"If you lift your bow on the second beat . . ."

[Josh500 1,615]

". . . it might be helpful."

John Williams tell this to the musicians of the orchestra during a recording session of RotS. What the heck does that mean? I have no idea, really, but it sure sounds cool.

LOL LOL LOL

[robthehand 3]

I guess it means less legato, but I'm not a violinist, so I couldn't be sure.

[Greg1138 3]

........or it may be something similar to the comment a famous British Conductor made to a somewhat lazy brass player once......"It may help matters enormously if you sit a little nearer to the mouthpiece"....

[Jeshopk 8]

It would have the effect of letting the previous note resonate while starting a sharper attack on the next note. I love to listen to him rehearse in Tanglewood at the open rehearsals. I sit close and take notes so I can be a good conductor one day

[Composer_Fan 2]

^While I haven't taken notes, I too try to notice what he does in the studio. I think it takes an awful lot of skill to lead such a large group of musicians. I remember him talking about crescendi in Battle of the Heroes.

[diskobolus 3]

........or it may be something similar to the comment a famous British Conductor made to a somewhat lazy brass player once......"It may help matters enormously if you sit a little nearer to the mouthpiece"....

Bravo indeed.

[Hitch 57]

"Why do you always start after my beat then rush to catch up? Do you want us to stay behind?" - Eugene Ormandy

[GoodMusician 56]

I'm a string player.

It gives a different sound completly...

If you were to play on the first beat, lift your bow on the second, and then come back in, you would come back in more powerful...

It also tends to cause the first beat to end slightly sooner. so their is a little gap between beat one and two.

Chances are he was trying to get them to play vigorously and so that on beat two, they'd all lift their bows--which means taking the bow which would now be at the tip, and making a kind of arc in the air, and putting the hairs near the "frog" or that part near the players hand down onto the strings, causing them to come in-together and with some energy.

Waltz's often use this so that their is a gap between beat 1 and two, and so that two is stronger than 1...

or as stated, if done fast enough, and with strength on the first note, that can resonante until the next note comes in with power...

EDIT:

It also occurs to me that because certain phrases and especially things John writes are hard for string players to play, he may be saying to lift at that point so that the players have enough bow to play the next phrase without interruption... in that case, no real change in sound would happen except the next phrase would be intact....