What does string crossing mean in music?

Bowing & articulation

String crossing

A string crossing is any move of the bow from one string to another, and controlling its smoothness is one of the central bow-arm skills on every orchestral string instrument.

Each string sits at a slightly different height, so the bow arm has to change level to reach it. Done from the shoulder, the change is large and late; done from the forearm and hand, it is small and early. The standard fault is arriving at the new string after the note has already started, which produces the audible bump students hear and cannot locate.

Crossings under a slur are the hardest case, because the bow cannot use a direction change to hide the move. Preparing the level during the previous note, arriving before you need to, is the technique, and it is what most string-crossing études are actually training.

Where the crossing skips a string, the bow must pass over the intervening one without touching it, which is why crossings from the top string to the bottom string are practised separately from adjacent ones.

Bariolage: Bariolage is a string technique that alternates rapidly between strings, often repeating the same pitch on a stopped string and an open string, for a shimmering change of colour rather than of note.
Détaché: Détaché is the basic string bowing in which each note gets its own bow stroke, changing direction between notes while the bow stays on the string.
Legato: Legato is playing notes smoothly connected with no audible gap between them; on a string instrument it usually means several notes under one bow, indicated by a slur.
Étude: An étude is a piece written to develop one specific technical skill, isolating a difficulty so it can be practised in a musical context rather than as a bare exercise.

Every term in this glossary is taught in context somewhere in Arco's curricula, on the staff, on the keyboard, and on your own fingerboard at the same time.

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