Using the bow for expression

Playing expressively using the full length of the bow

Tonight we worked on using different parts of the length of the fiddle bow to change the quality of our sound. It’s easy to get into a habit of playing in the centre of the bow all the time – it can feel like a comfortable place to play, and the bow might feel easier to control. But moving to the tip or the heel will give a very different quality to our playing sound. It’s another useful skill for helping us to become more expressive when we’re playing.

Using the bow to create expression in tunes
Photo ©Ros Gasson 2013

We started off by playing a G scale, using the bow in our normal playing position, which for most folk in the class tends to be right in the centre of the length of the bow. Then we tried playing the same scale using the tip of the bow, then at the heel of the bow. We noticed that playing at the tip made it harder to feel in control of where the bow was going. It also created a more delicate subtle sound. Using the heel of the bow naturally added more weight to the bow on the string, and allowed us to play louder, with more attack, and with a certain amount of ‘grunge’. We played around with all three of these options. Then we moved on to trying out the different parts of the bow while playing tunes.

We played through Bill Sullivan’s Polka, thinking about how we’d like different parts of the tune to sound. We tried out playing through the A part, using different parts of our bows to create different sound effects for each phrase.

Then we tried the same thing with Braeroy Road. Finally we tried playing the tune just thinking about the sort of sound we wanted to make in each phrase, rather than focusing on which part of our bow we were using. Our playing had much more energy when we did it this way!

After the break we played through a harmony to Her Mantle so Green. Then 2 people had a go at trying to find their own harmonies while the rest of us played the tune.

We spent some time discussing bows, and also talking about how to go about buying a new bow or fiddle.

After this, we tried playing without so much structure. We started with a riff, which we repeated for a while. There’s a range of options for what each individual could do as we played:

  • continue playing the riff
  • stop playing and listen
  • create something new to play along with the riff – harmonies, rhythms, drones…or things that clash.
  • copy what someone else is doing
  • echo what someone else is doing, or play something in response to them
  • sing or make other sounds

It’s a useful exercise to get us more used to playing around with some notes, letting our subconscious brain take charge, rather than playing a learnt structured tune. We found we could also play about with influencing the group through what we played.

At the end of the evening, we played through Road to Banff, Lay Dee at Dee, and the Shetland Molecule