Why Would You Hit a String With the Wooden Bit? Because It Sounds Like Bones
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Playing a string instrument with the wood of the bow rather than the hair produces a dry percussive rattle that composers have used for a specific and consistent effect.
What the technique does
The player turns the bow over and strikes or draws the wooden stick across the string instead of the hair. Striking gives a short dry click with very little pitch, since the string is barely set vibrating and most of what is heard is the impact itself. Drawing the wood across produces a thin glassy tone that is quiet and strange. Both are far quieter than ordinary playing, which is why the effect is normally written for a whole section at once, and the combined sound of many players doing it is quite unlike any individual instrument.
Why players dislike it
The objection is practical rather than artistic:
- •A bow stick is a shaped piece of expensive wood, frequently pernambuco
- •Striking a metal-wound string chips and dents it
- •A professional bow can cost more than a car
- •So players keep a cheap second bow for the purpose
- •Some use a carbon fibre or a student bow instead
- •The part is occasionally reassigned to percussion where possible
What composers use it for
The associations are remarkably consistent across the repertoire and once noticed are hard to unhear. Berlioz used it in the final movement of the Symphonie Fantastique in 1830, in a witches' sabbath scene, and the dry clattering of a whole string section immediately suggested bones. Saint-Saens used it for skeletons dancing in the Danse Macabre. Holst used it in Mars. Twentieth century composers broadened it considerably, using it for texture and for rhythmic drive rather than only for the macabre, but the older association persists strongly enough that a film composer reaching for the sound is generally reaching for exactly that meaning.
The notation and the confusion in it
The instruction is written in Italian above the stave and cancelled by a marking returning the player to ordinary bowing, and the older scores are less precise than modern players would like. The term alone does not say whether to strike or to draw, and composers before the twentieth century frequently left that to be inferred from the context and the rhythm. A rapid repeated figure clearly means striking. A sustained line clearly means drawing. Modern editions usually add the distinction explicitly, and where an early score is ambiguous the choice becomes an editorial decision that changes the sound considerably.
The family it belongs to
The technique is one of a set of instructions that change how the string is excited, and grouping them clarifies what an unfamiliar marking is asking for. Playing near the bridge gives a thin glassy sound rich in high overtones. Playing over the fingerboard gives a soft flute-like one. Plucking rather than bowing is the commonest of all and has its own vocabulary. Bouncing the bow gives a range of short articulations. Playing with excessive pressure produces a deliberate crushed noise. Each asks the player to change where or how energy enters the string, and together they give a composer a palette that has nothing to do with which notes are played.
The takeaway
Turning the bow over and using the wood gives a dry pitchless click when struck and a thin glassy tone when drawn, both far quieter than normal playing, which is why it is scored for whole sections. Players use a cheap second bow, since striking a wound string damages an expensive stick. Berlioz used it for bones in 1830 and the association has stuck.