Martele

What it is

Martele is a strongly accented bow stroke with a sharp attack and a clear stop. The bow pinches the string before moving, releases into a fast stroke, and then stops on the string. Each note has a distinct beginning and a distinct end, with silence between notes. More of this kind of thing is in the bowing section.

The word is French for "hammered", which describes the attack accurately. The sound is percussive and decisive, quite unlike the smoothness of detache.

Martele is an on-the-string stroke. The bow never leaves the string, even during the silence between notes. This distinguishes it from spiccato and other bouncing strokes.

How it is produced

The stroke has three phases and they must happen in order.

First, the pinch. Before the bow moves, the player applies pressure through the index finger, catching the string. The string is held under tension and no sound is produced yet.

Second, the release. The pressure releases at the same instant the bow starts moving, and the bow travels fast. That combination of released tension and immediate speed creates the sharp attack that defines the stroke.

Third, the stop. The bow decelerates and stops on the string. The note ends cleanly rather than fading, and the bow rests in place until the next note begins.

The silence between notes is not a gap in the bowing. It is the bow sitting still on the string, already in place for the next stroke.

Where in the bow

Martele is most effective in the upper half, and the classic place to learn it is between the middle and the tip.

Near the frog the bow is heavy and the pinch is hard to control, producing a crushed sound. In the upper half the stick is lighter and the player has more control over exactly how much pressure the pinch applies.

Length varies with the music. A martele in a slow passage may use a third of the bow. In a fast passage it may use two inches. What stays constant is the pinch, the fast release, and the stop.

What goes wrong

Crushing is the most common fault. The player applies too much pressure in the pinch, or fails to release it as the bow moves, and the string is choked rather than released. The result is a scratch instead of a note.

The fix is understanding that pressure and speed trade off. The pinch is pressure without speed. The stroke is speed with reduced pressure. If pressure stays high while the bow moves, the sound breaks.

The second fault is no real stop. The player produces an accented note but lets the bow drift on afterwards, so the note fades rather than ending. The silence disappears and the stroke sounds like a heavy detache.

The third is stopping the bow but relaxing the arm entirely, so the next pinch has to be rebuilt from nothing. The arm stays engaged during the silence.

How it differs from staccato

Both produce separated notes, but the mechanism differs.

Staccato notes are short, and can be produced on or off the string, with or without a strong accent. The defining feature is the shortness.

Martele notes are accented. The defining feature is the sharp attack from the pinch. A martele note may be quite long and still be martele, because what makes it martele is how it starts.

In practice a great deal of music marked staccato in the upper half is played with a martele stroke, which is why the two are often confused.

How it is notated

There is no universal symbol. Composers write the word martele, or use an accent mark, or use a small wedge above the note. The context and the tempo usually make the intention clear. Our free metronome helps with this between lessons.

Because the marking is inconsistent, players frequently make the decision themselves based on the character of the passage.

Where you meet it

Martele appears wherever music needs decisiveness. Strong rhythmic passages, fanfare figures, anything marked marcato or with heavy accents.

It is also a fundamental teaching stroke. Etude books use it heavily because it builds bow control, teaches the relationship between pressure and speed, and develops the ability to start a note cleanly, which transfers to every other stroke.

How it is taught

We start slowly on open strings, isolating the pinch. The student pinches, holds, and only then moves the bow, so the two events are consciously separated before they are combined.

Then the stop is added, so the student learns to end a note deliberately rather than letting it drift.

Only then does tempo increase, and only then does the left hand join in.

Questions about bow technique like Martele are the kind that get answered quickly in person. Private and group violin lessons in Sugar Hill, Cumming and Milton: call 470-789-2422 or book a no-commitment evaluation lesson.