Madame Neruda

This Canadian hornpipe Madame Neruda features ricochet-staccato arpeggio bowing. The bowing occurs in measures 2 and 4 and the entire length of Letter B. This technique requires the “throwing” of the bow on the strings of the violin, bouncing it once on each of the three strings, making up each arpeggio group of notes, both down-bow and up-bow directions. The momentum from the throw of the bow, the pulling and guiding of the bow once it's thrown (first down and then up), should result in the notes sounding equal in volume and note value.

This kind of technical stroke also requires a re-direction of the bow on the highest and lowest pitch of each 3-note arpeggio group of notes. The quality of the re-directed staccato bow stroke should equal the thrown ricochet bow.

Canada's fiddle greats, Donnell Leahy and Natalie MacMaster