JAVS Spring 2022

Wispyville (along with Scratchtown and the Tone Zone ) downward so that the sound point would then lie within the Tone Zone . Figures 17, 18, and 19 show all three of these sound regions at different contact points.

the left of that line, and you can see that there isn’t much room to make use of if you want to stay in the Tone Zone.

Exercise 6: In bow lane 3, play slow notes, eight beats long at 60 bpm. Notice how, as shown in Figure 20, you can’t add much weight without going to Scratchtown . What this does is limit the loudness of the sound; you can see that the loudness triangle in Figure 20 would be quite small. Exercise 7: The same as Exercise 6, but with one change: play close to the bridge. What this does, as shown in Figure 21, is to bring the three sound regions upward so that there’s an area of the Tone Zone to the left of our maximum speed line in the upper area of the sound chart, which is the high-weight area. The loudness triangle in Figure 21 would be much larger than the one in Figure 20, and you can verify for yourself that you can play much louder this way (it’s also a much denser sound, which you can see in the chart by imagining the density arrow from the section on the Second Law).

Nearly all our playing is done in the Tone Zone , and depending on what contact point we are using, we have a certain range of loudness levels and densities at our disposal. We can change our contact point to give ourselves access to different regions of the sound chart, depending on what type of sound we feel is appropriate for the music we’re playing at the moment. Sometimes, our choices are limited by what we need to play; under standing the Three Laws of Sound Production can help us determine what to do in different situations. For example, imagine you need to play a very long note in one bow. Obviously, this means you would need to move the bow slowly, which restricts you to the left-hand region of the sound chart. In Figures 20 and 21, I’ve added a vertical line indicat ing a low bow speed to mark the region of the sound chart this note must be played in (the shading of Scratchtown and Wispyville has been lightened for visual clar ity). You need to stay to

Figure 17: Scratchtown in the upper left, Wispyville in the lower right, and the Tone Zone in between (medium contact point).

Figure 18: placing the bow near the bridge raises the Tone Zone , allowing high-density sounds to be played.

Figure 20: playing with a very slow bow in lane 3 doesn’t allow for a very big sound.

Figure 21: moving the bow close to the bridge allows us to have a slow bow with a big sound by adding weight.

If we play at the bridge, then is this what is called sul pon ticello (Italian for “on the bridge”)? No. For sul ponticello playing, we do play near the bridge, in lane 1 or maybe 2, but only with a medium density, which puts us firmly in Wispyville. The resulting loss of core in the sound is the essence of the standard sul ponticello sound (Figure 22).

Figure 19: placing the bow near the fingerboard lowers the Tone Zone , allowing low-density sounds to be played.

Journal of the American Viola Society / Vol. 38, No. 1, Spring 2022

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