# Bowed vs Fingered Legato (Spitfire)?



## tokatila (Jul 19, 2015)

Ok, so this is probably I mindbogglingly dumb question, but anyway. 

There's Fingered vs Bowed legato in articulation section. Spitfire manual says that Bowed legato changes note on a bow, but with Fingered legato note are changed without re-bowing?

Could any string player tell me, when you typically would use which type?


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## Zhao Shen (Jul 19, 2015)

Alright assuming I understand Spitfire's fingered and bowed legato correctly, here goes.

With virtual instruments, it's really up to you the composer as to when you want a bowed transition. String players often bow when they run out of string (edit: "bow" not "string") for continuing to bow in one direction, or when the music dictates a certain style that bowing is better suited to. Just use whichever sounds better in context. Do you need a somewhat sharper transition to the next note? Bow. I'm not sure if Spitfire includes options to specifically use up bow or down bow, but just in case/for future reference, down bow is stronger (on traditional strings) and thus used for stronger beats (have you ever noticed a violinist seeming to pull on an accent, etc?).

Or if you're looking to try to emulate realism to a perfectionist standard, know that a string player will not be able to endlessly use fingered legato.

Hope I didn't completely misunderstand Spitfire legato and thus hopelessly butcher this reply :3


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## Dr.Quest (Jul 19, 2015)

@Zhao Shen - I'm not sure how you run out of string. I know you can run out of bow as you move back and forth depending on tempo but not sure how you run out of string. String is always the same. Could you explain what you mean.


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## Zhao Shen (Jul 20, 2015)

Dr.Quest said:


> @Zhao Shen - I'm not sure how you run out of string. I know you can run out of bow as you move back and forth depending on tempo but not sure how you run out of string. String is always the same. Could you explain what you mean.


Sorry, wrote up that reply quite quickly. I was referring to running out of bow, you're right. For some reason my mind was temporarily muddled regarding horsehairs/strings on a bow, apologies for the misleading (aka flat out incorrect) terminology.


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## mwarsell (Apr 1, 2016)

...and bowed legato is the same as legato detache?


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## JonFairhurst (Apr 1, 2016)

Another possibility is that this has to do with playing on one string vs. changing to the next string. 

Let's say you are in 1st position, playing a G major scale from the lowest note. You play G (open), A (1st), B (2nd), C (3rd), but then you have a decision. Do you play the D with the 4th finger or move to the open D string. I would think that staying on the G string would be fingered legato while moving the bow to the next string might be bowed legato. When staying on one string, the C transitions to the D immediately and without overlap and with just a small hiccup while the string changes frequency. When changing strings, you can get overlap between the notes as the C can continue ringing while the D starts playing. In addition, the tone of the note changes slightly between strings.

In general, a player wants to keep each phase on the same string; however, one might choose the position higher on the neck to enable more vibrato and of course fingering is often selected in order to ease the transition to the next phrase.

The other possibility is presented above with the bow changing directions. This is most often done when you are playing a single long note, run out of bow, and change the bow direction as seamlessly as possibly.

I've been playing for just over a year. I find that changing the direction of the bow during a legato phrase is fairly smooth, while doing a fast legato passage across strings is more difficult to keep uniform. When I play a fast G scale across strings, my result is more like G-A-B-C---D-E-F#-G---A-B... etc. It's kind of like playing smooth scales on a piano when going from finger to thumb - only more difficult. 

Anyway, I find that I change strings often during legato phrases. Changing bow directions during legato phrases has been more rare in the music our community orchestra plays.


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