In music for

bowed string instrument Bowed string instruments are a subcategory of string instruments that are played by a bow rubbing the strings. The bow rubbing the string causes vibration which the instrument emits as sound. Despite the numerous specialist studies devoted to t ...

s, , or more precisely (, ), is an instruction to strike the string with the stick of the bow across the strings.

History

The earliest known use of in Western music is to be found in a piece entitled "Harke, harke," from the ''First Part of Ayres'' (1605) by

Tobias Hume Tobias Hume (possibly 1579 – 16 April 1645) was a Scottish composer, viol player and soldier. Little is known of his life. Some have suggested that he was born in 1579 because he was admitted to the London Charterhouse in 1629, a prerequisit ...

, where he instructs the

gambist The viol (), viola da gamba (), or informally gamba, is any one of a family of bow (music), bowed, fretted, and stringed instruments, stringed instruments with hollow wooden bodies and Tuning mechanisms for stringed instruments, pegboxes where ...

to "drum this with the backe of your bow".

Sound

The percussive sound of battuto has a clear pitch element determined by the distance of the bow from the bridge at the point of contact. As a group of players will never strike the string in exactly the same place, the sound of a section of violins playing is dramatically different from the sound of a single violin doing so. The wood of the bow can also be drawn across the string — a technique called ("with the wood drawn"). This is much less common, and the plain marking is invariably interpreted to mean ''battuto'' rather than ''tratto''. The sound produced by is very quiet, with an overlay of white noise, but the pitch of the

stopped note On string instruments, a stopped note is a note whose pitch has been altered from the pitch of the open string by the player's left hand pressing (stopping) the string against the fingerboard. Bowed strings On bowed string instruments, a stop ...

can be clearly heard. If the sound is too quiet, the bow can be slightly rolled so that a few bow hairs touch the string as well, leading to a slightly less "airy" sound.

Equipment

Some string players object to playing as it can damage the bow; many players have a cheaper bow which they use for such passages, or for pieces which require extended passages. Some players tap the strings with pencils instead of bows, producing a further percussive, lighter sound.

References

{{Commons category Extended techniques String performance techniques Italian words and phrases da:Col legno