Hello all. I suppose I have two questions really. I have been playing now for just over 2 months and am having a wonderful time practising. I practise for about 1 - 2 hours everyday. On my first finger (lefthand) my skin is getting really tough where I press the string is this normal? Second question, I have endeavoured to relax my hand on my bow, I have achieved this with my fingers but my thumb is now working overtime and I also have blitering on my thumb, any ideas to relax my thumb when playing, does anyone else have this problem?
Many Thanks for any input. Jaybaline

The toughening of your skin is good... that`s called callousing, that means you play frequently... the thumb blister however is very bad... where are you putting your thumb?it should be half on the frog & half on the wood, also it should be curved/bent... you might need to take a break from playing for a bit to get your right hand out of whatever bad habits youve developed, then work up slowly...play scales in whole notes and pay attention to your bow grip.