Following on from the previous post on bowing for jigs, I’m going to look here at some new ideas on adding bowing variations to a jig.

See article 1 on jig bowing

Here, I’ll be developing the idea of slurring from the last note of a bar into the first of the next bar.  Also looking at adding slurs in other parts of the tune.

The previous post looked at adding this slurring across the barline as a technique borne of necessity – i.e. to keep the down-bow-at-the-start-of-a-bar pattern.  Here, however, the bowing changes are added for variety.  Using the same bowing pattern throughout a tune can make it sound a little monotonous and plodding.

1,4,8 – The down-bow comes in on the last quaver beat and is slurred into the next bar.  This slurring across bars sounds great, especially if you give a little surge in volume halfway through the bow movement (at the point of the second slurred note).  This would be done by moving the bow faster, rather than pressing down harder.

2,3 – The pattern of slurs across bar lines is continued here.  It doesn’t just have to be done when there’s an awkward isolated quaver.  So in bar 4, the down-bow-at-the-start pattern is reversed and then restored for bar 5.

5,7,9 – This is very common and involves slurring a group of three quavers.  This can either be done in the second half of the barnp, or the first half r. The purpose is to break up the over use of separate bows for each note.

6 – Here the bowing is reversed by not slurring and then restored at the end of the next bar.

The best players will always be open to using variations – instead of tunes being static pieces of music that are always played the same, they will always be alive and growing.

See my next post for more ideas on variations for this tune.