One of the mysteries of the English language finally explained.
A style of staccato playing on stringed instruments involving bouncing the bow on the strings.
- ‘Every technical trick in the repertoire of the virtuoso string player was on display: double-stopping, flying spiccato, glissandi, glissandi harmonics, rapid string crossing arpeggios and more.’
- ‘Five preludes for solo cello imaginatively explore a restricted sonorous range of bowing, staccato and spiccato.’
- ‘For musical purposes a wide variety of different bowing gestures are used, such as martelé (hammered bowing with a sudden release) and spiccato (rapid detached notes with the bow bouncing off the strings).’
adjective & adverbMusic
Performed or to be performed with spiccato.
- ‘The spiccato parts were great, but most of the work ended up sounding like someone driving a car stepping on and off the accelerator.’
- ‘With respect to the amazing technical wizardry written into the original work (i.e. left-hand pizzicato, harmonics, spiccato bowings, etc.), Gao asserted, ‘I try to do as much as I can physically.’’
- ‘The strings punctuated the word with furious, almost violent spiccato playing.’
Italian, literally ‘detailed, distinct’.
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