"B" is for Bowings

I’ve been thinking that these blog entries could be more concise. In MS Word, they’re Bruce Banner; online, they’re the Incredible Hulk. As we know, online attention spans are shorter than those for print media. I can read a ten-page New Yorker article in one sitting, but online, anything beyond one screen seems like too much. So I’m determined to tighten up this blog. The other day, talking with friend and colleague Jim Cushing, I expressed confidence that this entry would be short, maybe even too short: “I just can’t think of what to say about bowings.” After some hysterical laughter, Jim replied, “Dear David, you have too much to say about bowings.”

He was right. Strap in, kids. This will be a long ride.

Bowings.
Have you ever wondered how string players know to move their bows in the same direction? Read on to find the answer to this and other burning questions about bowings. (String players may want to scroll down, as what follows might be like detailed instructions on how to tie your shoes.)

In this clip of the Berlin Philharmonic playing the last movement of Dvorak’s New World Symphony (on the program for the November 8 Classics in the Cohan concert) notice how they don’t just move their bows in the same direction; they also play in the same part of the bow, with the same bow stoke, the same bow speed – it’s as if they were part of the Borg Bowing Collective.



Here’s a breakdown of how this uniformity is achieved. There are (thankfully) only two ways to move the bow, down or up.

Downbow: You pull the bow down toward your lap.

Upbow: The upbow goes up toward the ceiling.

String players mark these “bowings” in their music: a downbow is indicated with a mark like an upside-down U, an upbow with a V. Simple. There’s a little more to it. Generally, pickup notes and upbeats are played upbow. There’s more anticipatory energy with an upbow. Loud chords (like at the very end of a piece) are downbow. The bottom part of the bow (the frog) is heavier than the top part (the tip), so playing at the frog gets a louder sound. You also have to decide how many notes to play in one bow, what part of the bow to play in, what kind of bow stroke to use, and above all else, bowings have to feel natural and achieve specific musical effects. All these bowings have to be decided, marked in the parts, and practiced so that at the concert we’re all bowing together.

This is getting too technical already. Let’s back up further. There are two ways to make a sound on a string instrument – plucking the strings, or using the bow. Beginners start with plucking until they can read music and make a few notes with the left hand. Only then is the bow introduced. Each instrument has its way of holding the bow. For the violin and viola, the hand is perched on the bow; for the cello, it’s more draped; there are two kinds of bass bows; one kind is held overhand, the other underhand.

The bow hair is actually that – horsehair – and the little barbs in the hair catch the strings and pull out sound. We have to get our bows “rehaired” (isn’t that a great word?) -- because those barbs wear off with use. When your bow needs rehairing (did I just make up a word?) it slides around and won’t pull out a good sound. You can compensate by applying more rosin (a hardened sap-like substance that helps the bow grip the string) but that’s not a real solution. Here in SLO County, worn-out bow hair means a trip for you and your bow to Santa Barbara, Los Angeles, or San Francisco (or you can live dangerously and send your bow UPS) because there are no locals who rehair bows.

Learning to use the bow is vital because that’s how you get sound out of the instrument. You can have the best left hand technique in the world, but without good bow technique, the sound won’t be good. There are lots of different ways to bow, and each requires years to master. Legato, Detache, Martele, Marcato, Jete, Sautille, Spicatto… and others whose names I don’t recall. I was never good at memorizing musical terms. In music history, I failed the test on the Requiem Mass. I still can’t keep the movements of the Requiem straight. Pie Jesu Domine Sanctus Lux Aeterna Salon…umm… Agnus Moorhead Doris Dei Sic Transit Gloria I think they got your number, I think they got the alias that you been living under… in Excelsis Deo? (I know, I’m going to hell.)

Click below to learn more about bow techniques.

http://www.siegelproductions.ca/calvinsieb/bow.htm

I learned a new bow technique when I joined the SLO Symphony – “brushy.” “Brushy” is hard to explain, but it makes sense when Michael Nowak or Kathleen Lenski demonstrate it. We’re very lucky in the SLO Symphony to have a conductor who knows bowings. Conductors always have ideas about how they want the music to sound, but if they don’t understand the technical issues of the instruments, those ideas can get lost in translation. This is especially true for the string section, the heart of the orchestra. In the past, I’ve played under conductors who might say, “this needs to sound like a foggy, gloomy sunrise after a long night of storms, leaving everyone in the sleepy hamlet uncertain about the new day.” OK. Poetic descriptions can be helpful, but it’s even more helpful when a conductor like Michael can tell us -- and show us -- how to make that sound happen: “play at the tip of the bow, over the fingerboard, with two bow hairs, and no vibrato.”

Like John McCain and Sarah Palin on energy independence, I’ve observed that Mike has an “all-of-the above” approach to bowings. The first time I played for him I murdered a Bach minuet, but he gave me a second chance, and I played some of the Handel Concerto with a “grande detache” bow stroke. He asked me to play it again with the “brushy” stroke and demonstrated it. I mimicked him, and that’s how I got in the SLO Symphony. Blame it on “brushy.”

A few years later, when I was “guest principal” and playing Hindemith’s “The Four Temperaments,” Mike had very specific suggestions about bowings for my solos. But what really made the style of the piece click-in for me was when rehearsing the solo movement – reminiscent of bohemian café culture – he mimed having a drink and a smoke in a café (I spent most of my 20s drinking and smoking in cafes – or Seattle beer bars, rather). After that demonstration, I knew exactly how to play. There’s technique and there’s poetry, and I guess the challenge is to figure out how to marry the two.

Conductors who don’t know string technique can be either frustrated or amused by bowings. A few years ago during a recording session for PCPA, violinists Carol Kersten, Tanya Streder and I would sometimes need to have little “bowing summits” before the session could continue. The conductor took it in stride, saying he was always amused when “strings players go into their own little world” – bowing world.

On the other hand, some conductors are sticklers about bowings. Our conductor at the University of Oklahoma, a fine violinist and Diet-Coke fueled dynamo named Akira Endo, would bow every part himself. In rehearsals, he’d tell us exactly how to play his bowings. I remember his yelling at me during one rehearsal, “David, get to the frog! You’re the only one not at the frog!”

My teacher, Wayne Crouse, had great respect for Maestro Endo because Mr. Crouse had played for years under another string-player-turned conductor: Sir John Barbirolli. Sir John was a cellist, and obsessively detail-oriented about bowings. He imported the carefully marked parts from his Halle Orchestra (of Manchester, England) to the Houston Symphony. When a bowing change was made, it was a moment of high seriousness. There was a meeting of all the principal players. Prayers were said, incense burned, animals sacrificed, and then the Maestro insisted that the change be marked in every single part. From Sir John, Mr. Crouse also learned the importance of playing pianissimo passages at the tip – the very tip – of the bow. Sir John said, “only those with advanced cases of arthritis will be excused from this practice.”

Mr. Crouse had had a quite different experience earlier in his career, performing under Leopold Stokowski. After WWII, flush with oil money and hope, the Houston Symphony wanted to raise its profile, so they hired a slew of East-coast-conservatory-trained musicians, but still needed a big name to draw crowds. Who better than Mickey Mouse’s costar in Fantasia: Stokie, as they came to call him. He ruled the orchestra with an iron fist, and he insisted that they adopt “free bowing” -- he didn’t want the strings to bow together. He thought “free bowing” produced a sound that was more open, unstructured -- “free,” I guess. This technique posed a problem for the Houston Symphony strings, who’d been trained, as everyone is, to bow together. Stokowski would lose patience and cry out at rehearsals, “don’t bow together! You Americans, with your canned soup and your Social Security!” (These stories come from personal communication and from an article Wayne Crouse wrote called “When the Maestros Came to Houston.”)

The SLO Symphony is a bit more relaxed about bowings. We don’t have anyone to copy in bowings beforehand, so we get them at rehearsals. I put in bowings before first rehearsals, but often one has to wait to see what other sections will do, or what Michael might have in mind. He can be as detail-oriented as anyone. Before the opening concert last season, he called me up at home.

Mike: “Oh hey, Dave, it’s Mike Nowak.”
(Me: “Crap, what have I done now?”)
Mike: “I’ve been thinking a lot about it, and trying it out, and you guys' opening line in the Brahms – (singing) duh-duh-duh-duh-duh – I think it’s better down/up than up/down.”

Whew! Then we talked about other viola issues on the concert. It’s so great to play under another violist who can talk in detail about the viola part. Somewhere in my youth or childhood, I must have done something good.

I told Ina Davenport (a pianist friend of mine and Mike’s) about this down/up, up/down conversation, and she replied with her trademark wry humor: “Oh well, I hope poor Mikey didn’t lose too much sleep over that.” As the pianist in our group, the Lumiere Quartet, Ina’s left out of “bowing summits,” and I think she gets bored. She’s figured out, though, that when we go into bowing world, that’s a good time to stretch her legs, use the restroom, hop down to the Inn at Morro Bay for a martini, or at least call someone on her cell phone. “Hi honey, what are you doing? Oh me, nothing, those guys are just talking about the bowings again.”

I’ve learned a few things about bowings since becoming principal violist. It’s not always possible to bow with every other section all the time. Just last week, there was a minor mutiny over an awkward bowing I’d put in to keep us with the violins. I should have taken to heart Mark Hatchard’s exhortation: “they can be be the violin section, and we’ll be the viola section.” To quote Mary James’s wardrobe: Viola Power!

Also, it’s important to get the bowings set as soon as possible so the section will be able to practice them and feel comfortable. This is not something that comes naturally to me, for two reasons. First, I was trained to mark up rented parts as little as possible. Second, I’m more of an intuitive than an intellectual musician. Too many markings in the part actually mess me up, so I prefer not to write in a ton of bowings, and I’m pretty flexible about them. When I first started as principal, this flexibility posed a problem in that I would sometimes change the bowings right before a concert. These eleventh-hour changes ceased when I learned that the other violists had constructed a David Hennessee voodoo doll, complete with miniature Steve Madden shoes, tiny sideburns, and a melancholy countenance. 

One way to think about bowings is vis-à-vis the Myers-Briggs Jung Typology. You can take the test here: www.humanmetrics.com (I’ve learned from my students that no blog is complete without a personality test.)

Sometimes a bowing just feels right for the music and you do it. I think this is iNtuition being expressed. Other times you really need to think bowings through and mark everything. This sounds like Judging. I feel a lot of tension between these two approaches since I’m an INFJ. It’s kind of challenging to take in information about the world through non-linear, non-rational imagination and still want that world to be ordered and decided. I guess it’s the same with bowings – remain open to inspiration, or attend to every little detail?

I guess the best solution to questions about bowings – as for so many of life’s other burning questions – is an “all-of-the-above” approach. (This is not an endorsement of McCain/Palin.) If it feels right, do it. If it doesn’t, figure something else out. If a metaphor or an image helps get it done, go with that. If nothing comes to mind, fall back on details and technique, and hope for inspiration.

At last, the ride through bowing world is over, and I didn’t even cover ponticello, sul tasto, col legno, Baroque bows vs. modern ones, carbon fiber vs. pernambuco, or why really good bows can cost more than some instruments, or why Lisa Davidson’s bow broke from the heat at last year’s Pops-by-the-Sea-in-Hell Concert.

Here are some parting gifts. Unfortunately, the soloist for the November 8 concert, Alyssa Park, isn’t on YouTube yet, but here’s Anne Akiko Meyers (who’s returning for the May 2, 2009 Season Finale) playing the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto (on the program for November 8.)



Click here for an encore.

(sorry, youtube "embedding" was not available. You'll have to click-thru.)

And here she is back when Reagan was in office:



Finally, here’s an on-topic viola joke: how can you tell when a violist is playing out of tune?

Their bow is moving.

DH

P.S. up next, C is for Conductors, or, It’s Payback Time!