The first is finger contact, playing on the flesh of the finger or the bone (See Figure 4.11). My notation (See Figure 4.12) shows finger contact through the degree of horizontal intersection of the curve, representing the edge of the finger, and the straight line, representing the string. High on tip is very bright, present and immediate, and it is also easier to control because it is on the hard edge of a bone. An extended technique in finger contact is the use of the nail hooked into the string to create a sharper, claw-like attack.
Low on the finger is more fleshy and warmer, you can’t control the string as much but you can have less attack and create a note that is drawn out of the instrument in a less percussive way
Medium finger contact is less bright than the tip but has a warmer sound with more control than low contact.
4.1 Finger contact
Tone colour may be altered through the manipulation of contact with the strings directly. The three ways we control timbre are string height, finger contact, what part of your finger you are playing with, how low or high we play on the strings, and speed of attack, how slow or fast you move your finger past the string.
Collaborating with musician, musicologist and graphic designer Jonathan Barakat, I designed a font to map these timbral elements, accessible in office, presentation and scorewriter software. Each of the 27 characters is confined to the High, Medium and Low point of each element.
Figure 4.11— Finger contact marked on the hand, red marking contact high on the finger, purple marking medium and blue, low.
