Characterization of bowing strokes in violin playing in terms of controls and sound: Differences between bouncing and on-string bow strokes
Alfonso Pérez · The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America · 2013
Bowing is the main element in sound production during a violin performance and one of the most basic and important expressive resources for the musician. In the lowest level, control parameters such as force, velocity, or bow-bridge distance are directly determining the characteristics of the sound. In a higher level, bowing strokes constitute one of the main mechanisms for structuring the performance. There are many different kinds of bowing strokes, and they are commonly classified into on-string, if the attack happens with the bow on the string and off-string, if the bow is bouncing. From a database of violin performances containing multimodal data including sound and gestures, a set of spectral features and instrumental controls is extracted and the database is segmented into intra-note segments (attack, sustain, and release). A characterization of bowing strokes and a comparison between bouncing and on-string strokes in terms of bowing controls and sound at the intra-note segments is presented.