Whiskey Before Breakfast
Tune Links: A-1 A-2 A-3 A-4 Entire A Part
B-1 B-2 B-3 B-4 Entire B Part Play Along Tracks
Part A, Phrase 2
Bowing:
- This phrase presents a very common bow management problem:
There are several places where a short bow stroke is followed by a very long one.
- Each one of the down strokes lasts for only a single 8th note. In terms of time, they go by pretty quick.
- Each of the up strokes, on the other hand, lasts for the value of three 8th notes. They last three times as long as the down strokes.
- So what do you do? Somehow you need to find a way to have enough bow length available when you need it to play these long up-bow slurs. If you don't, you'll run out of bow about half way through the phrase.
- The trick is to speed up your bow on the short down strokes and slow it down on the long up strokes.
- Notice in the video that on the first down stroke I start out just below the middle of my bow, and I use at least a quarter of my whole bow length in that single stroke. My bow is moving fast. If it wasn't, I'd never be able to cover that much bow length in such a short time.
- In the second stroke, I slow my bow down a lot and play all three 8th note values using about the same bow length I used in the first stroke. This way I end up in about the same place on my bow where I started the down stroke.
- Now I'm in position to do the same thing three more times. This gets me to the end of the phrase. Bow management problem solved.
- One other thing. If you keep the same amount of downward pressure on your bow when you speed up your stroke, the volume will go way up. If you want to keep the volume about the same throughout this phrase, you need to lighten up on the bow pressure as bow speed increases and bear down a little as bow speed slows. Go to the lesson on bowing to learn more about bow pressure and how to control it.
Fingering:
- As in the preceding phrase, the 2nd and 3rd fingers use each other as references for correct placement.
- It's important that once the 3rd finger plays the third note in the phrase, it stays down on the D string while the 1st finger plays the fourth note on the A string. That way if the third note was in tune, the fifth note will be too.
- For the same reason, keep the 2nd finger down on the D string while you play the open A string between the sixth and eighth notes in the phrase.