This is the first video in a series of videos I’ll be doing about various bowing techniques.

I’ll be talking about Detache bowing today. Many people want to know how to learn the detache stroke on the violin.

Detache is French for detached. This simply means that every note is played with its own stroke and therefore, every note is “detached.”

Detache is the simplest bow stroke to learn and the first one that most violinists learn as well.

The characteristics of a detache violin stroke are:

1. Every note gets its own bow stroke, so no slurs.

2. Every note should be played the same. No accents

How to practice a detache bow stroke? The easiest thing to do is play repeated bow strokes on a single note or on a scale.

You must do two things: LOOK and LISTEN.

1. LOOK at your stroke and ask yourself these questions:

A. Is your bow straight? Compare it to your bridge. It should be parallel.

B. Are you playing the bow in the same place for every bow stroke? Make sure that each note uses the same exact area of bow hair for every stroke. If you are inching up towards the tip or going towards the frog, then you are NOT using the same hair for every stroke, and therefore, every stroke will sound a little bit different.

2. LISTEN to your bow stroke

A. Does every stroke sound exactly the same? The volume for every stroke should be the same, there should not be any increase or decrease in the volume of the notes as you play them.

B. There should not be any accents at the beginning of your strokes. Really listen to the beginning of your strokes at the frog and the tip. It’s easy to over accent on the frog.

If you have any questions about how to learn detache stroke on the violin, just DM, email or message me and I’d be glad to answer any questions you might have!