A Wealthy Man's Guide to Playing the Violin Well

Dummy's Guide to Basic Violin Posture (the 1000-hard steps edition)

"A statesman who keeps his ear permanently glued to the ground will have neither elegance of posture nor flexibility of movement."--Abba Evans

Lesson 2012: Follow all instructions carefully, precisely, and accurately.

First, hold your violin on your right shoulder. Then, kneel down and grip the violin bow on your left hand in any old stance. Kneel down on your knees, holding your violin in this stance. Be careful not to drop the violin!

Does this seem right?

(If you said yes, detention for you!) This is the incorrect posture (that is, if you weren't intentionally Tebowing)

So what is the correct posture? (Hint: It's not the same as the other posture given in the above paragraph)

First, stand up straight. Hey--don't slouch; I can see you!! Now, your feet. How could feet possibly be important, you say? Well, they can't smell bad or ha--just kidding. You need to put them in a proper position, just like your violin. In order to have proper "feet" posture, put your feet together, move the right foot (not the left!) to the side, then up one step.

With proper body stance, you must now carefully grasp the violin. Hold the neck of the violin (What's the neck, you say? Go back to the last chapter!) with your left hand. Oh wait, did you put your shoulder rest on yet? Let's get back to that part. Put your Kun on! Now, put the your chin on the chinrest (Again, if you don't know what this is, you're demoted back to Chapter 2. Game over!) and extend your left arm to the fingerboard. Make sure that you can see part of your arm on the other side of the violin. Ta da! Good job. You survived (or did you? No worries; I will bring you back from the dead with the Resurrection Stone!)

And this is proper violin posture! Congratulations, but don't be too pompous yet--previews of the next chapters: groaning under honing, bee stings and violin strings!