"----you must stretch out your Arm streight, in which posture (playing long Notes) you will necessarily move your shoulder Joint; but if you stir that Joint in Quick Notes, it will cause the whole body to shake; which (by all means) must be avoyded; as also any other indecent Gesture. Quick Notes, therefore, must be expressed by moving some Joint near the Hand;[1] which is generally agreed upon to be the Wrist. The question then arising is about the menage of the Elbow Joint; concerning which there are two different opinions. Some will have it kept stiff; insomuch, that I have heard a judicious violist positively affirm, that if a Scholar can but attain to the playing of Quavers with his Wrist, keeping his Arm streight and stiff in the Elbow-Joint, he hath got the mastery of the Bow-Hand. Others contend that the motion of the Wrist must be strengthened and assisted by a compliance or yielding of the Elbow-Joint unto it; and they, to back their Argument, produce for instance a person famous for the excellency of his Bow-Hand using a free and loose Arm. To deliver my own opinion: I do much approve the streightness of the Arm, especially in Beginners, because it is a means to keep the Body upright, which is a commendable posture. I can also admit the stiffness of the Elbow, in smooth and Swift Division; for which it is most properly apt; but Cross and Skipping Divisions cannot (I think) be so well express'd without some consent or yielding of the Elbow-Joint unto the motion of the Wrist.... This motion or looseness of the Wrist I mention, is chiefly in _Demi-semiquavers_; for, in _Quavers_, and _Semiquavers_ too, we must allow so much stiffness to the wrist as may command the Bow _on_ and _off_ the String, at every Note, if occasion so require."
[Footnote 1: "_Some_ joint" is very good; it gives such liberty in the way of choice.]
This must have been rather a crude form of _spiccato_. It is, however, plainly evident that with heavy bows, destitute of elasticity, and held underhand, it was quite impossible to allow the bow to rebound naturally from the string for this effect.
Mace, whose book, "Musick's Monument," is one of the most amusing works extant, in speaking of the bowing of the viol, _i.e._, viola da gamba, or, as he calls it, "the generous viol," quotes Sympson's direction for holding the bow and then adds:--