The Session >> Discussions >> Newbie fiddling question: Why do you tilt the bow and not have it flat?
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Newbie fiddling question: Why do you tilt the bow and not have it flat?
Newbie fiddling question: Why do you tilt the bow and not have it flat?
My last lesson my teacher picked up on me not tilting the bow enough (along with my first position hand position actually sitting about a semitone too far down the neck...and we'd both been wondering why I was struggling with my intonation!)....
...and then said: mmm....don't actually know why you are supposed to do that.....but I'll make up a reason if you need one.
So - now I REALLY want to know what's the reasoning? Why tilt? What does it do?
Re: Newbie fiddling question: Why do you tilt the bow and not have it flat?
It's not really a rule at all, a lot of good players keep the full hair on the strings. Players that tend to use more bow movement and less pressure usually tilt the bow a little, while players who use more pressure and less movement (Pat O'Connor, Patrick Ourceau) keep the hairs flat.
Re: Newbie fiddling question: Why do you tilt the bow and not have it flat?
If you tilt the bow, you can basically choose how many hairs you want to play with: very little pressure with the bow and you're playing just on a couple of hairs, and i you play with a lot of pressure, the hair flattens against the string so you are basically using all the hairs.
Also, it means a much more stable bow-hold as the hair rests against the top thumb joint.
Re: Newbie fiddling question: Why do you tilt the bow and not have it flat?
Never really understood this one myself. Always assumed it was just to help a beginner prevent his bow from wandering down onto the fingerboard. Maybe I'm wrong.
Don't think I do much tilting myself - in fact a fiddle maker told me he gets a lot of bows for rehairing from people who tilt. It puts extra pressure on the hair on one side of the bow and the hairs on that side pop out. I almost never break bow hairs, even though I play quite intensively. Maybe it's to do with applying the pressure evenly?
Re: Newbie fiddling question: Why do you tilt the bow and not have it flat?
Aw, Mary, the teacher was probably just joking because he doesn't know the exact scientific explanation for it!
I read the science of it once, it has to do with the way the bow hairs catch the string, they stay on the string longer and so can make it vibrate more fully. Basically it improves the tone you can get out of the string. It's easiest to demonstrate this on the G string---some short, quick bows, then some nice deep long ones, first tilting the bow, then flat. It also helps prevent that crunching sound that happens close to the frog.
Re: Newbie fiddling question: Why do you tilt the bow and not have it flat?
Sounds like a classical teacher myself. That's how I was taught when I took lessons in my twenties. The idea was about perfect wrist and arm position, to where the bow would be tilted on the outer (furthest away from you) edge when playing near the frog, and that would move as you got down toward the tip, where you would actually be playing in the edge nearest you.
Don't think that's too necessary with fiddling, where you don't use the whole bow anyway for the most part. As mentioned above, I was in a workshop with Patrick Ourceau who plays with the strings flat. I can't begin to play to his level, so if it's not a problem for him, I'm not going to make it one for me.
There's so many other things to work on with the bow that this would be way down on my priority list.
Re: Newbie fiddling question: Why do you tilt the bow and not have it flat?
Your teacher should be able to explain why...
It is overwhelmingly typical for students to be instructed to do this. A top notch classical player will adjust this to modify tone, especially when playing strokes where the bow lifts off of the strings and when playing harmonics.
Among other things, the tilt reduces the overall surface area taken up by the hair. This alters the tone in a couple of ways. As mentioned already, more surface area means you can apply more pressure. However, it also means the overall length of the string that can participate in a natural "arc" (wave form producing the pitch/tone) that you see on a freely vibrating string is reduced. The higher up on the neck you stop notes, the worse this becomes. It is also much more noticeable for harmonics, which are already traveling in significantly shorter length because you have introduced "nodes" in the natural arc. I tend to visualize it as the bow hair "interfering" with the vibration of the string. Remember that with the short scale of a violin, these factors are more severe than on other instruments.
As a newbie, your lucky to get any tone that is constant, let alone experiment with altering it. So... One way to think about it is as playing with a plectrum: when you position the bow orthogonally, you are essentially playing with a square plectrum, instead of a pointed one. Taking that analogy a little further, the bow hair produces a sound by grabbing and releasing the string at a very rapid rate. So imagine the bow as a lighting fast mandolin playing tremolo with hideous speed and accuracy on each stroke. Hopefully that will make it a little easier to understand why/how tilting the bow or playing far/close to the bridge changes the tone.
Re: Newbie fiddling question: Why do you tilt the bow and not have it flat?
My God, nofrets, that sounds horrendous! Actually moving the tilt as you play up the bow??!? Dreadful idea, IMO, and fortunately not one I've come across in either trad or classical playing.
As far as I'm concerned, the best players can, if they want to, play with the bow either tilted or flat, at will. The tone is different, and it helps with tone colour variation not always to play the same way.
Oh, and Kennedy, "that crunching sound that happens close to the frog" shouldn't happen in any case. You should be able to play with the bow hair absolutely flat on the string and get a warm, full tone for the whole length of the bow. This is more to do with using arm weight instead of pressure than it is to do with tilt.
Playing with the edge of the bow hairs should produce a harder sound, with more 'carrying notes' in the tone so, although you may not be playing louder, the sound will carry better over other instruments and over a further distance.
Re: Newbie fiddling question: Why do you tilt the bow and not have it flat?
I always figured it was to help prevent the bow from bouncing/skittering unintentionally, and to help with getting a smoother sound.
And for the record, I concur with benhall that rotating the bow as you play sounds like a really bad idea. The times I've seen students do this, it's gone along with a generous helping of bow-skitter.
Re: Newbie fiddling question: Why do you tilt the bow and not have it flat?
I’ve done just a teeny bit of experimenting with this (and now, because of my obsessive nature, I’ll probably waste more time on it – thanks a lot!). I *think* I learned that the effect (the difference between edge playing and flat playing) is pretty small, at least for me, and it’s smaller for steel strings than others. I could only tell any difference when I bowed close to the fingerboard.
Bowing near a vibrational node (stationary point between vibrating sections) tends to amplify the naturally destructive effects of bowing (as in monkey440’s square plectrum example). The string has very little energy in that area, so it’s easy to interfere there and actually jiggle the position of the node so that the pitch is unstable. Just from a theoretical viewpoint, I would expect that fewer hairs would mean less interference.
I think I always play with the hair flat on the strings.
Re: Newbie fiddling question: Why do you tilt the bow and not have it flat?
The reason:
many violinists tilt their bows at the frog to help compensate for the fact that when near the frog the bow produces more sound. Less hair = less sound, and more ease in keeping a consistent stroke. Depending on R hand position, it *may* make negotiating a bow change easier too, but not for everybody. Does it apply to playing Irish music? When I play traditional Irish music, I tend to use very little bow in the upper half of the bow (unless I really need to be loud for some reason), so not really to my playing, no.
Benhall, lots of classical violinists do change the amount of bow tilt depending if they're on closer to the frog or tip, and naturally alter that while playing - some that do much finer jobs at classical music than I do, too. It's an option in the technique that can result in just as fine a tone as any other approach.
Re: Newbie fiddling question: Why do you tilt the bow and not have it flat?
Benhall, as a kid I was systematically trained to alter the angle of the bow from frog to tip to get more control over tone and dynamics. If you want to debate the merits of that technique, I'll let you do so with Sister Xavier Mary, who adamantly insisted on the use of it by all of her violinists. It wasn't our idea!
When I quit playing classical music, I abandoned the technique. It's great for all of those over-emotive, high-dynamic-range, gee-ma-look-at-me concerti that classical violinists have to play so often. I found it not particularly useful for fiddle, except perhaps in the occasional slow air. Fluid, crisp bow movements are a lot more important to get the proper tone for jigs and reels.
Re: Newbie fiddling question: Why do you tilt the bow and not have it flat?
I always thought the tilt is a natural result when playing with a flexible wrist. This is related to tilting inward when you play close to the tip, and outward when playing closer to the frog - think of long bow strokes and the way the hand/wrist position changes - but I think another factor is the bow direction and the string being played. Another natural tilt occurs when crossing strings with just moving the wrist. E.g. when you play the typical pattern of DAFA DAFA on the fiddle, your wrist is supposed to perform a circular movement. This results in an inward tilt bow on the D string, an outward tilt on the A string.
In fact, tilting the bow (ie. moving only the wrist) when crossing strings allows to play with very little bow movements which is very helpful when playing fast, light and controlled.
Re: Newbie fiddling question: Why do you tilt the bow and not have it flat?
it has nothing to do with the bow hair..think about the wrist and thumb and how they work togetherplace your wrist flat on the table and wiggle your thumb around, then pick up your wrist and set it on teh table naturally your thumb should have a nice slight curve in it towards your fingertips...wiggle your wrist around in this manner on the table..then straighten out your thumb and wiggle around the wrist...notice how constricted it feels?( the wrist) ..as the wrist is at the frog you get better action and a smoother tone..as you move up the bow (upbow) the wrist and with it the bow hair flatten out...as you move towards the tip of the bow the bow will (should) be tilting slightly towards you..throughout the motion of moving the bow, try to keep a somewhat flat wrist...not real high in the air at the frog, or dipped way down towards the floor at the tip...in this manner you will get teh most tone and power and subtleness depending on bow speed from the stroke..
of course disregard all of the above if playing ITM and just do whatever works for you..I hope not to get in to much trouble but tone in ITM is not the forefront of the concern...phrasing and what sounds right is what is of concern...
Re: Newbie fiddling question: Why do you tilt the bow and not have it flat?
Gosh. Well, my bow moves really quite smoothly from frog to tip without the bow hair changing its tilt one iota. Unless, of course, I *want* it to.
If you play a long note using all of the bow, from frog to tip, you should be able to produce the same quality throughout the note. In my view, you can only do this if the speed, as well as the angle, of the bow is also the same throughout.
And this applies whether you are a flat-hair or a tilty-hair ... or, indeed, both of them as well as all gradations in between, as a really good player should be. Or, strictly, I suppose, should be able to be (since they may *choose* only to use one style, but still ought to be able to change the tilt if they really wanted to).
Re: Newbie fiddling question: Why do you tilt the bow and not have it flat?
Vassar Clements--US bluegrass fiddler and he-of-the-fat-and holy-tone--played with his bow tilted totally the "wrong" way: away from him, so the stick was closer to him, and the hairs facing toward the scroll.
Re: Newbie fiddling question: Why do you tilt the bow and not have it flat?
what i was trying to illustrate was not to think of the bow hair, but think of how the wrist moves with the bow of which the hair is the integral contact point thereof...my bow <can> travel a perfect plane with the string and the bridge too, but is that the most desireable to get the tone you desire?
Re: Newbie fiddling question: Why do you tilt the bow and not have it flat?
There is a "sweet spot" on the string that gives the best tone. For the open string on the fiddle (or if you're playing in the first position) it is more or less on a line joining the tops of the f-holes nearest the fingerboard. More accurately, the "sweet spot" is in the region of the 7th-9th harmonics, about 3 octaves up the string from the note being played, but you don't need to get paranoid about being mathematically accurate in this!
On the fiddle, the "sweet spot" will move towards the bridge as your left hand moves up the fingerboard. This doesn't matter in ITM because virtually all the playing is in the first position, but if you do need to move up the firngerboard, as classical and jazz players need to, then you'll find the "sweet spot" moves proportionally towards the bridge, so you move the bow closer to the bridge to maintain the tone.
The region of the string between the fingerboard and bridge is stuffed with scores of harmonic nodes (in the audible range), all very close together. If you use the bow hairs flat on the string then you will smother some of these nodes and remove some of the high harmonic content from the tone, thus altering and weakening it. If you tilt the bow then you'll minimize the number of nodes the bow will smother and you'll maintain a better tone. (Perhaps I'm making a case for the use of the baroque bow in ITM - the baroque bow has far fewer hairs and is much lighter.)
The "sweet spot" is important on other stringed instruments. Pianos, for example, are designed so that the hammer strikes the sweet spot, which, as on the fiddle, is in the region of the 7th-9th harmonics.
Re: Newbie fiddling question: Why do you tilt the bow and not have it flat?
"but ITM is not played legato"
I'm not sure that general statement is correct, if "legato" means what I think it means. If two or more notes are played successively on one bow moving at a steady speed then there is no observable breaks between those notes, and they are being played smoothly - then that's "legato".
A player with good bow control can also play successive notes with different bow strokes and make the audible transition between the strokes so small that the notes sound as if they are being played legato on one bow - a technically difficult achievement you don't often come across.
If there is an audible break between two notes then they are not being played legato. In ITM this is usually done by using separate bow strokes for the notes. This is a characteristic of a lot of Donegal playing, but in the more southern Irish styles you get whole groups of notes being played legato on one bow.
Re: Newbie fiddling question: Why do you tilt the bow and not have it flat?
I think of legato as slow and smooth with very little interruption of flow between note changes. I am probably wrong, though, but that's what I meant, slightly tongue in cheek.
Re: Newbie fiddling question: Why do you tilt the bow and not have it flat?
Legato bowing - smooth and calm as possible: goal is to not let any transition be noticeable - up/down bow, string crossings, whatever. Sure you do this in ITM - slow waltzes and airs. You just don't worry about it as much as you would in other forms.
Vassar Clements - I always thought he had horrible tone. Not that I don't completely admire his playing and musical sense, but that freaky axe he plays on sounds like it is plugged into to an amp no matter how they mike it. I'm probably going to jumped on by everyone for saying that...
Sweet spot - yeah, but I've found if you really want to kill the overtones, the most effective technique is to position the bow as far over the fingerboard as you can. Of course you sacrifice volume doing this, but that is probably also what you are after if you are doing this in the first place. When I was first taught this I thought it was impossible to do in upper positions because I kept hitting the adjacent strings, but my teacher was able to pull it off with my fiddle and bow without blinking. Over the years I've gotten better at doing it. There is certainly something to be said for those that are able to magically draw the sound/tone out of the instrument without going to any one particular extreme.
Newbie fiddling question: Why do you tilt the bow and not have it flat?
Newbie fiddling question: Why do you tilt the bow and not have it flat?
My last lesson my teacher picked up on me not tilting the bow enough (along with my first position hand position actually sitting about a semitone too far down the neck...and we'd both been wondering why I was struggling with my intonation!)....
...and then said: mmm....don't actually know why you are supposed to do that.....but I'll make up a reason if you need one.
So - now I REALLY want to know what's the reasoning? Why tilt? What does it do?
# Posted on September 17th 2007 by TheCurvyFiddle
Re: Newbie fiddling question: Why do you tilt the bow and not have it flat?
In a fiddle workshop on Saturday, I was told that tilting the bow encourages correct positioning of the wrist of the bowing hand.
# Posted on September 17th 2007 by DavyR
Re: Newbie fiddling question: Why do you tilt the bow and not have it flat?
It's not really a rule at all, a lot of good players keep the full hair on the strings. Players that tend to use more bow movement and less pressure usually tilt the bow a little, while players who use more pressure and less movement (Pat O'Connor, Patrick Ourceau) keep the hairs flat.
# Posted on September 17th 2007 by Splendid Isolation
Re: Newbie fiddling question: Why do you tilt the bow and not have it flat?
If you tilt the bow, you can basically choose how many hairs you want to play with: very little pressure with the bow and you're playing just on a couple of hairs, and i you play with a lot of pressure, the hair flattens against the string so you are basically using all the hairs.
Also, it means a much more stable bow-hold as the hair rests against the top thumb joint.
# Posted on September 17th 2007 by imahappycamper
Re: Newbie fiddling question: Why do you tilt the bow and not have it flat?
Basically
# Posted on September 17th 2007 by imahappycamper
Re: Newbie fiddling question: Why do you tilt the bow and not have it flat?
Never really understood this one myself. Always assumed it was just to help a beginner prevent his bow from wandering down onto the fingerboard. Maybe I'm wrong.
Don't think I do much tilting myself - in fact a fiddle maker told me he gets a lot of bows for rehairing from people who tilt. It puts extra pressure on the hair on one side of the bow and the hairs on that side pop out. I almost never break bow hairs, even though I play quite intensively. Maybe it's to do with applying the pressure evenly?
If anyone can shed light on this, it'd be great.
# Posted on September 17th 2007 by tradshark
Re: Newbie fiddling question: Why do you tilt the bow and not have it flat?
Your teacher said she would make up a reason if you really needed one?????
I hate to be harsh but it sounds like it's time to look for a new teacher.
Mary
# Posted on September 17th 2007 by Antikhntr
Re: Newbie fiddling question: Why do you tilt the bow and not have it flat?
Aw, Mary, the teacher was probably just joking because he doesn't know the exact scientific explanation for it!
I read the science of it once, it has to do with the way the bow hairs catch the string, they stay on the string longer and so can make it vibrate more fully. Basically it improves the tone you can get out of the string. It's easiest to demonstrate this on the G string---some short, quick bows, then some nice deep long ones, first tilting the bow, then flat. It also helps prevent that crunching sound that happens close to the frog.
# Posted on September 17th 2007 by kennedy
Re: Newbie fiddling question: Why do you tilt the bow and not have it flat?
Sounds like a classical teacher myself. That's how I was taught when I took lessons in my twenties. The idea was about perfect wrist and arm position, to where the bow would be tilted on the outer (furthest away from you) edge when playing near the frog, and that would move as you got down toward the tip, where you would actually be playing in the edge nearest you.
Don't think that's too necessary with fiddling, where you don't use the whole bow anyway for the most part. As mentioned above, I was in a workshop with Patrick Ourceau who plays with the strings flat. I can't begin to play to his level, so if it's not a problem for him, I'm not going to make it one for me.
There's so many other things to work on with the bow that this would be way down on my priority list.
Good luck though!
# Posted on September 17th 2007 by nofrets
Re: Newbie fiddling question: Why do you tilt the bow and not have it flat?
Your teacher should be able to explain why...
It is overwhelmingly typical for students to be instructed to do this. A top notch classical player will adjust this to modify tone, especially when playing strokes where the bow lifts off of the strings and when playing harmonics.
Among other things, the tilt reduces the overall surface area taken up by the hair. This alters the tone in a couple of ways. As mentioned already, more surface area means you can apply more pressure. However, it also means the overall length of the string that can participate in a natural "arc" (wave form producing the pitch/tone) that you see on a freely vibrating string is reduced. The higher up on the neck you stop notes, the worse this becomes. It is also much more noticeable for harmonics, which are already traveling in significantly shorter length because you have introduced "nodes" in the natural arc. I tend to visualize it as the bow hair "interfering" with the vibration of the string. Remember that with the short scale of a violin, these factors are more severe than on other instruments.
As a newbie, your lucky to get any tone that is constant, let alone experiment with altering it. So... One way to think about it is as playing with a plectrum: when you position the bow orthogonally, you are essentially playing with a square plectrum, instead of a pointed one. Taking that analogy a little further, the bow hair produces a sound by grabbing and releasing the string at a very rapid rate. So imagine the bow as a lighting fast mandolin playing tremolo with hideous speed and accuracy on each stroke. Hopefully that will make it a little easier to understand why/how tilting the bow or playing far/close to the bridge changes the tone.
# Posted on September 17th 2007 by monkey440
Re: Newbie fiddling question: Why do you tilt the bow and not have it flat?
My God, nofrets, that sounds horrendous! Actually moving the tilt as you play up the bow??!? Dreadful idea, IMO, and fortunately not one I've come across in either trad or classical playing.
As far as I'm concerned, the best players can, if they want to, play with the bow either tilted or flat, at will. The tone is different, and it helps with tone colour variation not always to play the same way.
Oh, and Kennedy, "that crunching sound that happens close to the frog" shouldn't happen in any case. You should be able to play with the bow hair absolutely flat on the string and get a warm, full tone for the whole length of the bow. This is more to do with using arm weight instead of pressure than it is to do with tilt.
Playing with the edge of the bow hairs should produce a harder sound, with more 'carrying notes' in the tone so, although you may not be playing louder, the sound will carry better over other instruments and over a further distance.
# Posted on September 17th 2007 by benhall.1
Re: Newbie fiddling question: Why do you tilt the bow and not have it flat?
I always figured it was to help prevent the bow from bouncing/skittering unintentionally, and to help with getting a smoother sound.
And for the record, I concur with benhall that rotating the bow as you play sounds like a really bad idea. The times I've seen students do this, it's gone along with a generous helping of bow-skitter.
# Posted on September 17th 2007 by Georgi
Re: Newbie fiddling question: Why do you tilt the bow and not have it flat?
I’ve done just a teeny bit of experimenting with this (and now, because of my obsessive nature, I’ll probably waste more time on it – thanks a lot!). I *think* I learned that the effect (the difference between edge playing and flat playing) is pretty small, at least for me, and it’s smaller for steel strings than others. I could only tell any difference when I bowed close to the fingerboard.
Bowing near a vibrational node (stationary point between vibrating sections) tends to amplify the naturally destructive effects of bowing (as in monkey440’s square plectrum example). The string has very little energy in that area, so it’s easy to interfere there and actually jiggle the position of the node so that the pitch is unstable. Just from a theoretical viewpoint, I would expect that fewer hairs would mean less interference.
I think I always play with the hair flat on the strings.
# Posted on September 17th 2007 by Bob himself
Re: Newbie fiddling question: Why do you tilt the bow and not have it flat?
The reason:
many violinists tilt their bows at the frog to help compensate for the fact that when near the frog the bow produces more sound. Less hair = less sound, and more ease in keeping a consistent stroke. Depending on R hand position, it *may* make negotiating a bow change easier too, but not for everybody. Does it apply to playing Irish music? When I play traditional Irish music, I tend to use very little bow in the upper half of the bow (unless I really need to be loud for some reason), so not really to my playing, no.
Benhall, lots of classical violinists do change the amount of bow tilt depending if they're on closer to the frog or tip, and naturally alter that while playing - some that do much finer jobs at classical music than I do, too. It's an option in the technique that can result in just as fine a tone as any other approach.
http://www.cdbaby.com/hullksiazek
# Posted on September 17th 2007 by reenactor
Re: Newbie fiddling question: Why do you tilt the bow and not have it flat?
Benhall, as a kid I was systematically trained to alter the angle of the bow from frog to tip to get more control over tone and dynamics. If you want to debate the merits of that technique, I'll let you do so with Sister Xavier Mary, who adamantly insisted on the use of it by all of her violinists. It wasn't our idea!
When I quit playing classical music, I abandoned the technique. It's great for all of those over-emotive, high-dynamic-range, gee-ma-look-at-me concerti that classical violinists have to play so often. I found it not particularly useful for fiddle, except perhaps in the occasional slow air. Fluid, crisp bow movements are a lot more important to get the proper tone for jigs and reels.
# Posted on September 17th 2007 by sara g
Re: Newbie fiddling question: Why do you tilt the bow and not have it flat?
I always thought the tilt is a natural result when playing with a flexible wrist. This is related to tilting inward when you play close to the tip, and outward when playing closer to the frog - think of long bow strokes and the way the hand/wrist position changes - but I think another factor is the bow direction and the string being played. Another natural tilt occurs when crossing strings with just moving the wrist. E.g. when you play the typical pattern of DAFA DAFA on the fiddle, your wrist is supposed to perform a circular movement. This results in an inward tilt bow on the D string, an outward tilt on the A string.
In fact, tilting the bow (ie. moving only the wrist) when crossing strings allows to play with very little bow movements which is very helpful when playing fast, light and controlled.
# Posted on September 17th 2007 by heike
Re: Newbie fiddling question: Why do you tilt the bow and not have it flat?
it has nothing to do with the bow hair..think about the wrist and thumb and how they work togetherplace your wrist flat on the table and wiggle your thumb around, then pick up your wrist and set it on teh table naturally your thumb should have a nice slight curve in it towards your fingertips...wiggle your wrist around in this manner on the table..then straighten out your thumb and wiggle around the wrist...notice how constricted it feels?( the wrist) ..as the wrist is at the frog you get better action and a smoother tone..as you move up the bow (upbow) the wrist and with it the bow hair flatten out...as you move towards the tip of the bow the bow will (should) be tilting slightly towards you..throughout the motion of moving the bow, try to keep a somewhat flat wrist...not real high in the air at the frog, or dipped way down towards the floor at the tip...in this manner you will get teh most tone and power and subtleness depending on bow speed from the stroke..
of course disregard all of the above if playing ITM and just do whatever works for you..I hope not to get in to much trouble but tone in ITM is not the forefront of the concern...phrasing and what sounds right is what is of concern...
but you can do both too....
# Posted on September 17th 2007 by Sunnybear
Re: Newbie fiddling question: Why do you tilt the bow and not have it flat?
Gosh. Well, my bow moves really quite smoothly from frog to tip without the bow hair changing its tilt one iota. Unless, of course, I *want* it to.
If you play a long note using all of the bow, from frog to tip, you should be able to produce the same quality throughout the note. In my view, you can only do this if the speed, as well as the angle, of the bow is also the same throughout.
And this applies whether you are a flat-hair or a tilty-hair ... or, indeed, both of them as well as all gradations in between, as a really good player should be. Or, strictly, I suppose, should be able to be (since they may *choose* only to use one style, but still ought to be able to change the tilt if they really wanted to).
# Posted on September 17th 2007 by benhall.1
Re: Newbie fiddling question: Why do you tilt the bow and not have it flat?
Vassar Clements--US bluegrass fiddler and he-of-the-fat-and holy-tone--played with his bow tilted totally the "wrong" way: away from him, so the stick was closer to him, and the hairs facing toward the scroll.
Just thought I'd toss that into the mix.
# Posted on September 17th 2007 by Will CPT
Re: Newbie fiddling question: Why do you tilt the bow and not have it flat?
... and I bet he kept that same tilt throughout the length of each bow stroke. ... however long they may have been ...
# Posted on September 18th 2007 by benhall.1
Re: Newbie fiddling question: Why do you tilt the bow and not have it flat?
Yes, I think in his case (during the early years), it had something to do with trying to compensate from the alcohol-induced slant of the room....
# Posted on September 18th 2007 by Will CPT
Re: Newbie fiddling question: Why do you tilt the bow and not have it flat?
Ah! So, otherwise, he'd have played with the hair flat on the strings?
# Posted on September 18th 2007 by benhall.1
Re: Newbie fiddling question: Why do you tilt the bow and not have it flat?
Not so fast. Could be, from his point of view, that room was r-e-a-l-l-y slanted. Maybe he was compensating all the way from tilted toward himself.
Hmmmm...anyone catch a look at which way Ashley MacIssac's bow tilts?
# Posted on September 18th 2007 by Will CPT
Re: Newbie fiddling question: Why do you tilt the bow and not have it flat?
I like to think that, because I choose to play the smallest of the violin family, I'm also compensating.
# Posted on September 18th 2007 by benhall.1
Re: Newbie fiddling question: Why do you tilt the bow and not have it flat?
... though, actually, my whistle doesn't seem to be any different from anyone else's - it's just what I do with it ...
# Posted on September 18th 2007 by benhall.1
Re: Newbie fiddling question: Why do you tilt the bow and not have it flat?
"Crikey, you call that a fiddle?! 'at's not a fiddle! Dis is a fiddle!" (pulling a bass viol out of it's case)
# Posted on September 18th 2007 by Will CPT
Re: Newbie fiddling question: Why do you tilt the bow and not have it flat?
what i was trying to illustrate was not to think of the bow hair, but think of how the wrist moves with the bow of which the hair is the integral contact point thereof...my bow <can> travel a perfect plane with the string and the bridge too, but is that the most desireable to get the tone you desire?
your answer is yes if it really doesn't matter
think legato
# Posted on September 18th 2007 by Sunnybear
Re: Newbie fiddling question: Why do you tilt the bow and not have it flat?
but ITM is not played legato which is my own self induced disclaimer
# Posted on September 18th 2007 by Sunnybear
Re: Newbie fiddling question: Why do you tilt the bow and not have it flat?
There is a "sweet spot" on the string that gives the best tone. For the open string on the fiddle (or if you're playing in the first position) it is more or less on a line joining the tops of the f-holes nearest the fingerboard. More accurately, the "sweet spot" is in the region of the 7th-9th harmonics, about 3 octaves up the string from the note being played, but you don't need to get paranoid about being mathematically accurate in this!
On the fiddle, the "sweet spot" will move towards the bridge as your left hand moves up the fingerboard. This doesn't matter in ITM because virtually all the playing is in the first position, but if you do need to move up the firngerboard, as classical and jazz players need to, then you'll find the "sweet spot" moves proportionally towards the bridge, so you move the bow closer to the bridge to maintain the tone.
The region of the string between the fingerboard and bridge is stuffed with scores of harmonic nodes (in the audible range), all very close together. If you use the bow hairs flat on the string then you will smother some of these nodes and remove some of the high harmonic content from the tone, thus altering and weakening it. If you tilt the bow then you'll minimize the number of nodes the bow will smother and you'll maintain a better tone. (Perhaps I'm making a case for the use of the baroque bow in ITM - the baroque bow has far fewer hairs and is much lighter.)
The "sweet spot" is important on other stringed instruments. Pianos, for example, are designed so that the hammer strikes the sweet spot, which, as on the fiddle, is in the region of the 7th-9th harmonics.
# Posted on September 18th 2007 by lazyhound
Re: Newbie fiddling question: Why do you tilt the bow and not have it flat?
"but ITM is not played legato"
I'm not sure that general statement is correct, if "legato" means what I think it means. If two or more notes are played successively on one bow moving at a steady speed then there is no observable breaks between those notes, and they are being played smoothly - then that's "legato".
A player with good bow control can also play successive notes with different bow strokes and make the audible transition between the strokes so small that the notes sound as if they are being played legato on one bow - a technically difficult achievement you don't often come across.
If there is an audible break between two notes then they are not being played legato. In ITM this is usually done by using separate bow strokes for the notes. This is a characteristic of a lot of Donegal playing, but in the more southern Irish styles you get whole groups of notes being played legato on one bow.
# Posted on September 18th 2007 by lazyhound
Re: Newbie fiddling question: Why do you tilt the bow and not have it flat?
I think of legato as slow and smooth with very little interruption of flow between note changes. I am probably wrong, though, but that's what I meant, slightly tongue in cheek.
# Posted on September 18th 2007 by Sunnybear
Re: Newbie fiddling question: Why do you tilt the bow and not have it flat?
Legato bowing - smooth and calm as possible: goal is to not let any transition be noticeable - up/down bow, string crossings, whatever. Sure you do this in ITM - slow waltzes and airs. You just don't worry about it as much as you would in other forms.
Vassar Clements - I always thought he had horrible tone. Not that I don't completely admire his playing and musical sense, but that freaky axe he plays on sounds like it is plugged into to an amp no matter how they mike it. I'm probably going to jumped on by everyone for saying that...
Sweet spot - yeah, but I've found if you really want to kill the overtones, the most effective technique is to position the bow as far over the fingerboard as you can. Of course you sacrifice volume doing this, but that is probably also what you are after if you are doing this in the first place. When I was first taught this I thought it was impossible to do in upper positions because I kept hitting the adjacent strings, but my teacher was able to pull it off with my fiddle and bow without blinking. Over the years I've gotten better at doing it. There is certainly something to be said for those that are able to magically draw the sound/tone out of the instrument without going to any one particular extreme.
# Posted on September 18th 2007 by monkey440