The VioGlove is the first glove in history, that's designed to help violinists, violists, and cellists improve every aspect of their left-hand technique!
Our trials and tests have shown, the microfiber pad can promote smoother, cleaner, and more effortless shifting and allow the left hand to be more friction-free. As a result, we've heard many times from musicians involved in the trial, that it's easier to play with it on as it takes much less effort.
The VioGlove also was also created with the intension to allow perfect spatial relationships between each finger, with the aim to give the left hand a new found freedom.
We've found it also molds and balances the hand more proportionally to the neck of the instrument, and as such vibrato can become more focused and trills can potentially become faster.
We've also found that the glove also helps to redistribute the tension in the left hand more evenly, so that finger articulation and coordination can potentially become more precise.
I guess fundamentally, our learnings and testings have shown that the VioGlove trains or re-trains students, amateurs, and even professionals, to position the left hand in such a sound way, that moving up and down the fingerboard with confidence can potentially be easier and greatly improved.
Where did this idea come from? And what’s the need you are hoping to fill?
It's kind of a wonderful fluke that this product was discovered, actually. One can more accurately call it a 'serendipity.'
In his 60 years as a violinist (Peter Kaman), I've constantly searched for better ways to play at the highest level. Even though I've had excellent training of four summers at Galamian's Meadowmount School, and five years at The Juilliard School, as well as thirty years as a professional symphony musician, teacher, and recording artist, my enduring love of music, (notably great violin playing) has been the single constant in my life. In other words, I've just never given up trying to be the very best violinist I could be.
About a year ago, I went to a bike shop with a friend. I bought a nice bicycle and a pair of bicycle gloves so that I could protect my hands from a possible fall, or from a possible strain while riding. One day just for fun, I decided to cut down the finger fabric to the base knuckle of my hand and tried playing my violin with it. I'm always experimenting with different ways to play better and wanted to see what it would feel like if I wore a glove while playing my violin. As there are dozens of sports in the world, where world-class athletes wear gloves to enhance their performance, I thought, it might not be too much of a stretch, if just perhaps, string players could also benefit from something like this too.
I can honestly say, from the first moment I started to play with this modified bike glove on, my left hand felt stronger and I felt my double stops were much more stable, stronger, and focused. My trills felt faster, and my vibrato changed a little for the better because my whole hand felt more centered. Amazingly, even with a bicycle glove on it was just easier to play. Also, I found the microfiber pad in the palm of my hand allowed me to shift easier than I ever had before and I noticed that my fingers were more separated and it felt like they'd been given more freedom.
Then I remembered something that really made me think that I was on to something special. While I was attending Juilliard, the one violinist in my class, who in my opinion had the most beautiful hands, was Shlomo Mintz. And, one thing I noticed, was that Shlomo had beautiful wide spaces between each of his fingers. Reminiscing, it got me thinking maybe this is perhaps one reason why he played so much better than almost everyone else (Of course, there are many other reasons too). But my analysis at the time was that these equal spaces created by the bike glove, gave my own fingers wider spaces between each finger, in a similar way to Shlomo's hands, and that actually did make it significantly easier to play.
