Bowing techinques

I'm sorry for opening a new tread for this, but I really need to ask somebody...

Does upward bowing stroke produce a different sound from downward bowing stroke?

I need this to be able to achieve maximum sense of real players playing when working with string samples.

When you have a professional player, you shouldn't normally hear any difference. The tone is the same, the only difference is that some things are bit easier to play on an up-bow or a down-bow, since it's easier to exert greater pressure on the string when you're closer to the frog and somewhat easier to play very lightly with reduced pressure at the tip of the bow. (Which is why you often would play very strong, accentuated notes on a down-bow or a short crescendo on an up-bow.) But a good string player should be able to play most things on either up-bow or down-bow and make it sound pretty much the same.

But I'm not a string player myself, so someone else might have more detailed knowledge.

Gardener's right, a fine player must be able to play any note up or down bow, but certainly down-bow is more suitable for accents and up-bow is better for a smooth beginning.

The smooth notes can be obtained any way, (the "liscio" exercise is very common) but the accents.... you'll get better results with down-bow.

I think there is still a difference in up-bows and down-bows even with professionals. They really just know when to use which one, and yes they are much better keeping a consistant sound than an amateur player.

The difference really comes from where in the bow the player is. When a string player plays faster passages, they will be in the lower half because it's easier, and it produces a more "solid" sound. It's easier to get an "airy" effect in the upper half, which means more pressure is applied to get the same sound as in the lower half. So when you are trying to decide bowings, kind of think in the "airy" vs "solid" sound, professional will easily cover these up if necessary, but if you can utilize it instead, it'd be better. And honestly, the string players are probably going to change your bowings anyway, especially if they know the sound you are looking for. They know what they are doing.

Also, are you talking in respect to a soloist or a section? With the section, it doesn't matter nearly as much. Since you are getting different colors through different instruments anyway, so all they really do is find the most convenient bowings and all do it the same just to look good. With a soloist, I think they are much more careful about that. I know I am when I'm doing a solo on the violin vs when I'm in a section. I admit, I'm amateur, so I find all the ways I can to make it easier to make the right sound instead of being so good I can cover that up completely.

Trust me when I say I'm oversimplifying this too. There is a lot that goes into the technique of bowing for making different sounds. Bow direction is probably the least of your worries.

Don't mean to beat a dead horse, but yea, it should sound the same(if you're talking about regular, smooth, detache strokes)

And although it should sound the same, please try to write bowings in a way that...well, make sense. Make things easy for us. You don't want to piss us off; trust me on that. :P

And although it should sound the same, please try to write bowings in a way that...well, make sense. Make things easy for us. You don't want to piss us off; trust me on that. :P

Very true. VERY true. LoL

Can you play mandolin-like tremolo on a violin using a bow-length comb?

lolwut

Just use your fingers like a mandolinist does - sure, we don't have plectrums on our fingers, but it's the best you're going to get. But seriously.... a ... comb? Maybe if you have a whole violin section bounce their pencils off the strings or something would be a close approximation...

I would write in the score "pizz come chitarra" and tremolo notes....:D

Can you play mandolin-like tremolo on a violin using a bow-length comb?

Like this:

?

Like this:

?

Sounds like a slightly duller balalaika.

Anyway I tried the comb thing and it did work, but the catch is you can't apply force and you can't upcomb. You must let it drop and drag downwards fast enough to keep the teeth from catching the string. It might work well with an old bow with shallowly cut notches played col legno tratto. I think the notches should be quite sharp so that they pluck like music box teeth, and so that you hear more tone than overtone. It probably wouldn't sound as impressive as the video though, but wouldn't it be interesting in a quartet?

I'd ask Garth Knox. He knows what he is doing.

Surely it is possible for Garth Knox but might not be for everyone, so this is a possible shortcut.

Anything is possible... thes are published, playable pieces... Practice.

For a piece that only uses quasi mandolin tremolo briefly, it might not be worth it. And his technique predicates on playing without bow, that adds limits to applying it in different compositions. Seeing how outlandish extended techniques are being appreciated, there is no reason not to try a prepared bow or similar grooved object.

Well these are just

Ok bear with me, I'm just a layman tempted by the idea of a functional double-sided bow. Flip the bow and normal bowing technique translates to mandolin tremolo. I'd love to hear practical applications of it or to compose for it, since obviously it allows more control in double stopped tremolo and freedom in alternating traditional bowing sound to semi realistic mandolin tremolo sound which can be really useful. Just curious, what do you think of curved bows?

Like the Bach/Vega bow?

Yeah. I was thinking that a characteristic mandolin effect would contribute nicely to the palette of sounds a string player could use (not a pizzicato tremolo executed by fingers on a viola, in which case sounds like a dull balalaika, though not to say unusable). That requires a foreign object in the same way a polyphonic organ effect requires a vega bow. I think it would be as interesting to hear as the piccolo and drum effects being replicated by strings in a Mosolov quartet.

Could any string player familiar with subharmonics please explain how it works and what are the limitations in writing for it??

Being no string player I can't give you details about the execution and how they work on the different string instruments - but basically it's about high bow pressure, low bow speed and finding the right position on the string to bow (I think usually they're done almost over the fingerboard, or even over it). I know they can work well on Cello and Doublebass - if you happen to find an instrumentalist who can pull them off convincingly. (So don't just expect them from your average orchestra tutti-cellist.) I'm not sure about the higher string instruments, but it should be possible too. It's definitely a technique that's very hard to control and fragile, so it's only really feasible for single, slow notes - and most likely any subharmonic beyond the first is unlikely to be hit with absolute safety.

Physically, I think it simply works like that:

When you bow normally, the hairs of the bow, with aid of the cohesive resin "stick" to the string and pull it just so far until the tension of the string grows stronger than the friction of the bow, letting the string snap back, only to be caught again by a different part of the bow and the process begins. This repeated section of pulling and releasing the string causes the string to vibrate, and if the bow pressure and speed is chosen right, the frequency of this vibration will coincide with the inherent frequency of the string (determined by it's length/tension/heaviness) and produce a clear tone.

Now, when you increase the pressure gradually, while leaving the speed the same, you pull the string further before it is released again, making the caused vibration slower and fall out of line with the resonance frequency of the string. In practice, that means that you are actually stopping the vibrating string in its movement again and again, distorting the tone.

If however these "stoppings" of the string happen at such a speed that the string can always vibrate fully once once forth and once back inbetween, you again get a regular pulse that is comparable to plucking the string, letting it go back and forth exactly once, then stopping it for the same amount of time, then plucking it again, and so on. This will produce a note that is one octave lower than the actual natural frequency of the string, since every second "back and forth motion" is blocked off. This is the first subharmonic.

You'd get the second subharmonic (on octave plus a fifth lower), if you "blocked off" two of every three string-oscillations, the third if you blocked off three of every four oscillations (two octaves lower) and so on.

The hard part is of course that you need -exactly- the right pressure and speed to accurately block off half (or two third, or three quarters, etc.) of all vibrations, and if you're slightly off, you'll just produce a very distorted sound, caused by lots of separate vibrations in irregular intervals.

So if one uses subharmonics, it's probably best if one accepts getting such distorted sounds "on the way", and doesn't just ask for a perfectly clear third subharmonic out of nowhere. Personally, I find this path from the normal empty string sound, through major distortion to another note "magically appearing" an octave lower very fascinating anyways.

Very interesting... Is amount of rosin ever specified in a composition, say for brighter tone or in this case better stickiness? If so in what quantity?

I've never seen it, but it might very well be that some composers specified for certain things to be played with much or almost no resin, since it definitely makes a difference. (Apparently there are even two distinct schools of resin usage amongst double-bass players.) It's even a question one should consider when writing extensive "col legno" passages (col legno tratto, that is). I've seen performers use resin on the wood of their bow without being instructed to do so, just to produce a stronger tone - once in a piece by myself, where it kind of went against what I wanted, since the col legno gets a bit closer to the normal bowed sound like this, which wasn't my intention - so it might have been a good idea to specifically ask for the wood of the bow to be normal and untreated. Ah well. (The performer -did- of course have a reason for doing so, since it was a solistic passage in an orchestral piece that would have been barely audible with a normal "col legno tratto".)

P.S. Of course, this performer also used a different (probably cheap) bow for this part. I don't think many string players would treat the wood of their main bow with rosin.

On 6/29/2009 at 5:08 PM, yegudiil said:

Yeah. I was thinking that a characteristic mandolin effect would contribute nicely to the palette of sounds a string player could use (not a pizzicato tremolo executed by fingers on a viola, in which case sounds like a dull balalaika, though not to say unusable). That requires a foreign object in the same way a polyphonic organ effect requires a vega bow. I think it would be as interesting to hear as the piccolo and drum effects being replicated by strings in a Mosolov quartet.

 

Introducing characteristic mandolin effects to the palette of sounds for string players could indeed add depth and richness to their sonic possibilities. The idea of using a foreign object, like a vega bow for polyphonic organ effects, opens up new avenues for creative exploration in string performance.