'Barring'
To create a fingered perfect (we hope) fifth, violinists usually bar the strings using one finger. In guitar language, this is referred to as barring. What's the formal term for us, if there is one? My students tend to call it 'that horrible thing with one finger'; it would be nice to have a proper expression to use.
Replies (32)
"that horrible thing with one finger"... Sue, probably no one will find better description for it, than your students did, that's why there is no term exists. Maybe anybody know?
Francis, I don't think that they ARE barred physically in the same way as guitar strings which would be straight across with the flat of much of the finger. I was taught to have the finger a bit more in the middle between both strings and it seems the finger is a bit flatter than otherwise. I have a piece that annoyingly undulates between B & E for a large portion of it and it's the only effective way I've found to keep repeating those notes. One of the two would tend to be flat or sharp until I changed the finger angle by flattening it in the right direction.
Sue: I wish I knew what "it" was actually called. One-finger double stop?
So it's not just horrible for me, personally?
Greetings,
who could object to `pruning`
Cheers,
Buri
IMHO, since we live in an age when acronyms have become an increasingly common part of casual conversation (AFAIK), I propose that we call the phenomenon "THTWOF".
Alternatively, we could adopt the common practice of the scientific community and name the occurrence after the person who first described it --to wit, "Sue Donim Syndrome."
Or SDS! Fantastic! I'll tell the examiners on Friday that I'm the pioneer of this particular technique, shall I? Francis, I fear I've inadvertantly mislead you with my terminology... in my experience, best results are produced using the finger*tip* placed directly between the two strings, thus catching both of them. If there's any trouble getting from note A to note B, swing your left elbow/hand as a unit and you should get where you need to be.
SDS... LOL!
I have a feeling it has no name. Is that possible? I have a lesson tomorrow, I'm doing "that thing" for 25% of my piece so there's a good excuse to ask if my teacher has a name for it in any of the languages he speaks. If so, I'll let everyone know.
Great, thanks Inge. There are other syndromes I'd rather be named after:)
In swedish we call it Kvint grepp, that is fifth grip, but I will use SDS from now on!
Inge,
I know you'll want to kill me for this, but your last post wants me to break into a song: "When you do that thing you doooooooo...."
Hahaha, I'm so corny today.
Timothy, LOL, you'll have to provide the notes so we can all sing along!
Inge,
I was thinking about the theme song to Tom Hanks' movie, That Thing You Do:
"You, doing that thing you do / breaking my heart into a million pieces / like you always do / and you don't mean to be cruel.."
The lyrics are an apt description of my feelings when I attempt a violin piece with SDS (i.e., when I try to do THTWOF).
I hereby dedicate this song to all the SDS sufferers in the world... And a nod to Sue Donim for putting a name to our sickness.
Inge, when I looked at lirics, this melody appeared in my head:
a-a-e-e-h-h-f# (equal durations, but syncopated)
c-c-g-g-f-f-c-#
next-some downward melody in d
minor to Bb major-Eb-C#dim7-A
and so on.
O-o-ops! Sorry, just read new lirics... I am about previous...
I call it "blocking."
My old teacher called it "box fingering" or "boxing" for short.
Oops - forgot to ask as I had promised I would. Sorry Sue. I like the names the others gave.
Inna - thanks for the melody.
... Hehe, that sounds like another song, "Thanks for the memory."
"Blocking" seems to be about right; it's short, simple, and sounds formal without being too technical.
"Boxing" just sounds too pugilistic.
Or we could still go with SDS...
Yeah well, I guess it's my head on the - erm - block. Thanks! Now I'll no longer need to say, 'So you need to do a 1-1...' (substitute 2-2, 3-3 as appropriate).
Ok, thanks everybody for the clarification. (That said, next time I hit fifths I may try actually barring them...though I doubt it will work, as I'd probably have to rotate my elbow somehow and do something unspeakable to my wrist.) I've occasionally thought that I should learn basic guitar just to poach technique from it (as Paganini did, though his guitar was far from basic), but the few times I've tried the left hand has been so different that I haven't been able to get my brain around it.
Still, it might be worth a violinist's time having some familiarity with guitar. The Italian article that got posted to our discussion of the Ricci Strad article from a few months back suggested that Paganini adopted his wrist/finger shifting technique from guitar, and while I haven't developed the awesome finger strength to really use that technique much yet, it definately is doable. (At least, if you are willing to mostly forgoe continuous vibrato in first and second position, or shift the arm down to do it in slow passages.)
Francis, DON'T use 'barring' playing SDS! It's not "violinistic" movement. In any way collapsing fingers lead to losing technique. You can just use slight flatten finger, you can place it regular between strings, change temporary finger's angle, lower wrist... but not "barring".
Out of curiosity, how much harder is it to execute SDS (love the new verb) on violas? Though I suppose that for a meaty fingered gigantic violist it would be the same difficulty as for a tiny spider-fingered violinist.
Sue,
It looks like the term "SDS" is catching on ;-) Hehehe
I've grown up hearing it called a "bridge" (i.e. "bridging the first finger") my whole life, by all my teachers.... But it depends on where you grow up, I guess. =)
Inge, It's about the same for violas, at least on my viola.
Ah, looks like we're down to 'block' or 'bridge'. Shall we take a poll? I personally feel that SDS should be reserved for sufferers of multiple teaching diploma exams.
I've always called it stopping or blocking.
Oh great now I have that films song stuck in my head again....."doing that thing you doo....."
My teachers just called them "fifths" but with raised eyebrows they didn't use for sixths, etc.
Mine (in the duet) went together with 5ths of the other violin to create augmented fourths harmony. An interesting sound. I wasn't double stopping but bowing back and forth between two strings in fifths it didn't seem to make sense to pendel the first finger back and forth constantly. .... Raised eyebrows, Jim? You mean the teachers raised their eyebrows the way people do quotation marks in the air to mean "quote" when speaking? Maybe we can call them " 'fifths' (raises eyebrows meaningfully) - SDS for those of you lacking the eyebrows to pronounce this properly".
I meant raised eyebrows in the sense of their hair standing on end :-)
I've always known this practice as "blocking the fifth."
So it's a hair raising experience, Jim? Our choirmaster literally raises his hair by lifting his ponytail to express approval as in "That was so wonderful that it made my hair stand on end." Well, after 6 weeks of the piece calling for it bar after bar, it's cured some of the excess verticality of my fingers and I'm calling it nicer names. SDS will have a friendly and positive connotation in my book henceforth, Sue.
I like the term "blocking the fifth" when teaching a student because at the same time it indirectly teaches something about intervals, doesn't it?
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December 14, 2004 at 09:31 PM · Wow! *light bulb goes on* You mean that fifth double stops are supposed to be played like guitar bar chords? I never knew that! *slaps forehead* Thinking about it, I suppose I have been unconsciously "barring" when playing fifth intervals in three and four string chords, but it had never occured to me to play double stops that way...I always just tried to place my figner at the normal downward angle, but reach both strings. (Not easy, as I have fairly thin fingers. Sometimes I sort of pulled the strings a bit closer together, but of course that complicates intonation.)
That said, I have no idea what the violinists' term would be. I don't even know what guitarists use as a word meaning "to bar", if they have a term (other than that).