Hi, I`m starting to research posture difficulties and pain as a result of playing an instrument, in particular the violin. I`d be keen to hear from anyone who has experienced these problems. Also anybody who has used a device or found a solution to help with posture?
Thanks in advance, laura

Simply, the best posture for playing is a relaxed standing position. Everything is relaxed, knees, shoulders, fingers, wrists and neck. T

he violin by your side, the left jaw slightly resting as you face forward, the ear is slightly turned to the f-holes, as if listening to her breath. The shoulder rest makes sure that the shoulder is square and firm and not shrugging to hold the violin.

The bowing arm aligns the bow parallel to the bridge. The bow itself is supported by the strings, the wrist and the spider-legged fingers just pushes and pulls the bow like the puppet-master.

The thumb rests on the side just in front of the frog, while the middle finger lies opposite, together with the ring finger, the first joints of which balance the thumb. Meanwhile the little finger, curls up and goes to bed on top of the bow, lending its weight to support the bow. The index finger gently caresses the grip.

The other five fingers line up the string, the thumb by the side of the index. The line never breaks (except during stops)The left hand never supports the violin. It merely allows the fingers to touch the string while the bow is pulled down.

There you have it.

Jay

I had a lot of pain when I played the violin, I even developed tennis elbow and tendonitis. It was really painful, I tried a lot of things including acupunture and shots of cortizone. But when nothing helped I searched the internet for clinics for musicians and I fouond a very good one in New York City in the Roosevelt Hospital. They told me there that my injuries where from bad technic and posture and they gave therapy (lifting objects slowly and such) and a lot of warm up exercices, I have to do them still (that was 3 years ago), but I changed my teacher and i haven´t had any pain since. I learned that some of my problems would be that I used a lot of strength that I didn´t have to do, like lifting my fingers off the fingerboard with a lot of strenght and also that I changed positions with my hand instead of my whole arm, and a lot of stuff. I would recomend that you search for your own position with the instrument, because that is really something that you have to look for yourself to find what its best for you and feel more natural.
Mayra