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- Abbreviation
- scord.
How is scordatura played?
Retune one or more open strings away from standard—for example, lower a violin E to E♭, raise all four violin strings a whole tone, or physically cross Biber’s inner strings. The score must give the exact target pitches or tuning diagram. In much historical violin scordatura, the part is written as if normal fingering remained, so the player fingers the written positions while different pitches sound; however, this tablature-like convention is not universal, and sounding-pitch or parallel notation also occurs. Read the legend before converting written to sounding pitch.
How does scordatura sound?
New double-stops and open chords that are impossible in standard tuning; altered string tension that brightens or roughens the tone; extra sympathetic ringing from strings now tuned to the prevailing key. The retuned string takes on a distinct, often less 'suave' colour — Mahler asks for exactly this harshness.
In context
Scordatura ranges from Biber’s Mystery or Rosary Sonatas (traditionally dated c. 1674), where fourteen sonatas use altered tuning and Sonata 11 crosses the inner strings, to later programmatic colour. Saint-Saëns lowers the solo violin E to E♭ in Danse macabre so open A–E♭ forms the tritone; Mahler raises the solo violin a whole tone to A–E–B–F♯ for the harsh “Freund Hein” fiddle in Symphony No. 4. Bartók’s Contrasts opens its last movement with altered G♯–D–A–E♭ tuning for folk colour; Kodály’s Solo Cello Sonata lowers C–G to B–F♯; Stravinsky lowers a cello A to G♯ for the open-string closing chord of The Rite of Spring; and Crumb’s Vox Balaenae retunes the cello toward a B-major collection. Across these examples, alternate tuning changes open-string resonance, tension, timbre and what chords lie readily under the hand, while the exact notation system varies.
Music theory and score context
See also
- Scordatura — Wikipedia
- Category:Scordatura (works using alternative tunings) — IMSLP
- Danse macabre — solo violin E tuned to E♭ for the tritone — Wikipedia
- Symphony No. 4 (Mahler) — scordatura solo violin, 'Freund Hein' — Wikipedia
- Marcílio Fagner Onofre — UFPB composition dissertation
- Christian Mason — King’s College London portfolio and score
- Jason Buchanan, all-forgetting-is-retrieval — composer score