IT non divisi bowing common Support my free tools
- Abbreviation
- non div.
How is non divisi played?
Place non divisi at a chord or passage where division is possible but not wanted. Each player in the section attempts all written notes as a double or multiple stop, subject to instrument playability, rather than allocating chord tones among desks. This is not merely a cancellation after a previous divisi and is not interchangeable with unis.: after a genuinely divided passage, unisono/unis., tutti or all’unisono normally reunites the players on one line. In German scores, zusammen (zus.) performs that restoration after geteilt.
How does non divisi sound?
The section thickens back into a single, unified weight of sound, and any notated chords take on the firmer, more resistant grain of double-stopping across the whole section.
In context
The Cambridge orchestration guide explicitly separates the two functions: non div. says not to divide a playable chord, whereas unis. cancels an existing divisi by returning everyone to the same notes. Publisher style guidance lists non div. as the short form, and an archived orchestral score uses non div. alongside unis., not as its expansion. The instruction governs who plays each chord tone; any thicker or more resistant sound is a consequence, not its primary definition.