Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A technique of bowing in which the bow is made to bounce slightly from the string.
- adj. Of or employing spiccato.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- In music, same as picchetato.
Wiktionary
- adj. music detached; separated; with every note performed in a distinct and pointed manner
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. (Mus.) Detached; separated; -- a term indicating that every note is to be performed in a distinct and pointed manner.
WordNet 3.0
- n. bowing in such a way that the bow bounces lightly off the strings
Etymologies
- Italian, past participle of spicare to detach, to separate. (Wiktionary)
- Italian, past participle of spiccare, to separate : s-, from; see sfumato + piccare, to pierce, impale (from Vulgar Latin *piccāre; see pick1). (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Before the mid-1700s, the terms spiccato and staccato where used interchangably to mean notes that where separated.”
“The word spiccato comes from an Italian verb which means "to separate".”
“And now we're going to hear what's called the spiccato bowing.”
“He dazzled on the notorious trill passage in the Scherzo of the Mendelssohn Octet, but elsewhere he landed on the low side of a few notes, and his spiccato remains too much in the string.”
The Washington Post: Juilliard quartet newcomer Joseph Lin challenged by lack of gravitas
“Though her bow-arm is fluent, she doesn't produce a natural, biting spiccato stroke, and she will sometimes push the vibrato on climactic notes rather than let the phrase bloom as an organic whole.”
The Washington Post: Violinist Chee-Yun plays lovely Bach, Messiaen, Saint-Saens at Kennedy Center
“His herky-jerky bow destroyed any semblance of legato, and he could not execute a proper spiccato.”
“You actually need to shift in places from a spiccato to a d'tach-," Bodine rapidly talking a Corporate Wife of some sort across the room toward the free-lunch table piled with lobster hors d'oeuvres and capon sandwiches - "less bow, higher up you understand, soften it-then there's also about a thousand ppp-to-fff blasts, but only the one, the notorious One, going the other way. ...”
“He readied himself and then poured his heart into playing that tune -- he worked it around, swished it a few times, tried some variations, caught the fever, and finished off with a fast spiccato variation.”
“In a very broad _spiccato_, the arm may be brought into play; but otherwise not, since it makes rapid playing impossible.”
“The _martellato_, a _nuance_ of _spiccato_, should be played with a firm bowing at the point.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘spiccato’.
-
250 Extra Spelling Words
Some more words for intermediate and advanced spellers.
cultellarius, barouche, palanquin, badelaire, cavetto, tregetour, tergiversate, rhododendron, rhadamanthine, thyrsus, cappelletti, bradycardia and 238 more...
-
Lively Words
quick, quicksilver, cwic, quitch grass, cwice, vivify, viviparous, viper, weever, wyvern, viand, victual and 148 more...
-
Aequoria's list
affect, deleterious, nuance, pliant, verbatim, pertinent, latter, municipality, provincial, voyeuristic, circumlocution, wane and 798 more...
-
...:::bella:::...
originally started as an attempt to collect words I found visually and auditorially beautiful, as well as psychically evocative, this has become nothing more than a grab bag of word curiosities, a ...
bergamot, jambalaya, bee's knees, heliotrope, hosanna, gamboge, aureole, filial, madrigal, multilingual, sacrosanct, sojourn and 1072 more...
-
lotic words of flow
fast flowing, rapid, confluent words
boustrophedon, boustrophedric, thixotrophic, ludic, hesychastic, blend, quaquaversal, phacoemulsification, mordant, glissando, vatic, tournure and 233 more...
-
Music Words
Not all of them, obviously.
allegro, adagio, smorzando, fermata, plagal, ballade, scherzo, dolce, ritenuto, spiccato, sautille, cadenza and 17 more...
-
Musical Terms
Various terms, common and uncommon, relating to musical scores.
largo, andante, adagio, lento, moderato, allegro, vivace, presto, fermata, appoggiatura, acciaccatura, trill and 56 more...
-
step lightly
ecossaise, sashay, prance, varsovienne, badinage, vellicate, ectomorphic, spiccato, libant, volant, voltigeur, saltation and 6 more...
-
Musical Theory and Notation
Words you might find in written music
forte, piano, fortissimo, pianissimo, moderato, pizzicato, staccato, glissando, ritardando, legato, accelerando, allegro and 40 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for spiccato.
Comments
No comments yet...
Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.