Bowed string motion is a stick-slip effect producing a sawtooth wave
Evidence
In the violin, the bow and the string have a strong, non-linear interaction. When moving in one direction, the bow sticks to the string and moves it in the same direction until the tension of the string forces the string to retract and to stick to another position on the bow. The frequency of this repeated stick-and-slip effect depends on the resonances of the string. The movement of the bowing position of the string thus resembles the shape of the sawtooth wave (Equation (3.9) on page 46). From the point of view of modelling, this reminds us of the woodwind and brass instruments, where the excitation is continuous and non-linearly coupled and synchronized to the resonator. — Ville Pulkki, Matti Karjalainen, Communication Acoustics- An…, 670
Categorization
- DEFINE: Describes the stick-slip mechanism clearly enough to serve as a reference definition for bow-string coupling.
- corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Ville Pulkki, Matti Karjalainen, Communication Acoustics- An…, 670
- XREF: connects to: A bowed string vibrates as a traveling kink, not as smooth standing waves; The stick-slip bow interaction self-limits and adapts energy to the drain.; A bowed string alternates constant-velocity grip with rapid snapback motion (+3 more)
Broader Connections
- A bowed string alternates constant-velocity grip with rapid snapback motion
#expands(0.95) - Horsehair’s directional grip enables sustained bowed-string notes
#corroborates(0.85) — David M. Howard, Jamie Angus, Acoustics and Psychoacoustics, 1104