Flying Staccato

I need help on how to do flying staccato. Can anybody help? Anonymous

Victor Sazer replies: For flying staccato, you might try to move your arm in an arc so that your bow moves around the string; down-bows in a counter-clockwise direction and up-bows moving clock-wise. You might find it helpful to start with smaller groups rather than trying to use the whole bow.

For example: you might begin by playing 4-note groups, then 5-note groups. As you improve control, keep adding notes until you can play what ever number of notes you need with confidence.

Moving your bow around the string in general enables you to have greater control than playing on top of the string. This is especially evident when you need to play short or staccato notes. When you travel in an arc, you are already moving away from the string so it is easy to snap it off to shape your note to the exact length that you want. If you play in a straight line on the top surface of the string you may have to do an additional movement to get the bow off the string. Also, when you go around the string you end up a bit on the left side of the string on your down-bows and on the right side on your up-bows. This enables you to pull the string using friction rather than pressing it down or putting more weight on it. This helps to produce a free ringing sound with less effort.

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