Muscles: working from the zero point - Simon Fischer

Muscles: working from the zero point 

1 H.G.Q. Rowett: 

Basic Anatomy and 

Physiology (London, 

1973), 32. 

2 Continual 

contraction without 

release is experienced 

as ‘tension’. When we 

say of somebody that 

they are tense, or say 

‘I feel a bit tense 

today,’ it would be 

more accurate to say 

that he or she is 

‘contracted’, or ‘I feel 

a bit contracted 

today.’ 

188 


The following description of how muscles work uses no more than the simplest terms possible. These 

few images are all that are necessary for the purposes of playing the violin. 

Muscles can only contract 

An essential thing to know about muscles is that they can only contract. They cannot lengthen by 

themselves. They can pull but can never push. 

Muscle tissue consists of cells which are capable of contraction…Each skeletal muscle fibre …acts in an “all or nothing” 

manner, and the degree of contraction of the whole muscle is proportional to the number of fibres acting. Normally a few 

fibres are stimulated, maintaining tone even when the muscle is at rest. When many fibres are stimulated together, they 

produce shortening of the whole muscle or tension between the two ends…If the stimulus is prolonged or too frequently 

repeated the muscle may become fatigued. 1 

The contraction of the muscles is one of the reasons why all of our attention needs to be on constant 

‘lengthening and widening’, and on avoiding ‘pulling down’ and ‘pulling in’. 2 

There are always at least two sets of opposing muscles that move a joint or limb one way or the other. 

For example, to close your arm at the elbow the muscles on the inside of the arm contract, causing the 

forearm to move towards the upper arm. While these muscles contract, the muscles on the outside of 

the arm are stretched, but cannot themselves push out. 

The muscles that contract are active; the opposing set of muscles are passive. To move the hand away 

from the shoulder again, the opposite occurs: the muscles on the outside of the arm contract while 

those on the inside are passive. Sometimes we use activity on both sides in opposition to each other, in 

order to fine-tune a movement. 

The zero point 

There is a certain position of each joint or limb where neither set of opposing muscles is active – i.e. the 

position where, if there were a movement of even a short distance one way or the other, the muscles on 

one side would have to contract and those on the other side would be stretched. 

This is the ‘zero point’ of activity, and is the best starting position for any action. 

When the starting position is not this neutral position, care must be taken that all muscular activity is 

always as little as possible. 

• Hold your left arm out with your hand flopped at the wrist (Fig. 95a). The fingers will fall into a 

certain shape and position. This is their position when the muscles on top of the fingers, stretching 

across the knuckles to the back of the hand, and the muscles underneath, stretching across the 

knuckles to the palm, balance each other so that none are in a state of ‘work’. 

• Using your other hand to move it, push a finger down (Fig. 95b) and then suddenly release it. The 

finger will spring back to exactly the same position that it was in before (Fig. 95a). It will not stay 

pushed down when you take the pressing finger away because the muscle on top of the finger, 

having been stretched, wants to spring back to its state of least effort. 

Nor will it spring back to a position above the starting place, since here a pull would be exerted on 

the finger by the muscles underneath the finger. 

Fig. 95 (a) Flop the hand from the wrist, 

each finger at the middle 

point [028] 

(b) Push the finger down and then let 

it spring back up to the middle 

point [029] 

(c) Lift the finger and then let it drop 

back to the middle point [030] 

Lesson 7: Avoiding aches and pains [[12/06/2010 2:10 PM v3.2]


Similarly if you lift a finger (Fig. 95c) using your other hand to do it, and then suddenly let go, the 

finger will spring back again more to the position shown in Fig. 95a. It will not stay up, since the 

muscle underneath the finger has been stretched and wants to spring back to its state of least effort. 

Nor will it spring back down to a place lower than the starting-point. 

Find the same ‘zero point’ in the muscles on either side of each lever in the arms and hands: 

• Starting with the right hand flopped from the wrist (Fig. 96a), with your left hand push your right 

hand down; then let it spring back up to the starting place. 

Pushing down causes the muscles on top of the hand and arm to be stretched, and they naturally 

want to return to a neutral state. The hand will not spring back past the starting-point. 

With your left hand, lift the right hand and allow it to fall. It will not fall past the starting-point. 

• Position your right forearm at a right angle to the upper arm. Make sure the upper arm is neither 

too far forwards, nor too far back. 

With your left hand, pull the forearm in towards you (Fig. 96b). Then let go and watch how it 

swings back out, slightly past the starting-point; then swings back in, now only slightly past the 

starting-point; and finally settles at the starting-point. 

With your left hand, push the forearm away from you (Fig. 96c), and then let it swing back in 

again. Watch how, after swinging back in past the starting-point, it takes a few seconds to settle 

back to the starting place. 

• Starting again in the position shown in Fig. 96b, do exactly the same with the upper arm: with your 

left hand, pull the upper arm in towards you and then let go, and push it away from you and let go. 

The upper arm will perform the same little movements, briefly going either side of the middle point 

before settling, as the forearm did. 

PHOTO 

(a) Description text 

Fig 96 (a) Suspend the arm with the hand 

flopped from the wrist [xxx] 

PHOTO 

(b) Description text 

PHOTO 

(c) Description text 

(b) Pull the forearm in, and then let it spring (c) Push the forearm out, and then let it 

back out to the middle point [xxx] 

spring back in to the middle point [xxx] 

Ideally, each finger is in this neutral state of inaction when not in use, or before beginning any action; 

similarly the muscles in the bow arm, depending on where you are in the bow, often do not need to be 

active before beginning a bow stroke. 

When muscles remain free or neutral, rather than in any unnecessary state of contraction, everything 

becomes less effortful. 

The key to freedom and ease in violin playing is that you constantly have this point of balance as the 

starting-point, before any movement one way or the other, and return to it afterwards. 

Suspending your arm without using any muscles in it 

If you want to move a finger, the main parts of the muscle or tendon involved are in the hand. 

To move the hand, the main parts of the muscles used are in the forearm; to move the forearm, they are 

in the upper arm; to move the upper arm, the main muscles involved are in the shoulders, upper back 

and upper chest. 

So the main part of the muscle used to make the movement is always in the next higher area of the arm, 

going in the direction of the shoulder. 

[v5.1 12/06/2010 2:10 PM] Lesson 7: Avoiding aches and pains 189


1 See Widening at the 

shoulders: releasing 

the minor pectoral, 

page 196; Staying 

free in the upper arm, 

page 277 

190 

Therefore, you can suspend your arm in the air 

using those muscles in the shoulder, upper back 

and upper chest, without a single muscle in the 

arm being active. This gives the arm a feeling of 

‘floating’ or being suspended in the air, rather than 

of being held. It is easy to demonstrate. 

Without the bow, float your right arm in playing 

position (Fig. 97). With your left hand, squeeze 

the muscles in your right hand, forearm and upper 

arm. You should find they are all soft and relaxed. 

Make sure you are not clenching the minor 

pectoral muscle. 1 

Once you are holding the bow you need to use certain 

muscles; but when the basic condition of the arm is 

one of floating rather than of being held, everything feels lighter and more responsive. 

That is the starting-point from which you can go to ‘relaxing the weight of the arm into the string’, and 

all the other functions of the bow arm, and to which you can return. 

Feeling the contraction–release in the palm of the hand 

• Find the muscles on either side of your hand that move the third finger (Fig. 98). 

• Move the finger up and down, as though tapping the finger on the string. You can feel the muscle 

in the palm of your hand, under your thumb, alternating between contraction and release. 

• If the muscle there feels permanently contracted as the finger moves, it means that you are resisting 

a state of release that would produce an entirely new sensation of freedom in your left hand. 

Squeezing the arm to make the fingers move 

The muscles that move the fingers originate in the forearm. If 

you press there, between elbow and wrist (which has the same 

effect as shortening the muscle), the fingers move on their own. 

• Without the violin, hold the left arm in playing position. 

Make sure your hand and fingers are completely relaxed. 

• With your right hand, put fingers one side of the forearm 

and the thumb the other (Fig. 99). Finding the muscle, 

experiment by pressing in different places until the fingers 

move downwards at the same moment that you press. 

If your finger action is not free, perhaps because of your hand 

position, you may feel tired or aching in your forearm; but the 

problem will not be in the forearm where the discomfort is, but 

in the finger action. It also works the other way round. 

Someone’s entire left hand can sometimes be transformed simply 

by their seeing the fingers move on their own, and feeling the 

freedom in the fingers, when you squeeze their forearm muscles. 

Fig. 97 Squeeze the muscles in your right arm with your 

left hand [125] 

Fig. 98 (a) Feel how the muscle is soft [010] (b) Feel the muscle contract [011] 

Fig. 99 (a) Squeezing the arm to make 

the fingers move [124] 

Lesson 7: Avoiding aches and pains [12/06/2010 2:10 PM v5.1]

Massaging the upper forearm 


Whenever you feel any tension in your hand or fingers – and certainly the moment you feel any pain or 

discomfort in the muscles or tendons in your wrist, hand or fingers – the place to work on is probably 

the area of your forearm just below the elbow. 

First find the muscles: grip that area of the arm with your right hand and move the fingers of your left 

hand as though playing (Fig. 100a). Feel the muscles and tendons in the forearm moving under your 

right hand. 

Having found them, massage them with deep strokes along the muscle, always moving in the direction 

of the upper arm. Always move along the muscle, not directly pressing down in to it. 

If the muscles feel sore or tender, this may be a reason to go on rather than to stop. In fact, it is easy to 

discover places which are extremely sensitive to the touch, but these are the places to concentrate on, 

not to avoid. A little gentle work – though it has to be as deep as possible – on those muscles instantly 

creates greater ease and elasticity in the entire left hand. 

A little work on a regular basis completely cures a wide range of different aches or pains that typically 

appear in a violinist’s left arm and hand. Pain in the right wrist can often be cured by massaging the 

right upper forearm in the same way. 

Simple stretching exercises can be as good as massage or even better. If you regularly do simple, fivesecond 

stretches, the balance of the muscles is maintained and massage is less often needed. 1 

Fig. 100 (a) Move the left fingers to 

find which muscles to 

massage 

Massaging the hand 

PHOTO 

Pinching muscle on side of hand 

while closing fourth finger 

(b) The muscle remains soft while 

closing the finger at the middle 

joint [xxx] 

PHOTO 

(b) Description text 

(c) Gently massage the muscles on 

either side of the knuckle joints 

[xxx] 

Bring freedom to your left fingers by gently massaging the muscles in the palm just below the beginning 

of each finger as in Fig. 98 (previous page). 

There are three movements of each finger: moving only at the nail joint without moving the rest of the 

finger; moving only at the middle joint; moving the whole finger as a piece from the base joint. Find the 

muscles with your thumb while moving the fingers. 

The first, second and third fingers each use the same muscle or tendon for all three movements. 

The fourth finger is different. To move it at the middle joint, the muscle used is between the third and 

fourth fingers, slightly to the right of the spot shown in Fig. 98; but the muscle that moves the finger 

forward from the base joint is on the side of the hand. 

Feel this by gently squeezing the side muscle between your thumb and fingers while closing the fourth 

finger at the middle joint (Fig. 100b). The muscle on the side will remain soft and not contracted. 2 

Another place to work, to free the fingers, is the muscles on each side of the knuckle joint (Fig. 100c). 

Minimum muscular effort 

A common image concerning the right degree of muscle tone is that the correct amount of strength you 

need is somewhere in the middle between being ‘floppy’ and being tense. 

According to this image, complete relaxation (in the sense of being floppy and limp) is at one end of the 

spectrum. This is mainly good for only one thing: going to sleep. 

Tension is at the other end of the spectrum; and somewhere in the middle is a balance point where 

there is enough muscle tone to be able to move around and do things. 

1 See Counterexercising 

and 

stretching, 

page 186 

2 See also Other 

ways to improve the 

fourth finger, 

page 181 



1 See Placing finger 

gently: the secret of 

a relaxed left hand 

page 207 

192 

However, this image may be misleading in violin playing: a ‘middle point’ between the two extremes 

already means far too much tension or over-use (over-contraction) of the muscles. Instead, think of the 

point-of-use as being only just past the point of floppiness: 

‘Point-of-use’ means the amount of muscle tone required to hold and move the bow, to move the 

fingers up and down on the violin, stop the strings, vibrate, change position, and so on. 

Bringing the point-of-use closer to the point of floppiness, immediately produces a wonderful sensation 

of lightness and ease. An extraordinary new aliveness and alacrity immediately comes into every action. 

Experiment on the back of your hand 

It used to be thought that a good left-hand technique meant that you could hear the fingers banging on 

the fingerboard with a hard impact. Perhaps the display of power and energy of doing this, and the fact 

that some players are able to make a louder thud than others, became confused with ability. 

Instead, a fast finger action should be the norm rather than a heavy one. There may be notes which 

need firmer finger action for greater articulation or rhythm, but apart from them the only time to drop 

the finger with energy is when playing ascending slurs – since otherwise there is a moment of ‘fuzz’ if 

the finger stops the string too slowly; 1 but even then the fingers should not thud on to the string. 

Fig. 101 (a) Are your hand and finger completely light, free 

and effortless? [050] 

The fingers must move quickly to create the different string lengths, but always using minimum power 

and effort and stopping the strings as lightly as possible. 

• Finger with your fourth finger on the back of your hand as though playing the violin (Fig. 101). 

Is your hand, and are your fingers, almost ‘floppy’; or are they over-active and perhaps even tense 

and inflexible? Are you certain you cannot release even a tiny fraction more? 

Make sure that the contact of the thumb on one side of your hand, and the finger on the other, is as 

light as a feather – ‘tickle–light’. 

• Finger on the back of your hand as a constant reminder of how your left hand should feel most of 

the time during the normal course of playing. 

Expecting tension produces it 

(b) Make sure the thumb is as light as a feather, never 

pressing into the hand [051] 

• Without the violin, hold your left hand in the air in playing position. Allow every muscle in the 

hand and fingers to let go so that the fingers fall into a natural shape (Fig. 102a). 

• Move the fingers from there into the position they may be in to play some wide thirds, fingered 

octaves, or tenths (Fig. 102b). 

• Wait! Has your hand now become tight? Are you clenching the muscles at the same time as 

widening the space between the fingers? Has your wrist suddenly tightened? 

Do you have a mental picture of this feeling in the hand as being an unquestionable part of playing 

double stops, an automatic by-product of widening the hand in any way? 



Key point: Spreading the fingers is one thing; tightening is another. They are two separate factors. After 

only a short time of playing double stops with a tight hand, when we first attempt them as beginners, 

we form an association between tension and double stops and forever afterwards expect that feeling. 

Instead, picture the hand remaining soft, flexible and free as you widen it. Then find this feeling of 

letting go, releasing and remaining free as you widen the fingers. 

It is perfectly possible to widen the hand a long way and remain soft and free at the same time. You just 

have to break the association with tension, and begin to expect softness and freedom rather than 

contraction and hardness. 

Fig. 102 (a) Release every muscle in the 

hand [xxx] 

Lengthening and widening 

Lengthening the back and neck 

(b)Widening the fingers as though playing a minor third 

Since muscles can only contract, undoing bad habits of posture usually involves lengthening the 

muscles, as well as finding the middle point where a muscle is neither contracted nor stretched. 

Suppose you notice in the mirror that your shoulders seem too rounded (Fig. 103a). The top of the 

chest is pulled down; notice the chin jutting out and the back of the head pulled down. 

So, using the muscles around your shoulder blades, you pull your shoulders back, leaving everything 

else as it was before (Fig. 103b). Of course if you were to do this it would cause great strain. The 

position in the photograph is exaggerated to illustrate the point; but many people do an imperceptible 

amount of pulling back, which creates great tension. 

Instead, the answer to the rounded shoulders is to lengthen the back (Fig. 103c). The shoulders then 

naturally want to ease back into their correct position. Then, because the spine is more upright, the 

head naturally finds a position of balance where it can just sit on top of the spine. 

Key point: If you pull down in the upper chest, your head is right to want to go into the position shown 

in Fig. 103b, since that is actually ‘correct’ for the head, given the position of the back. 

If the back lengthens, and finds more of an upright position of balance, the best position of balance for 

the head naturally changes too. 

(a) Pulling down, rounded 

shoulders, head back and down 

Fig. 103 (a) Pulling down [xxx] 

(b) Same plus pulling back 

shoulders 

(b) Pulling the shoulders back does not 

help [xxx] 

(c) Description text 

(c) The shoulders naturally ease back when 

you lengthen and widen [xxx] 



194 

1 See also 

Localising: the 

ultimate key to 

mastery, 

page 219 

Image of the ladder 

A good image to illustrate the ease of keeping your head upright, when it is sitting in a state of balance, 

compared with having to hold it in place when it is not, is of supporting a long ladder with your hands. 

The ladder is not leaning against anything, but is standing vertically on its end, supported only by the 

ground and your hands. 

If the ladder is standing upright in a state of balance, it requires only the smallest amount of effort from 

you to keep it there. You give it the lightest push or pull to correct it, as it moves fractionally from side 

to side across the central balance point, but otherwise the ladder basically supports itself. 

Now imagine that the ladder begins to lean much further away from the balance point. Now you have 

to push or pull with a lot of strength to prevent it from falling. The further from the balance point the 

ladder leans, the greater the effort to keep it from falling to the ground. 

Similarly, if your head sits on top of your spine in a state of balance, the muscles have little work to do 

to keep it there (Fig. 103c). 

But if your head is not sitting freely in a state of balance you need to ‘hold it on top of your spine’, and 

work the muscles in your neck and shoulders very hard to keep your head there. Fig. 103a shows the 

classic position of the head, pulling ‘back-and-down’ and sticking the chin out. 

Not pulling down: lengthening the back and raising the chest 

‘Pulling down’ means contracting the muscles in the front of the body so that the upper chest is 

lowered in the direction of the stomach (Fig. 104a). 

Pulling down in the upper chest is one of the occupational hazards of playing the violin or viola. If you 

work on a building site, an occupational hazard is that something may fall on your head; so wearing a 

hard hat is essential. Playing the violin, you have to pay constant attention to lengthening the back and 

raising the chest. 

Fig 104 (a) Lengthening the back and raising the chest [xxx] (b) Pulling down[xxx] 

The tell-tale sign is a hump or curve at the top of the back (Fig. 104b). This posture leads to a 

catalogue of problems in the back and in the working of the arms and hands, and then in the fingers. 

It is all-too-easy to link bowings and left hand actions (and musical feelings), with a simultaneous 

pulling-down, so that the scroll always visibly lowers whenever a particular note or phrase is played. 

When you cut the link between these actions, so that (say) playing a strong accent with the bow does 

not automatically trigger shortening the muscles in the front of the body, an extraordinary new sense of 

economy, freedom, control, focus and stature immediately enters the overall playing. 1 

Go up to go up; go up to go down 

As he watched a violinist playing some large string crossings, and pulling down as she did so, the 

Alexander teacher Walter Carrington observed: ‘You have to go up to go up, and go up to go down!’ 


(1) Suppose you play up from the A string to the E string: you’ve got to go up to go up. If you pull 

down as you go up, the tone may weaken; the bow may slide away from the bridge; your body 

contracts and your breathing is constricted, and so on. 

Instead, lengthen the back as you crescendo up the arpeggio, with a feeling of raising the chest and 

becoming taller. 

Keep the scroll still, or allow it to rise slightly, with a feeling of buoyancy in the instrument so that 

it floats on a cushion of air without any hint of dropping with gravity. 

(2) Suppose you play down from the A string to the G string: you’ve got to go up to go down. 

Lengthen the back, raise the chest, keep the scroll still or allow it to rise slightly as the strings meet 

the bow-hair, the same as when playing ascending. 

One way to avoid pulling down is to have a feeling of the string or violin coming up to meet the bow. 1 

Another way to avoid pulling down is to link lengthening the back, or raising the chest, with flattening 

the violin. Instead of two unrelated subjects, see them as two parts of the same thing: 

• Use a certain amount of lengthening your back in order to flatten the violin 

• Flatten the violin in order to lengthen the back. 2 

Examples 

Widening at the base joints of the left hand 

Sometimes the fingers touch each other during the course of playing, sometimes they do not, 

depending on the shape of the hand and the note pattern. It makes no difference, but what does matter 

is that there is never any sideways squeezing-together (Fig. 78, page 159). 

I often remember a student who had an awkward-looking left hand action. I made various suggestions 

which she seemed unable to pick up. Finally it came out that she had always thought that no finger 

should ever touch another finger, so she was trying to keep them unnaturally spread apart all the time. 

Another common misconception is that all the fingers should point in the same direction. Maxim 

Vengerov and Joshua Bell are two examples of leading players with hands where the fingers do remain 

more or less parallel most of the time; but for many hands the fingers should as often form a fan-like 

shape. 

Widening at the base joints encourages this shape, and gives the left hand increased range, flexibility 

and mobility. 


1 See also Image 

of the cat, 

page 29 

2 See also The 

tilt of the violin, 

page 60

Muscles: working from the zero point - Simon Fischer

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