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[Musicalion]

Often I am confronted with a student whose spiccato is irregular and don't know how to help them. Any ideas?
Thanks a lot!
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Eve Abraham
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[John Cadd]

Tell us a bit more about the problem.I tried an answer and it disappeared.

[caeman]

Interesting. This technique sounds like something similar I do with a drum stick across a drum head.

[techfiddle]

By "irregular" you mean rhythmically inaccurate, or the bow is bouncing too high?

I introduce spiccato by using the Suzuki "Wish I Had a Watermelon" bowing (two groups of four 16th notes). This bowing variation is used not just for the Twinkle, but for one-, two- and three-octave scales, arpeggios and thirds. There is an older, traditional name for this, the "Round Robin."

The process is to start with two octave scales, and play the two groups of four, at the balance point of the bow (lower middle - MB) without trying to make it bounce. No bouncing at first, and not more than an inch or so of bow. Eventually, the bow (if it's a decent bow) will bounce on its own, but only after dedicated practice in coordinating the tiny bow configurations and the fingers.

While there are occasional exceptions in the literature, it is important to insist that each group begin with a down bow--otherwise you get a "hiccup" affect. There is a reason for this; the down bow is heavier because of the weight of the hand and the frog end of the bow, and so the tactus needs to be downbow, as a rule. [As I mentioned, there are exceptions, and Geminiani referred to this as the "wretched rule." See: Francesco Geminiani: The Art of Playing the Violin]

The "Round Robin" consists of these scales, played:

1. 8 to a pitch;
2. 4 to a pitch;
3. 3 to a pitch (this may be saved until later if the student is having difficulties, since it consists of DOWN up down/UP down up);
4. 2 to a pitch, and eventually;
5. 1 to a pitch

This takes a while to develop, but is extremely useful technically.

Incidentally, I identify the second piece of learning scales as the whole note, "football" method, which consists of another kind of "Round Robin" but in this case:

1. A whole note on each pitch (this is the "son filé" practice);
2. A half note on each pitch;
3. A quarter note on each pitch (detaché)

[It should be noted that detaché does not mean "detached." Detaché is in French what is called a "false friend"; it looks like an English word (remember that about 80% of the words in French are also in English), but is not at all the same thing. Detaché simply means separate bows.

Another example of a "false friend" is the verb in French, demand. If you say, "Je demande" you only say I ask, not I demand...which has been known to play havoc with diplomatic translations!]

This second half of the practice is somewhat like a part of the Suzuki "Tonalization" exercises.

If you carefully lead the student through this material, you will find that the spiccato is better organized. Here is the page of free scales that I use to introduce these ideas (rather than having them buy a scale book just yet):

Free one- to three-octave Printable Violin and Viola Scales

Also see:

• Handout: Violin/Viola, Piano - 3 octave scale fingerings
- Makeup of Major and Minor Scales
- Identifying Key Signatures
- Method for Memorizing Fingerings - Violin | Piano
• Handout: Analysis of Carl Flesch Scale System
• Common String Articulations (with MP3 files)
• Internet Resources for Violin/Viola Students
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[techfiddle]

This was really a good question (thank you for asking it), and I put it in the Violin/Viola FAQ:

http://beststudentviolins.com/PedagogyTech.html#35
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Internet resources for string players,
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[John Cadd]

Very impressive answer.