Quote:
Originally Posted by stan haskins
Good reply, thanks Nick.
What's a shoeshine stroke?
When you said "pickups generally start with up bows" I agree with you. What about long slurred phrases that start halfway through a bar? (I'm thinking specifically of the quarter note theme that happens over and over again in Brahms' Tragic Overture - the phrases start on beat 4 and slur through an entire measure, ending after beat one in the next measure. To me, that screams "upbow")
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Hey Stan,
A shoeshine stroke is when the 16th notes, of a dotted 8th, 16th note figure, are played down bow and the 8ths are played up bow. It puts the emphasis on the 16th note instead of the dotted 8th.
I haven't played Brahms' Tragic Overture but anytime you have slurs like that it is all about context and what is going on in the rest of the orchestra. A lot of bowings can be derived by watching some of the other players, also by knowing your score. If the winds have the melody and the melody is mp, then I would probably argue that if possible don't break slurs if you don't have the melody.
A good slur example is in Mozart's Overture to Le Nozze di Figaro. On the ascending quarter note figure, the first 5 quarter notes are usually played up bow and the last 2 played down bow to show the movement of the line and phrase. Also check out the scores of the pieces. Composers, such as Mahler, tend to put in their own slurs. Although many will argue that those are phrase markings and not necessarily bowings, I think many people will be very surprised the amazing sound achieved when following his bowings. Right now Paavo Jarvi out here in Cincinnati is making a bunch of great sounds with that philosophy.
As you can see this topic can go on forever it is almost all a matter of taste and ****ysis. My main thing of advice is know what the rest of the orchestra is doing. It is very hard to understand your part correctly if you don't understand everybody else's part as well.