Quality of sound and articulation: Right hand
- Play with a consistent, clear and resonant tone quality across a large range of dynamics, adjusting the sound production to reflect musical and technical requirements
- Use a flexible and balanced bow-hold with ease and more control
- Use appropriate articulation for the character of the music, incorporating a variety of different bow strokes
- Play pizzicato at a variety of tempi and play left-hand pizzicato with fingered notes
Continue to give learners pieces that do not have articulation markings and ask them to choose different kinds of articulation to suit the style of the music, e.g. classical, folk.
Ask learners to identify the character/mood of pieces and choose appropriate sound qualities, tone colours and articulations, e.g. heavy bows for ‘The Elephant’ by Saint-Saëns, light bows for a baroque minuet.
The emphasis is on intuition, imagination and curiosity.
Teach learners various bowing techniques, e.g. sautillé, arpeggiando, flautando, bariolage (Handel or Corelli sonatas).
Handel Violin Sonata in E op. 1 no. 15, 2nd movement
Demonstrate a wider range of tone colours to learners, asking them to describe the musical effect. Ask them to experiment, using appropriate exercises.
Show learners how to apply the principles of changes of bow speed and weight to affect tone and articulation for expressive effect, e.g. dynamics.
Teach learners to use the bow to produce different intensities of sound, e.g. slow and heavy bow-strokes near the bridge, fast and light bow-strokes near the fingerboard, fast and light bow-strokes for harmonics.
Da Full Rigged Ship from Shetland demands much variety of bowing techniques for expression as it depicts a boat in a big sea.
Develop learners’ ability to play pizzicato in a variety of tempi and styles, e.g. chords, snap pizzicato.
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