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Opinion: Becoming a ‘bowist’

2025-04-25T09:10:00

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Violinist and teacher Alun Thomas explains why, when working on our technique and expression, string players should focus much more attention to the right arm than we might at first imagine

Once, after a particularly fine performance by Jascha Heifetz, an enthusiastic dressing-room interlocutor praised the wonderful sound of the great man’s violin (probably the 1742 ‘David’ Guarneri ‘del Gesù’). Mr Heifetz, gazing intently on the fiddle lying in its case, replied, ‘Oh, but I can’t hear anything!’…

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