First Violin Spiccato: Coordinate Alternating Rebound Strokes on Open D

Pick up the bow so it hovers just above an open D string, let it drop once and catch the natural spring as the hair lifts off the string. That small, elastic lift is spiccato. The challenge is not making it happen once — it is making it happen four times in a row, alternating down and up, exactly on the beat, without losing the pulse or rushing into the next bar. This guide walks you through every piece of that puzzle, step by step.

Before you start, your teacher will have confirmed that you can play comfortable separate strokes in the lower half of the bow, hold the bow without gripping and find the open D without looking at the fingerboard. If any of those are uncertain, work on them first. Spiccato sits at an early-intermediate level and rests on those foundations.

Two contact states: what the bow does between notes

Every bow stroke falls into one of two contact states: the bow stays on the string, or it leaves it.

A sustained D4 showing on-string contact (détaché): the bow stays in contact with the string for the full duration of the note. The hair never lifts off.

In a détaché or martelé stroke the bow stays on the string for the entire note and moves to the next position with the hair still touching. In spiccato the bow leaves the string after each note sounds. The hair touches, the note speaks, the hair lifts — then the hair comes down again for the next note. Those two states — contact, then air — repeat for every stroke.

The same open D, now four quarter notes with staccato dots and the word spiccato: after each note sounds, the bow leaves the string before coming back for the next one.

Left: on-string contact — the bow stays on the string throughout the note. Right: spiccato rebound — the bow lifts off between notes. The dots on the right show the arc of the bow rising above the string between each stroke.

The printed score helps identify spiccato with two clues: the word spiccato (or the Italian spiccare, to detach clearly) written above the staff, and sometimes staccato dots over the notes. A dot alone does not always mean spiccato — the score or your teacher will tell you which technique is meant. Touch, Rebound, Next Note (Handout 473) shows the two states with a schematic diagram, labels the expected contact cycle and includes the full two-bar exercise you will use in this lesson.

Your teacher sets up the rebound

The bounce point — the place along the bow stick where the hair naturally springs up from the string — sits roughly in the lower half or middle of the bow for slow, controlled spiccato. Hold the bow in the air and drop it gently onto the string: if it lifts back up without any deliberate motion from your hand, you are near the balance point. If it just sits there, move a little closer to the frog and try again.

Your teacher chooses the exact bow region, pressure and speed for your instrument, your bow and your hand. None of those details can be fixed here; they depend on what your teacher hears and sees. What you can do before the lesson is find that single-bounce response, feel it once and let it settle into your memory.

Four things to check before your first attempt at multiple spiccato strokes. Work through them in order; do not skip step 4.

The bow's natural elasticity does most of the work. Galamian describes spiccato as a stroke where "the bow is allowed to leave the string" rather than one where the bow is thrown. The key word is allowed: a relaxed hand, a light contact with the string and the bow's own spring let the rebound happen without effort from your arm or wrist. Grip kills the bounce; ease enables it.

The physics behind the rebound is straightforward: the bow stick is slightly springy, and the violin string has its own elasticity. When the moving bow hair meets the string, both compress slightly; when the hair slows and reverses direction, both spring back together. At the right bow speed and contact point, that combined spring is enough to lift the hair clear of the string before the next stroke begins. You are not lifting the bow deliberately — you are releasing the grip enough that the spring can do its work. If the bow does not leave the string, the grip is too tight or the contact point is too far from the right balance zone; your teacher adjusts those first, not the speed or direction.

Open D4: one reliable pitch

The practice pitch for this lesson is D4 — the open D string, the third string from the top of the violin (G–D–A–E from low to high). You do not press any left-hand finger. Fischer recommends the open D string as a starting point specifically because it responds more freely than the A string, and because leaving the left hand out of the equation lets you focus entirely on bow control. Every bow exercise in this lesson uses that one note.

Four quarter notes on open D4 — the practice pitch for this lesson. D is the third string from the top of the violin (G–D–A–E from low to high).

D4 sits just below the staff: in the space below the bottom line (E4). Its frequency is approximately 293.7 Hz, calculated from the standard A4 = 440 Hz reference. On a well-tuned violin, it rings immediately and clearly when the bow makes clean contact — which makes it easy to hear exactly when the rebound works and when it does not. A note that speaks cleanly is evidence of good contact; a scratchy or muffled note tells you the bow's angle, speed or pressure needs adjusting.

Quarter Notes (the notation worksheet for quarter notes) and Rests cover the symbols you will see on the page. Read them before the lesson if either is unfamiliar.

Alternate the bow direction: D–U–D–U

Each spiccato stroke has a direction: down-bow or up-bow. The down-bow mark (⊓) looks like a small rectangle and means the bow travels from frog to tip. The up-bow mark (∨, a V-shape) means the bow travels from tip to frog. In standard articulation, every down-bow is answered by an up-bow.

The down-bow mark (⊓): the bow travels from frog to tip. The frog is the heavy end near your hand; the tip is the far end.

The up-bow mark (∨): the bow travels from tip to frog. Alternate down and up for every pair of notes.

In the exercise, the four strokes alternate: down, up, down, up — or D, U, D, U. The mark above each note tells you which direction the bow travels for that stroke.

Alternating bow direction: down-bow (⊓) for the first note, up-bow (∨) for the second, and so on. The mark above each note shows the direction your bow travels.

After a rest, the bow does not "retake" a new direction — it picks up where the attack index left off.

Which Stroke Leaves the String? (Exercise 177) trains this distinction directly. Section 2 of that exercise asks you to fill in D or U for each note in the bar, including a bar that has a rest in it. The written policy: rests do not consume a stroke. The next attack after a rest alternates from the last sounded stroke, by attack index — not by beat position.

Attack index vs. beat position. Beat 2 in bar 1 is a rest: the attack index stays at 0 until the next note sounds at beat 3. That note gets index 1, which means up-bow. The alternation continues from there.

Read the diagram this way: the given stroke at beat 1 is down-bow (index 0). Beat 2 is a rest — the index does not advance. Beat 3 is the next note: it gets index 1, so the direction is up-bow. Beat 4 is index 2, so down-bow. And so on through bar 2. The resulting blank answers in Exercise 177 are: U, D, U, D.

Four short notes and the pulse

Once you can make one clean rebound, the next challenge is making four of them in a row, all landing on the beat. The tempo for this exercise is ♩ = 60 — one beat per second. Tempo and Metronome covers how to read the metronome marking and set your device.

Each note lines up with one beat of the bar. Practice with a metronome at ♩ = 60: the bow should leave the string exactly as each beat sounds.

The contact moment — when the bow hair touches the string and the note speaks — must align with the click. If the note sounds a fraction before the click, you are anticipating; if it sounds after, you are dragging. Neither is catastrophic at first, but training your ear to hear the alignment is the real work of this exercise.

One useful exercise before adding the bow technique: tap your foot or count aloud with the metronome for a full bar before you play. Let the pulse enter your body before your bow arm moves. Then play the first stroke alone at beat 1. Does the contact moment land on the tap? If yes, rest and repeat. If no, slow the metronome by a few clicks until it does. Building pulse accuracy at a slow tempo transfers directly to the spiccato exercise — the mechanics of the bow and the position of the note on the beat are separate problems, and it helps to solve them in separate practice sessions before combining them.

The full two-bar pattern combines the four strokes with a rest bar: Touch, Rebound, Next Note presents it with the complete printed exercise, audio reference at ♩ = 60 and a scan-and-listen QR code.

The full two-bar pattern from Handout 473. Bar 1: four short D4 strokes, alternating down- and up-bow, labeled spiccato. Bar 2: a whole rest — stop the bow; do not retake.

Build to this pattern gradually:

Work up to the full bar in three steps. Each step should feel stable before you add the next one.

Start with one down-bow spiccato and stop (step 1). When that is reliable, add the up-bow so you have D–U and two beats of rest (step 2). When D–U stays consistent, add the remaining two strokes to complete the full bar (step 3). Only move to the next step when the current one feels easy enough that you can hear the results instead of concentrating on the mechanics.

The rest bar: stop and wait

After the four strokes, bar 2 is a whole rest — four beats of silence.

The rest bar at bar 2. Stop the bow where it lands after stroke 4. Wait out all four beats. The next repetition starts with a fresh down-bow — but only when you are ready.

Stop the bow where it naturally lands after the fourth stroke. Do not slide it back to the frog, and do not lift it dramatically into the air. Let it rest while you count four slow beats. Then, and only then, begin again from stroke 1.

The rest is not just silence for the audience. It is a reset for you: a moment to check that the bow is where it should be, that your grip has not tightened and that you are ready to listen to stroke 1 again. Rushing the rest — starting stroke 1 before beat 1 of the repetition — makes the pulse fall apart. Counting aloud ("one, two, three, four") through the rest bar helps keep it honest.

`Bow retake` is the technique of returning the bow to the frog silently for a repeated passage. This exercise deliberately avoids it: the point is to stay in the stroke pattern without repositioning. If you feel the bow wander after stroke 4, discuss it with your teacher rather than adding a retake on your own.

The rest bar also gives you time to notice how your hand feels. After four spiccato strokes, does your grip feel the same as it did before stroke 1, or has something tightened? A tightening grip is the first sign that the stroke has moved from natural rebound to deliberate throw, which is a harder habit to unlearn. Catching grip tension in the rest bar, before it compounds across repetitions, is one of the most useful self-assessments you can make in this early stage.

Three things your teacher checks

After each attempt, your teacher looks for three separate things — and only the teacher can confirm them, because two of the three depend on sound and physical observation rather than a printed score.

The three-item rubric your teacher uses. Contact and pulse can both be partly self-assessed, but comfort is a teacher judgment.

Contact. Did the bow leave the string after each stroke? If the bow stayed on, the strokes were détaché or martelé, not spiccato. Your teacher listens for the characteristic lighter sound of an off-string stroke and watches whether the bow lifts visibly. The comparison figure makes the distinction clear:

Martelé for comparison: the accent mark and the label remind you that the bow stays on the string at the start of each stroke. Spiccato is the opposite — the bow is already off the string before each note.

Pulse. Did each note land on its beat? Play with the metronome and let your teacher listen for whether the contact moment aligns with the click. A note that speaks a fraction early or late is a pulse error, not a contact error. Exercise 177 (Which Stroke Leaves the String?) includes a timing reference: eight quarter-note clicks at ♩ = 60. Play the exercise while the reference sounds and listen for alignment.

The observation pattern your teacher uses: the same two bars, without direction marks, so your teacher watches and listens rather than reads.

Comfort. Does the stroke feel sustainable, or does your hand grip tighter with each repetition? Spiccato should become more relaxed as the session continues, not less. If your grip tightens, the bow arm tires or the sound changes across the four strokes, your teacher will adjust the bow region, the contact point or the grip before you continue. Comfort is not the same as ease: the first few attempts will feel unfamiliar regardless of how correctly the bow behaves. What your teacher is listening for is whether the unfamiliarity is decreasing across successive attempts or whether the arm is working progressively harder. The former is normal learning; the latter means something in the setup needs adjusting before you continue.

These three items are kept separate because they can pass or fail independently. A stroke can leave the string (contact ✓) but miss the beat (pulse ✗). A stroke can land on the beat (pulse ✓) but feel stiff (comfort ✗). A stroke can feel easy (comfort ✓) but never leave the string (contact ✗). Naming which item passed and which failed after each attempt lets your teacher target the adjustment precisely, instead of starting over from scratch.

Free worksheets for this lesson

• Touch, Rebound, Next Note — the full two-bar spiccato exercise with contact diagram, bow marks and audio reference at ♩ = 60.
• Which Stroke Leaves the String? — classify four contact diagrams and fill in the alternating bow directions; two teacher-observed attempts with contact, pulse and comfort rubric.
• Quarter Notes — notation reference for the quarter note symbol.
• Rests — notation reference for the quarter and whole rest symbols.
• Tempo and Metronome — how to read a metronome marking and set your device.

A Tissimo violin teacher can listen to your bow contact and pulse in a live lesson and give you specific feedback on all three rubric items — something a printed sheet cannot do.

Sources

• Galamian, Ivan. Principles of Violin Playing and Teaching, 3rd ed. Prentice Hall, 1985 — classification of spiccato as an off-string stroke with natural rebound; contrasted with martelé (A1–A4).
• Fischer, Simon. Basics: 300 Exercises and Practice Routines for the Violin. Peters Edition, 1997 — open D string recommended as starting practice pitch for spiccato; definition as short springy stroke where bow leaves string (B1–B4).
• Freund, Don, and David Cutler. "Right-Hand Techniques." Timbre and Orchestration Resource. 2016 — spiccato classified as separate rebound technique; on-string vs. off-string contact states (C1–C3).
• Music Mark. A Common Approach: Strings. Music Mark, 2002 (updated 2019) — spiccato placed at intermediate level after secure separate strokes; prerequisite: lower-half bow control (D1–D2).
• University of New South Wales School of Physics. "Violin Acoustics." 2021 — bow loses contact with string between spiccato strokes at typical performance speeds; D4 as open D string of the violin (E1–E3).
• Flesch, Carl. The Art of Violin Playing, Book 1. Carl Fischer, 1924; trans. 2000 — alternating down-bow and up-bow as fundamental model for even articulation (F1–F2).
• Boyden, David D. (rev. Peter Walls). "Spiccato." Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online, 2001 — definition: bow bounces off string producing short, separate notes; located in middle of bow; distinguished from staccato and martelé (H1–H3).