String Articulation and Notation
Legato, staccato and slides are playing actions to write down, not effects left to a dynamic mark.
Related
Write a phrase as one flat sustained line and a string section gives you a wall of sound with no direction. Articulation starts with bow speed, bow pressure and where the bow changes; pitch is only one part of it.
Bow first, pitch second
Strings offer more controls than a keyboard: slurred bowing, separate bows, staccato, martelé, spiccato, harmonics, mutes, and playing near the bridge or the fingerboard. A dynamic mark alone leaves the principal guessing. Write the bowing, slurs, dots and contact point, and the section shares one set of actions. Decide whether the phrase is one breath or a series of strokes before voicing the harmony.
Legato has seams
Legato has seams too. Notes under one bow leave a small mark; a bow change or string crossing needs the right hand to prepare early. Slurs should span phrases, not stop at every barline. Keep a little bow speed at the end of a long note so the tone does not fade before the change. For a four-part unison, align the bow changes or the same line will breathe four different ways.
Staccato is several things
A dot, a wedge and a dot under a slur are not the same. Short separate bows stay on the string, martelé bites and releases, spiccato lets the bow bounce. The faster the passage, the smaller the stroke; writing spiccato at a slow tempo only makes noise. MIDI can only approximate with length and velocity: a sixteenth-length note with one velocity step up gets closer than simply shortening the note.
| Mark | Action | Tempo | MIDI approximation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Slur | Several notes, one bow | Slow to moderate | Notes end to end, smooth CC11 |
| Dot | Short separate bow on the string | Moderate to fast | Half length, velocity plus ten |
| Wedge | Martelé, bite and release | Slow to moderate | Shorter length, harder attack |
| Line with gliss. | Shift slide | Any | Pitch bend or overlapping steps |
| Sul tasto or ponticello | Darker or thinner tone | Any | Change patch or roll off highs |
Slides and contact points
A shift of the hand along the string is portamento; a finger sliding through every pitch is glissando. Notate the start, the end and the duration instead of drawing a diagonal line. Sul tasto, sul ponticello, mutes and col legno are colour instructions; count the players before using them. One player makes a colour, ten make a different instrument.
Where it breaks
More than four divisions and every part is weak and drifting in pitch. Staccato across a whole page leaves no room to breathe. A slide in every phrase becomes a mannerism. Sample libraries also lag when switching articulations, and bowing written too finely loses its attacks in a mockup.
Listen in the library
All tracks from midicn-lib — inline badge is the license tier (C1 commercial / C2 non-commercial / C3 study only).
Along the same line
Sources
- Samuel Adler, The Study of Orchestration, W. W. Norton, 弦乐弓法与分奏章节
- Norman Del Mar, Anatomy of the Orchestra, Faber, 弦乐组的弓法处理
- Elaine Gould, Behind Bars, Faber, 弦乐奏法与连音线记谱