Should I stick to small bows i.e. staying in the middle of the bow, or should I use full bows from the start? I was givin two opinions, one person said start on small bows, so that you will get a clean bow and use full bows later. The other say use full bows right off the bat, so you don't get in the habit of being shy with your bow. I squeek alot and string skipping still gives me problems, which should I begin on?

One other thing, thanks to guitar I have RSI in my left pinky, so for a month I can only work on bowing, any good bowing exercises to get my bowing clean and straight?

well i started with small bows and sadly i will only play big bows when my violin teacher points it out or when i am playing a song i know extremely well. using a long strong bow stroke will help with the squeaking when you put enough pressure on the bow. it also depends on the song. you wouldn't use the whole bow in a song with short staccato notes. but when you have slow songs take advantage of that and play with a big full sound with big long bow strokes. in fact, with twinkle twinkle little star or something like that, use as much as you can! it will definately give your sound a boost compared to little bow strokes.

I think it would vary on the dynamics of a peice. Use the whole bow when it is mezzo forte or above, and less than 3/4 of the bow when it is mezzo piano. I have done it like this and it will produce a much fuller sound on the strings and after some practise.

Bowing excersises
1)Write a chart with G D A E written at random on a line. Itmay help sight reading to write it on manuscript. Anyway, play the open note slowly, abou 8 beats, and every time youi finish the line, evaluate if you played it well, then go back and do it half speed. Then just repat the process until every note you paly is on one string. Do this for a few days.

2)Take your violin out, PUT IT SOMEWHERE WHERE YOU CAN SEE IT, CHAIR NOT RECOMMENED, and do somthing like, watch TV, or play a game, then totally at random, stop what you are doing andpick up the violina nd play the stings. Works for me.

3) You may be going off the string because of your hand not comfortable with the bow in your hand. Get you teacher to put small little dots where the fingers on the bow go and just sit and watch TV, (my favourite pass time) and hold the bow. After a while your hand will feel very comfortable. if you hand starts to hurt then stop. You can strain a muscule and then you won't be able to practise at all.

4) Finally, if you bow is affected by your confidence with a peice, practise it infront of friends and family so you get used to playing it full bow or the correct amount of bow infront if someone.

Hope this helped.

A simple exercise,

Using a full bow, play some scales in an eighth note quarter note rhythm. Play two eighth notes at the frog then use a full bow to play the quarter note and work your way to the tip and play another two eighth notes. Repeat this pattern throughout the scale.

A squeaky sound can be explained by many different things: not enough bow pressure, the angle of the bow is off, little bow hair, etc.