The closer the bow plays to the bridge [in sul ponticello], the more the high harmonics

of the note being played become audible.100

[In sul tasto] the bow is actually preventing the string from vibrating freely, reducing the high harmonics.101

By touching the string lightly with the left hand at strategic points on the string, we can obtain single partials, and these are called harmonics.102

PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS Naturally, under my method, traditional and new techniques are treated in the same way; they are both part of the global view: everything that is possible on the cello. In this sense I am working outside music history, not prioritising, for example, bowed sound because it has been used most often.103 The strength of fitting new and old techniques into a global technique is the enabling of application of information. I use the terms plectrum, hammer and bowing object in a neutral way to open possibilities. The knowledge we have relating to plucking with the finger can also be applied to plucking with a guitar plectrum (e.g. moving towards the middle of the string reduces overtone content); the knowledge we have relating to col legno battuto can be applied to Fingerschlag,104 (e.g. the duration of hammer-to-bridge tone is maximised when the hammer is held to the string); the knowledge we have about bowing can be applied to stroking the cello strings with the hands (e.g. the faster the stroke, the louder the resulting tone). In other words this global view exposes ways of influencing sound that might not otherwise have been obvious.

The idea of a global technique also impacts upon the debate about notation. Notation has been the source of much contentious and divisive debate since
Knox, Viola Spaces, Supplementary booklet, 1. Knox, Viola Spaces, Supplementary booklet, 1. 102 Knox, Viola Spaces, Supplementary booklet, 4. 103 This is in line with Lachenmanns comment: the clean, nice, full cello sound is a special case in the various possibilities of bow pressure, bow speed and point of contact (trans. author). Helmut Lachenmann, ed. Joseph Husler, Musik als Existentielle Erfahrung (Kassel: Brenreiter, 2004), 381. 104 Fingerschlag is tapping the strings against the fingerboard with the fingers.
101 100

34