Battuto (chop bowing) equivalent

Hi,

I have to add a violin ‘battuto’ to an expression map. This is not the more common ‘col legno battuto’, but it is when percussing the string with the hair of the bow. It is sometimes called ‘chop bowing’.

Which of the existing playback techniques in Dorico would you use for this?

Paolo

For this string technique, I couldn’t an equivalent playing technique in Dorico so I had to create a custom playing technique. Dutilleux uses the term “quasi col legno” in the cello piece, 3 Strophes Sur Le Nom De SACHER although I found the term confusing. However, from what you described as 'chop bowing" I don’t know if the bowing is played near the frog as often used in bluegrass so “quasi col legno” may not be appropriate.

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There are some people working on very comprehensive violin chop notation. Whether this ever becomes accepted and mainstream I do not know. But there are a lot of types of chop!

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@EPH and @Andro, thank you very much. I think the technique I’m looking for is the ‘quasi col legno’, that indeed explains how to play it (it is a string percussed with the hair of the bow, but usually reinforced by letting the wood nearly touched the string).

I see the chop bowing set of symbols is already included in Dorico’s fonts. However, I think it is a very different type of techniques from the one I was looking for (that is the ‘effect’ you can hear near the end of Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique, among the others).

‘Battuto’ is probably the most used name, but may be sometimes replaced by something that is not easily confused with ‘col legno battuto’.

Paolo