A Biographical Dictionary of Fiddlers di A. Mason Clarke
Biographical Dictionary of Fiddlers. 283
must proceed from the friction of the string, and not from percussion, as by a blow given with a hammer upon it. This depends on laying the bow lightly upon the strings, at the first contact, and on gently pressing it afterwards ; which, if done gradually, can scarce have too much force given to it—because, if the tone is begun with delicacy, there is little danger of rendering it afterwards either coarse or harsh.
Of this first contact, and delicate manner of beginning a tone, you should make yourself a perfect mistress, in every situation and part of the bow, as well in the middle as at the extremities; and in moving it up, as well as in drawing it down. To unite all these laborious particulars into one lesson, my advice is, that you first exercise yourself in a swell upon an open string—for example, upon the second, or la : that you begin pianissimo, and increase the tone by slow degrees to its fortissimo; and this study should be equally made with the motion of the bow up, and down ; in which exercise you should spend at least an hour every day, though at different times, a little in the morning, and a little in the evening; having constantly in mind that this practice is, of all others, the most difficult, and the most essential to pla>ing well on the violin. When you are a perfect mistress of this part of a good performer, a swell will be very easy to you—beginning with the most minute softness, increasing the tone to its loudest degree, and diminishing it to the same point of softness with which you began ; and all this in the same stroke of the bow. Every degree of pressure upon the string, which the expression of a note or
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