CelloProfessor.com logo

Sautillé Bow Stroke

By Jamie Fiste, Professor of Cello at Central Michigan University
Sautillé is a bow stroke that utilizes the natural tension of the bow hair to spring the bow from the string. It is not the same as 'controlled spiccato', as my teacher referred to it, even though both strokes are often referred to as 'spiccato'. Controlled spiccato is used for slower tempos while sautillé is for fast virtuoso passages and they entail completely different techniques.

Getting the Correct Motions and Angles
The key to sautillé is understanding the types motions employed and finding the correct angle. 

  • An active motion in the forearm (essentially a forearm détaché)
  • A passive motion in the wrist,
  • A slight pronation in the hand and forearm (this allows a passive wrist motion)
  • An angle of about 45 degrees or so to the string.  The active forearm and passive hand/wrist do not move perfectly horizontally but a bit vertically to activate the spring-like effect of the bow. 

The forearm détaché involves moving the forearm with the elbow as the hinge. This is where the impetus for the bow stroke occurs. The hand and forearm will need a slight pronation (turning the back of your bow hand slightly to the left) for the passive wrist motion. Being a passive wrist/hand motion, do not think of the sautillé as originating in the wrist or hand, even though it may appear this way when observing an accomplished cellist utilizing this bow technique. The motion in the wrist is only a passive reaction to the active motion in the forearm. 

Finding the Correct Angle
After working on the forearm détaché and passive wrist exercises, you can move on to the proper angle. To find the correct angle you will need to experiment with your elbow height. The higher the right elbow, the more your bow will move on a horizontal plane. As you lower the elbow, the angle of your détaché will become more vertical. This is what you will need for the springing motion of sautillé: a horizontal motion for the up and down bows and a vertical movement for the spring of the bow. The 45 degree angle provides for both.

When the angle is correct, the bow will be on the left side of the string for the down bow and the right side of the string for the up bow. More accurately, the bow will move from the left side of the string to the right side during the down bow and from the right side of the string to the left side during the up bow. As a result, the bow will be moving with the convex curve of the bridge.

An Exercise to Practice the Angle 
I recommend practicing forearm détaché in the middle of the bow while playing a down bow on the A string and an up bow on the D string. This mimics the angle mentioned above but in an exaggerated way.  Of course, you can do this between any two strings, such as a down bow on the D string and an up bow on the G string. 

A Springing Bow
A couple more words about sautillé; sautillé comes from the French verb sautiller, which is to hop or skip.  Think about what hopping and skipping are.  It isn't bouncing, in the strict sense of the word.  When people hop or skip down the sidewalk their bodies are not bouncing like a ball.  Rather, they leap from the ground upward in a spring-like fashion.  When we play sautillé we can do something similar; our bow strokes start from the string and spring upwards like a coiled spring pushed down and released. 

This manner of approaching sautillé will result is greater projection than a purely bouncing approach. In this sense it is different from a ricochet bow stroke, which is more akin to a bouncing ball and as a result is a lighter bow stroke.

Because of this, I prefer to describe sautillé primarily as a 'springing' rather than a 'bouncing' bow stroke.

S.D.G.


Authored by Jamie Fiste, Professor of Cello at Central Michigan University.
Share by: