Always loved him - a great artist and a great person - continues to inspire me.

Wonderful-Thank you!

Very Instructive, Bravo !

wow, this is one of the best explanations I found (been watching a few videos on the subject... 🙂 )

More contemporary, Hadelich and Nathan Melzter. I also came to this conclusion and started using a pad rather than a shoulder rest.

People debating and doubting the words or one of the best violinist and teacher of the 20th century who is mentioning the very best players in the world ever! 😂

I've play with and without a shoulder rest. Overall, I prefer the sound without a shoulder rest, the sound is more "natural" and interesting in my opinion. Shoulder rests tend to produce a more uniform, less natural, sound where it is more difficult to tell violinists apart. Doesn't mean you can't produce a beautiful sound with shoulder rest, or course. But, I do go back in forth.

Yes indeed.. that's why iam feel more enjoy without shouldrest..❤

OMG !!! Thanks so much for this video! Do you have more videos like this with Mr. Rosand ?

First we as violinist should realize that as beautiful as the look and sound of a violin might be , it is still the worst ergonomically designed musical instrument till date ,which later led into various inventions such as the Chinrest, Shoulder rest , tailpiece fine-tuners , geared pegs e.t.c, all this as enabled great players of today to do what older masters would have thought impossible with a violin such as dancing and playing simultaneously. what he said about old masters not entirely true for example lseac stern himself claimed to have used foam padding tucked underneath his jacket before playing which people don't see, David Oistrakh had a Cremona sponge-like padding attached underneath his violin . This shows that the most ergonomically stable way to hold the violin without necessarily touching is to use a shoulder rest or an hybrid of it.

❤

Hilary Hahn uses a shoulder rest!

Hey, there used to be a video from this session with Rosand taking about vibrato and glisandi but it is now private. I was wondering if you happen to have access to that segment (I don't know if you originally uploaded it). If you do I would genuinely appreciate being able to watch it again.

Tuve la suerte de tocar para Ruggiero Ricci y el no usaba hombrera ni almohadilla siendo ya un legendario violinista y luego toque con Eugene Fodor el Doble de Bach y tbm el Maestro Fodor tampoco usaba ninguna Hombrera y Fodor fue más duro al decir que "La Hombrera es una muleta para el Violín" .. en mi opinión para mi es cómodo pero puede que para otros no lo sea y respeto todo aunque el sonido si puede cambiar al no usarlo puesto que puedes mover el Violín en la Dirección que te convenga para producir sonido o facilitar un cambio de arco incluso . la Hombrera si te limita los movimientos y aprisiona el sonido con sus patas ..

Does anyone know what is the chin rest model he uses?

Could someone please clarify what he is meaning by 'aligning the elbow for the ideal fingertip position'?

I began violin by a Viola teacher. Some were allowed a. Shoulder rest some were not. It may have been an experiment the teacher could enjoy I don't know. Some used copper wire tail guts these would not stretch I. Wouldn't think. I was allways accused of left hand death grip. I could not shake it. I still have left hand death grip. It was my great grandfather's violin so I naturally did not want to drop it. Thank you for the reassurance of no shoulder rest. You sound awesome on your violin. In order to do what you did in that quick scale you must have great independence of the fingers. Im very impressed by your brevity And would like to hear more. I in your opinion should a beginning student of the violin take l😊e😊sons f😊rom aViolist? Would that simple f😊😊😮

Great violinists who do use shoulder rests: Vengerov, Hahn, Benedetti, Bell, Jansen, and no doubt others. Playing without a shoulder rest may be the ideal, unfortunately it just doesn't work for everyone.

Ugh is right. Short violinists with short necks don't need much padding. People taller than Heifetz and Joeseph Fuchs who both about 5'1" don't have space for a pad. Stern would fuss at orchestral violinists and then stuff a big pad under his shirt. He was 5'6". Aaron Rosand was quite short. Ricci was short. Pictures of Joseph Szigiti playing clearly show a big pad under his shirt. Carl Flesch had the most sensible point of view: measure the distance between the collar bone and the jaw, Compare it to the heigth of the violin and chinrest. The difference is how much you will either have to raise your shoulder or fill in with a pad of some kind. Don't pretend to know what it's like for your students if they are 6 inches or a foot taller than you are. I want to know how many violinists have been ruined and injured by this complete lack of insight and empathy. Easily many thousands.

Old school thinking, almost every contemporary violinist is using a shoulder rest.

Many great violinists use shoulder rest . Hilary Hahn for one.

Using shoulder rest is like using condom.

Interesting playing without a shoulder rest. We've all tried it. Seems more contemporary famous players use a SR. Without one it's fine in first position and even 3rd, but going up to 4th and higher etc.. the neck wants to clamp, the thumb has to work harder and you get tension the left shoulder comes up and slippage. However in 1st you certainly feel more connected.

Ugh. Those violinists didn’t use shoulder rests because they weren’t available at the time!! Virtually every player now uses a shoulder rest of some kind, including Zukerman and many others who actually grew up without them. They are helpful for most people.

I've got a crick in my neck from just looking at him.

I am 6’2 and play without a shoulder rest but do use a Kreddle chin rest. Which allows for enough height to support my long neck. Tried three different shoulder rests including a bon musica. Not only were all three uncomfortable but they left my neck and shoulder feeling like I had been beat with a bag of rocks! Personally, I do not think the shoulder rest was ever meant to be a “have to use” device. But thanks to assholes like Suzuki, it has become gospel.

You can compress a lot of nerves and freeze a lot of elbow by having your elbow so far inwards. Not a natural position or healthy for any hand. Terrible if you already have a job using computers or play piano too.

I disagree. Hillary Hahn uses a shoulder rest

I am so tired of men trying to tell women they don’t need a shoulder rest. How the heck would you know what it’s like to play violin in a female body?? We have longer necks and more narrower chests and shoulders. For most women, it is impossible to play properly without a shoulder rest, unless you just happen to have a very short neck. This is why almost every female soloist uses a shoulder rest: Hilary Hahn, Midori, Sarah Chang, Pamela Frank, Lucia Micarelli, Chloe Chua, Karen Gomyo, Nicola Benedetti, Maria Duenas, and the list can go on forever. These people are not misinformed. They are doing what is necessary to play the instrument in the bodies they were born in. It’s awfully rich for someone with a stocky build and no neck to go and tell someone with a neck that they shouldn’t use a shoulder rest. What absolute bullshit.