This could go in GQ, but since it’s music-related, I’ll post it here.
How long can a violinist play a single note? I have watched violinists play what seems to be one heckuva long note. I can’t pick up the point where the violinist changes direction with the bow.
Any violinists here?
In a solo piece not terribly long. If you move the bow too slowly you get more of a scraping noise than most people would consider music. In an orchestral piece the the composer (or the conductor, if the composer neglected to) will stagger the bowing throughout the section, though it messes up the pretty look of everyone bowing together, so the break isn’t as noticible. I don’t know if there’s a technical answer or not but if you’re bowing lightly and gently a bowing change is much harder to detect than if you’re bowing in a hard, jerky manner; similar to how a light glissando on the piano seems far more fluid than several forte chords. (I think glissando is the right word…it’s been many many a year since I’ve played piano, and I was very poor at it to begin with.) For what it’s worth, I can’t really remember many long, extended notes from my orchestra days except for the very end of songs (which might have a few measures of a lingering chord.)
Craptastic violinist here:
A single note in one bow stroke from a soloist? I not sure I understand your question, but I’ll try to answer it. The “one heckuva long note” you are seeing may be an illusion caused by the sound waves emanating from the violin body (it acts like a resonating chamber). Even if the bow arm stops (like at the end of a piece), you can still hear sound waves if the left hand is using vibrato. If you are talking about an orchestra, as voguevixen said, not everyone changes direction at the same time, sustaining the sound of a single note.
Um… infinitely long? As long as the bow keeps moving, a note will sound. But if you were watching and couldn’t see when s/he changed direction, how closely were you watching? A really good violinist (not really me, though) should be able to change direction smoothly without interrupting the sound.
That was what I was asking. Even though I see the violinist change the direction of the bow (upstroke?), I can’t pick up the change in sound. I’m guessing that a seasoned professional could do this without a problem. It just seems that, if you listened closely enough, you could hear the transition.
That’s pretty much it, as best as I can remember from my high school days. The vibrato of the left hand mutes the sound of the bow switching directions, if you change directions quickly and forcefully enough. Also, you change directions right in the “middle” of the vibrato, which helps.
Mind you, these are far from technical terms. I’m just speaking from distant memory.
Back in high school, my friend was the first chair violin and he could do a fairly seamless long note. For a time, I sat right next to him and could only vaguely tell when his bow changed directions.
It kinda depends on the piece, though. When my friend had the solo for the Schindler’s List theme, the last note is held pretty long, and during performances you could tell when he ran out of bow and had to upswing. Even in the soundtrack recording, you can make out a bow directional switch. So I guess if the piece is slow and heavy enough, like that piece is, you could probably tell when the change happens.
A long note played by any bowed, stringed instrument requires a change of direction of the bow when it reaches the end of its travel. The sound of the direction change is covered up because:[ul][li]The string is still vibrating during the quick bow direction transition.[]In a violin section, each player changes direction at a different time (measured in milliseconds or less) than his neighbor.[]Due to sound reflections or artificial echo, the transistion is blurred.Direction changes are usually made on a major beat of the measure. In typical music, that is when other things are happening, too – harmony changes, percussion hits, etc., all of which help to cover it up.[/ul][/li]However, in an non-echoing environment, with a single violin and no other instruments, an expert musician can usually tell when the direction change happens.
Thanks for the info.
Well, I was never a professional violinist but I did play it for years and spent a lot of time in orchestras.
To answer the OP, a very good violinist, when attempting to sustain one note for a long time, can do two things:
(a) move the bow very slowly yet still achieve good, clear, even tone and
(b) change the direction of the bow almost imperceptibly
Under ideal conditions, a good player can therefore sustain a note for as long as they want, with only this very near-imperceptible moment when the bow changes direction.
If you want to rule out changing direction, and to ask how long a good violinist can make one stroke of the bow last and yet still achieve good tone, I’d say it’s kinda like ‘how long is a piece of string’. But a good real-world answer would be around 7 or 8 seconds.
Incidentally, next time you see a violinist at work, take a second to admire something wonderful. A violinist’s left arm position in quite incredible, and takes a very long time to master even before they play a note. If you ever get a chance, let a violin-playing friend show you how to hold the violin properly. It feels like very ‘cruel and unusual punishment’ for your left arm. And the left fingers find all those notes with no frets or marks - just years and years of practice finding the difference between, say, F sharp and G, which is a fraction of an inch, entirely by touch-memory.