In addition to playing the violin in the orchestra, I have been working as an orthopedagogy for illnesses in stringed instrumentalists since 1979. This work resulted in interdisciplinary collaboration with orthopedists, hand surgeons and work physiologists. The overstrain in instrumentalists caused by violin-playing resulted in new discoveries being made concerning anatomical functions in the physiology of violin-playing, which were published by the author.

It was necessary to ascertain how and where the impulses of motions took place in the chain of limbs throughout the whole arm for the left gripping hand and the right bow arm and how the interplay between limbs kinematically changed as forces increased due to quicker musical tempi and greater tone pitches. The method in which the long poly-jointed arm, hand and finger muscles work forms the work regime for motoric coordination between support and movement within the whole arm kinematics. The quadratic relation of speed to the factor of mass also determines the work energy (E = m/2 v²) for the motoricity of a violinist’s movements. If the speed increases, proximal stabilisation increases while the impulses shift to distal. The kinematic chains involved in basic violin techniques can be ascertained and detailed descriptions can be given by means of a professional violinist’s accurate feeling for movement as in the clinical methods used by doctors. These regulated synkinetic coordinations have long since been recognized by violinists in playing techniques, but have previously been unable to be explained.

As a result it is possible to describe the synkinetic conditions for placing fingers on the violin strings, the stabilisation of the wrist joint initiated thereby and the vibrational behaviour of arm and hand for the vibrato for the left gripping hand. It is of interest concerning the right bow arm that when playing the violin strings the metacarpus is no longer capable of making a movement of its own and becomes a stabilising double lever of the forearm when making quick cylical active forearm strokes. The long fingers retain their ability to move in the metacarpophalangeal joint despite being statically fixed in the bow grip partly by means of their own active movements and partly by means of passive tendon effects.

for any further informations about this topic and my related book ( available in german only ) don't hesitate to contact me at:

KM Wolf-Dietrich Eulitz
Gundelfingerstr. 41
10318 Berlin/Germany
phone/fax: 49-30/50.99.824
e-mail:or ad-eulitz@gmx.de

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