I have an honest to goodness beginner bowing question.  Why is it so difficult to pick up the A string?  I have a student fiddle but I'm happy with it.  It seems as though my bow wants to stroke the D, skip over A, & pick up E.  I'm practicing keeping my arms in good position, my fingers stretched, and my bow straight.  I'm trying to avoid bad habits that I would have to break later.  I wonder if anyone has ever tried reversing the bridge???

Is your A string too low, compared with the others?

Why would you want to reverse the bridge? First, it wouldn't fit the top right, and second, it wouldn't solve your problem.

Fingers stretched? Fingers on the bow hand should be relaxed, loose & mobile.

It takes practise. On my violin I have it set up so the D string is highest. I am used to that and it works quite well for me.

My partner has a fiddle that has the D and A about the same height, and I have your problem.

You will probably get used to your set up.

Sounds like your bridge may be too flat on top. Take some sort of straight edge (may a butter knife or...??) and put it underneath the strings just in front of the bridge, bring it up to simultaneously touch the E and D strings without deflecting them. Then look at how much gap there is between the straight edge and the A string. For student fiddles this should be about 1/16 of an inch, or about the thickness of two credit cards. If this distance is too small, it will be hard to play on the A string without touching the E or D.

Another way is to simply "eyeball" this distance by holding your fiddle in front of your face with the neck pointing to the left and the top straight up toward the ceiling, so that you're looking sideways at the strings. Now looking at the strings just in front of the bridge where the bow is applied, rotate the fiddle until the E and D strings line up in your line of sight. Then look at how high the A string is above this line. Once you are familiar with this distance, you can quickly assess the bridge contour on any fiddle.

Of course the distance described above should be the same when checking the height of the D string above the line of the A and G.

If your violin has not been looked over by a good luthier, I'd suggest you have it inspected and adjusted. Your bridge may not be cut or set quite right. Do you have a mix of string brands? Some are substantially thicker than others. No problem with playing on a student instrument, but if it can be adjusted like an upscale one, that's all to the good.

I think this problem will go away with time. Practice is the key.

Learning to play the fiddle is harder than I thought it would be, but no harder than the dobro.

Denise, the first thought was that later you will hope to be hitting both for some of what we call double stops and why some fiddlers keep a flat bridge.

practice 

edited to add this guy...

Edited by - fiddlerjoebob on 07/15/2012 15:23:53

and practice I will