What part of the bow are we playing in.
Are we in the middle?
Are we at the tip?
Are we in the lower half?
These all produce a different kinds of sound that
may be useful for certain character and certain passages.
There's also the idea of bow pressure: how heavily are you pressing?
Bow speed, if you want a really quick chord that
goes shuh, like this, the entire length of the bow.
It gives a big ring and resonance to it,
rather than just using a few inches and going ruh.
Which is a little bit constricted and cut off.
So, you may ask in certain cases for faster
bow speed in order to get a certain effect.
Some of these things are most comfortably discussed
with your section leaders, with your concert master.
And, of course, you hope that your ensemble has an experienced player
sitting in that first chair, because they can be the most invaluable.
Person in the entire orchestra for our conductor.
Somebody that can, relate to the strings,
guide the strings, communicate for the strings.
And ideally, in the ideal world, a great
concert master can pretty much read the conductor's
mind as to what kind of sound and
styling and interpretation the conductor is trying to achieve.
We come to the rehearsal, with our preconceived
notion of the ideal interpretation of our piece.
And, it's not quite sounding the way we want.
And we can turn to our concert master and say, you know,
I'm not getting enough sound in this crescendo in the slow movement.
And they may say, okay, let's split the,
split the sir, the slur and divide the bow.
Instead of doing, you know, four notes down bow, let's do two down and two up.
The very fact of dividing the bow,
and changing the direction, you're going to use more
bow, you can use more pressure, and you can get a better crescendo that way.
That's a very simple.
The thing to do in order to get more sound out of a
slow passage, use more bow changes even,
if they aren't originally printed that way.
>> And then is that the more bow you use, essentially there's an air stream.
You can create more sound.
>> Exactly.
>> More space also >> Exactly.
>> If you want more sound, you could create more space.
>> Exactly.
>> So split to separate both.
>> Yeah.
>> This was the idea.
>> Much less constricted.
Everybody feels a lot freer.
They can give more sound and the, the
crescendo can build much more rapidly that way.
So, that's one thing they can do, but
the concert master can suggest many other things.
They can suggest let's do this passage at the tip.
To get a light sound and to just use a few inches of bow at
the very lightest part of the bow for a, more of a majero character in something.
Concert master of course, can do more than just suggest bowing
usage, they can suggest fingerings that may help solve a very difficult.
Technical passage, playing in a different position, on
a different string, may solve an internation problem.
You can turn to your concert master and say, can we
get something here that will help them play better in tune.
And they'll say, okay, why don't we use the
third finger here, and do this and shift here.
And it's solved.
That's the kind of thing that a conductor
who's a non-string player just can't get into.
There, they're not going to have that much.
Technical knowledge.
I think non-string conductors can certainly
come up with bowings, can suggest
bowings, or best yet is just turn to your concert master and
say, can you help us get a different quality here, I want
more marcato, I want more attack, or I want less sound here.
And they'll say okay, let's not do two slurs here,
let's put this all in one and we'll get a
quieter passage so, you'll find that concert masters
are very skilled at understanding what the conductor is trying to achieve.
Their main role is to take the conductor's musical conception.
And translated it into a practical solution, a technical solution, that
will make the strings sound the way the conductor is envisioning.
And this holds true not only for the first violins, it
will carry over to the seconds who often play in octaves or
accompanying in that way, and the rest of the strings, if
there's a passage where all the strings are doing similar rhythmic activity.
They're going to want to coordinate their bowings
so that they all have the same, usage.
They look the same visually and they feel they've got the
same stresses of verses down and up and all of that.
Section players behind the leaders have
the responsibility of watching the leaders.
If you're in a great orchestra, you will see, that all of the players.
Are using the same part of the bow and the same amount
and the same direction and they're following what the leader is doing.
It means keeping your eyes open.
It also means being able to see the person sitting
in the first chair and if they're, if the first chair
player is playing at the tip, you shouldn't be playing down
at the frog because you're going to be producing a different sound.
That will not mesh with the rest of the section.
So, those are some important things that you can think about in terms of bowings.
I remember we had a, Conductors Guild
conference in San Francisco a few years ago.
And we had a panel discussion
among concertmasters of various orchestras to discuss.
What their role was as a concert master in relation to the conductor.
I believe we had five concert masters.
I know we had the concert master of the San
Francisco Opera, and of the Oakland Symphony, and Sacramento Philharmonic.
We had one woman up there who was
concert master of three orchestras in Northern California.
A community based group, and a professional group, and one other.
And she said, she often plays the
same repertoire with the three different orchestras.
She'll do three completely different sets of bowings
for the three orchestras because they have different needs.
And that's a very important thing to think about.
There is no one bowing that suits every orchestra.
What the New York Philharmonic can do may be
terribly sophisticated and, and awkward for a community orchestra.