bowing techniques

Bowed vibrato is a performance technique used by stringed instruments often in eighteenth century or earlier Baroque music. Its sound is achieved when the musician uses their bow to create an undulating and pulsating movement all while moving the bow in a single direction. Often each “pulse” is in tempo and usually would last as long as a small subdivision of the beat, such as a sixteenth note. Bowed vibrato is a means of ornamenting a long note that would otherwise likely sound stagnant to the listener. In this recording, taken from the second movement, “Lento,” of Johan Helmich Roman’s Symphony No. 3 in B-flat Major, bowed vibrato is played over long notes and pulsates at the time value of sixteenth notes in the tempo of the music. This recording was taken from a clip from a YouTube recording of the Drottningholms Barockensemble performing this piece.