Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A technique of bowing in which the bow is made to bounce slightly from the string.
- adjective Of or employing spiccato.
from The Century Dictionary.
- In music, same as
picchetato .
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adjective (Mus.) Detached; separated; -- a term indicating that every note is to be performed in a distinct and pointed manner.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective music detached; separated; with every
note performed in a distinct and pointed manner
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun bowing in such a way that the bow bounces lightly off the strings
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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The word spiccato comes from an Italian verb which means "to separate".
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Before the mid-1700s, the terms spiccato and staccato where used interchangably to mean notes that where separated.
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And now we're going to hear what's called the spiccato bowing.
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He dazzled on the notorious trill passage in the Scherzo of the Mendelssohn Octet, but elsewhere he landed on the low side of a few notes, and his spiccato remains too much in the string.
Juilliard quartet newcomer Joseph Lin challenged by lack of gravitas 2011
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Though her bow-arm is fluent, she doesn't produce a natural, biting spiccato stroke, and she will sometimes push the vibrato on climactic notes rather than let the phrase bloom as an organic whole.
Violinist Chee-Yun plays lovely Bach, Messiaen, Saint-Saens at Kennedy Center Post 2010
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His herky-jerky bow destroyed any semblance of legato, and he could not execute a proper spiccato.
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"You actually need to shift in places from a spiccato to a d'tach-," Bodine rapidly talking a Corporate Wife of some sort across the room toward the free-lunch table piled with lobster hors d'oeuvres and capon sandwiches - "less bow, higher up you understand, soften it-then there's also about a thousand ppp-to-fff blasts, but only the one, the notorious One, going the other way. ..."
Gravity's Rainbow Pynchon, Thomas 1978
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He readied himself and then poured his heart into playing that tune -- he worked it around, swished it a few times, tried some variations, caught the fever, and finished off with a fast spiccato variation.
Violists Richard McGowan
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In a very broad _spiccato_, the arm may be brought into play; but otherwise not, since it makes rapid playing impossible.
Violin Mastery Talks with Master Violinists and Teachers Frederick Herman Martens 1903
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The _martellato_, a _nuance_ of _spiccato_, should be played with a firm bowing at the point.
Violin Mastery Talks with Master Violinists and Teachers Frederick Herman Martens 1903
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