A slur is one bow · From Zero to Mozart

You met the slur in Stage 2 — a curved line over moving notes, "join them." On the violin that instruction is literal and specific: play the whole group in one bow, one unbroken stroke, no change of direction until the slur ends.

Read now, perform later. Reading the slur — knowing it's one bow, and where the bow turns — is this lesson. Making a smooth, even slurred stroke is Stage 5 (Legato and slurred bowing).

The slurring is also the bowing

A slur over two notes = two notes on one bow. Over four = four on one bow. Where the slur ends, the bow changes. So on a string part the curves are a map of the bow — you can read the down / up pattern straight off them, starting (by the old rule) with a down-bow on the first beat of the bar.

80 bpm

Two notes per slur — so two notes per bow. Down for D–E, up for F♯–G, down for A–B, up for C–D. Four bows for eight notes.

80 bpm

The same eight notes, now four to a slur — so just two bows, one down and one up. You have to plan the bow: four notes' worth of travel in each stroke, evenly spread, or you run out.

A slur is not always a bowing

88 bpm

One long curve over a whole musical sentence. This is a phrase mark — the shape of the idea — not 'play eleven notes in one bow'. A careful edition prints a phrase mark dashed to keep it clear of the short, solid bowing slurs.

Try it

Try

Play D–E–F♯–G on the D string, two notes per bow: a down-bow for D–E, an up-bow for F♯–G. Now play all four in one down-bow — divide the stroke into four equal quarters so the last note has as much bow as the first. That planning is what a long slur asks of you.

The usual mistake

Re-bowing inside a slur — a little push for each note — which breaks the legato the slur was asking for. Running out of bow halfway through a long slur because you spent it all on the first two notes. And reading a phrase mark as one enormous slur.