Detache

What it is

Detache is the default violin bow stroke, and the one on which almost everything else is built. Each note gets its own bow stroke, alternating down-bow and up-bow, with the bow staying on the string throughout. There is no gap between notes and no accent at the start of each one. The sound is continuous but the notes are separate. It sits in the bowing section of the dictionary.

The word is French for "detached", which causes endless confusion because detache does not sound detached in the way staccato does. What is detached is the bow direction, not the sound. The notes connect seamlessly to the ear while the bow reverses between each one.

If a passage in an orchestral part carries no articulation marking at all, detache is what is expected. It is the neutral stroke, the one a player defaults to when nothing else is indicated.

How it is produced

The bow moves from the arm, with the wrist and fingers absorbing the change of direction so that the reversal is inaudible. That last part is the entire skill.

At the moment the bow changes direction it must decelerate to zero and accelerate again the other way. Done carelessly, the listener hears a small bump or a gap at every bow change. Done well, the sound is unbroken and the listener has no idea the bow reversed at all.

The mechanism that hides the change is flexibility in the wrist and fingers. As the arm reaches the end of a stroke, the wrist leads slightly into the new direction and the fingers flex, so the hair maintains contact and speed while the arm reverses. Players describe it as the hand arriving before the arm.

Contact point stays constant. Bow speed stays constant. Pressure stays constant. Detache is the stroke where a player learns to control all three simultaneously, which is why it comes first and why it never stops being worked on.

Where in the bow

Detache is usually played in the middle third of the bow, where the stick is most balanced and the natural weight is neither too heavy nor too light.

Near the frog, the bow is heavy and the player must actively lift some weight out of the stroke to avoid a crushed sound. Near the tip, the bow is light and the player must add weight to maintain a full tone. Both are learned, but the middle is where the stroke is most naturally even, so that is where it is taught.

The length of bow used varies with tempo. Fast passages use two or three inches of bow. Slow passages may use a third of the bow per note or more. The player adjusts stroke length constantly so that a passage of mixed note values still sounds even. Our metronome is free and useful here.

What goes wrong

Three problems account for most detache that does not sound right.

The first is an audible bump at the bow change, caused by a stiff wrist. The arm reverses direction and the hand goes with it rigidly, producing a small accent on every note. The passage sounds lumpy even when every note is in tune and in time.

The second is uneven bow distribution. A player uses too much bow on the first notes of a phrase and arrives at the tip with nothing left, so the last notes are thin and quiet. This is not a bow arm problem, it is a planning problem, and it is fixed by deciding in advance how much bow each note gets.

The third is drifting contact point. As the bow moves, it slides toward the fingerboard or toward the bridge without the player noticing, and the tone changes mid-passage. The fix is watching the contact point rather than only listening, at least until the arm learns to hold it.

How it changes by style

Baroque detache is lighter and shorter, with a natural taper at the end of each stroke that comes from the shape of the baroque bow. Notes are separated slightly more than in later styles.

Classical detache is even and controlled, with clear articulation and a moderate amount of bow.

Romantic detache is broader and more sustained, often using more bow per note, with a fuller and more connected sound.

Twentieth-century and contemporary writing may ask for anything, and the marking in the score usually tells you. When it does not, the style of the piece does.

Where you meet it

Detache is everywhere. Any scale practised without a slur is played detache. The vast majority of orchestral string writing is detache. Etude books introduce it in the first lessons and never stop using it.

A student encounters it before they encounter anything else, and a professional is still refining it decades later. The stroke is simple to describe and takes years to make genuinely even.

How it is taught

We start with long slow bows on open strings, listening only to the bow change. The note does not matter. What matters is whether the reversal can be heard.

Once the change is smooth, the stroke shortens and the tempo increases, and the student learns to keep it even as the bow gets shorter. Then scales, then repertoire.

Detache is worked on in nearly every lesson at every level, because every improvement in it improves everything else the student plays.

Work on bow technique like Detache where somebody can hear the difference. We run private and group violin lessons in Cumming, Sugar Hill and Milton. Call 470-789-2422 to talk it through, or book a no-commitment evaluation lesson.