Ask Augustin 15 - Spiccato Special!

In this installment I talk about spiccato - one of the most fun techniques to play and listen to. I start with basics -- spiccato is all about the wrist motion while staying relaxed with the shoulder. Everyone has to find their own sense of how the bow bounces and how the speed of the spiccato changes based on how cloes to the tip and frog you are with the bow. The most typical way to get louder in spiccato would be to increase the wrist motion so that the bow bounces higher. Other times you might want to transition gradually to an on-the-string bowstroke. I also talk about string crossings, which is when spiccato gets tricky. You need to know when your string crossings are “against the grain“: going from an upbow on a lower string to a downbow on a higher string is much harder during high speed spiccato than the other way around. In passages where you want your spiccato to fly effortlessly (I play an example from the last movement of the Mendelssohn concerto), it is helpful to map out your