Rests, ties and slurs in the bow
Three of the marks you've been reading — the rest, the tie, the slur — each ask something specific of the bow. Knowing what, before you play, saves a lot of stumbling.
A rest — the bow stops, and resets
At a rest, the bow stops moving (a short rest) or lifts off and comes back (a longer one, or the end of a phrase) — a retake. Either way the silence is active: you use it to get the bow set for the next note.
How to play it
Play D and E with two small down-up bows. On the two-beat rest, lift the bow off the string, carry it back toward the frog, and set it down ready — arriving exactly as beat 1 of the next bar comes. The rest is your reset time.
A tie — don't re-bow
Across a tie, the bow keeps travelling in the same direction, no new stroke, no re-articulation. The sound just continues.
How to play it
One long down-bow (or up-bow) carries the tied D straight across the barline — four beats on one stroke, no bump where the tie is. If you run low on bow, change direction smoothly on a beat, but never re-attack the note.
A slur — one bow, several notes
Under a slur the bow travels once while the left-hand fingers do the note changes. The rhythm is exactly as written; only the bow-changes move.
How to play it
One smooth down-bow for all four notes. Keep the bow speed even; let the fingers drop cleanly on the beats so the four notes still sound separate and in rhythm — the bow doesn't stop, but the tune still moves.
Put all three together
How to play it
Down-bow slurs D–E. The F is tied across the barline — keep that bow going. Then a rest: stop and reset. Then an up-bow slur for G–A. Three different bow instructions in two bars — trace them before you play.
The rule of the down-bow
An old orchestral convention: the downbeat tends to take a down-bow. It's not a law, but when a bowing isn't marked, starting the strong beat with a down-bow usually feels right — and when you're reading, a down-bow mark near the start of a bar is a hint about where beat 1 is.
The usual mistake
Re-bowing across a tie (two attacks where the music wants one). Filling a rest with sound because the bow didn't actually stop. Changing bow in the middle of a slur. All three come from reading the notes but not the curve or the gap around them.