DEVELOPING FINGER VELOCITY AND INDEPENDENCE

EXERCISES

1. “Silent exercises” (without bow)

1.1 Tapping, jumping with fingers, sliding with 1 finger at a time (from beginner’s stage)
1.2 Tapping one finger while keeping the other 3 down. Make finger placements increasingly
difficult/awkward (cf Dounis!)
1.3 Jumping across strings with one finger while other 3 are kept down (ditto)
1.4 Sliding one finger while keeping the other 3 down.
 When tapping, count in groups, and count on the “upward” (“lifting away”) motion of the
finger, not the “placing” action.
2. Sevcik Opus 1 Part 1
3. Triplet groups in chosen key, starting on A on G-string, moving into as high a position as
possible before going to next string
4. Playing a 2-voice pattern with quavers in one voice and semiquavers in the other.
[A useful application of Fisher’s concept “To play rhythmically evenly, you have to raise and
drop the fingers unevenly” (p 119) – i.e. a new note sounds the moment a finger is raised, but
if a note has to be played by placing/dropping the finger, the dropping action has to start
before the new note sounds.
5. Scales and arpeggio’s!
6. Kreutzer 9 (also starting on 2nd finger!)
7. Fisher Basics: Part D (Left Hand Page 89-144)