacher or your sheet music tells you.

My teacher, Prof. Igor Ozim, had a huge library of copied music filed neatly in binders. When I wanted to study a piece, he would graciously hand me one or (usually) more versions of his F&B – "Brahms Concerto 1994," for example. This saved a lot of precious lesson time, which was a great boon to me back then. So much so that I made the effort to copy a large part of his library into my own (mini) Ozim library.

Yet the most satisfying moments in his lessons were when he stopped me and asked: "What were those fingerings you used?" And then he would write them down. It felt so sweet that I began challenging myself to find fingerings and bowings "outside the box" that would make my professor pause. This often left me looking absolutely stupid in front of him, but it also led to moments of revelation.

Then came an intense period in my life when I went through several wonderful violins in quick succession while practicing pretty much the same repertoire. To my astonishment (and frustration), I found myself changing a lot of F&B that I had been absolutely sure of only a few weeks earlier. This proved beyond a doubt that F&B are personal and circumstantial: what worked for a violinist with certain physical attributes, a certain technique, and a Guadagnini with a Tourte bow might not work for a student – not to mention shifts in taste and in our awareness of different musical styles.

Composer or Editor?

When I come to study a piece, I always want to differentiate between what the composer wanted and what anyone else, even the most famous of violinists, chose to play.

What the composer wanted is pretty much untouchable (yes, with exceptions…). What anyone else added is merely a suggestion. A strong suggestion, a smart suggestion, even a suggestion that became "Tradition" (with a capital T), but a suggestion all the same.

You may follow or dismiss any of those suggestions according to your own musical taste and ability (more on how to choose F&B later).

So if the composer wanted you to play the line on the G string, get your climbing gear ready; but if it was a violinist hired by the publisher, well, that's just a suggestion.

Sometimes the violinist who edited the music had their own agenda, pedagogical or otherwise. For example: avoiding (at all costs) the dreaded second position, or climbing up a string to score extra points for showmanship. These agendas might work for you, but they might also be outdated.

On a side note: editors didn't only add fingerings and bowings, but also dynamics and tempo markings – even expression marks such as cantabile or espressivo were added at will.

Many of the old (and thus free online) editions never distinguished between what the composer wrote and what the editor added, so I get students coming to play Bach, Mozart, or Beethoven completely unaware that many of the instructions on the page aren't the composer's.

In other words: invest in a good-quality edition – if possible, an Urtext.

In the next entry: how to choose the right fingerings for you.