# Sautillé (French, "skipping")

Source: https://arcosounds.com/glossary/sautille

**Sautillé is a rapid bowing in which the bow bounces on its own from the natural springiness of the stick, used at tempos too fast for controlled spiccato.**

Where spiccato is a deliberate drop-and-rebound, sautillé is a horizontal stroke: the player makes small, fast détaché motions near the balance point of the bow, and the stick begins to bounce by itself. The bounce is a consequence of the stroke, not the goal of it, which is why students who try to bounce the bow deliberately never achieve a clean sautillé.

It appears in fast passagework in Mendelssohn, Rossini overtures, and much of the virtuoso violin repertoire. Composers almost never write the word, the stroke is chosen by the player when the tempo makes it the only practical option.

Canonical source: https://arcosounds.com/glossary/sautille