for string players....?

Question

what's rubato? i'm pretty sure it's an advanced bow stroke.

Answer 1

Tempo rubato (Italian stolen time) is a musical term for slightly speeding up or slowing down the tempo of a piece at the discretion of the soloist or the conductor. It also requires the use of altering the relationships among the written note values, and the played ones.
For instance, if a piece of music had a quarter note followed by an eighth note, and the tempo was slowed down so the quarter note was as a sixteenth note tied to a quarter note, the eighth note would have to be sped up to a sixteenth note so as to make up for the lost time. Rubato, even when not denoted, is often used liberally by many singers for added musical effect by singing at a slightly different tempo than that of the accompaniment.

Answer 2

Although what the others said is true, in that rubato involves taking some liberaties with the tempo, there is more to it. In general, for string players, rubato means to really "smultz" it up. You put a lot of feeling into the music by putting yourself into it - you make it dramatic. You try to vibrato on each and every note, drawing out each note and really making it count. You use a lot of harmonics and sol G or sol D (staying on those strings using higher positons instead of using the higher strings. Gypsy music is a good example of music where a lot of rubato is used.

Answer 3

Rubato is part of general dynamics. It involves slightly speeding or slowing a phrase to give emotional emphasis. Sometimes it is described as borrowing from one note and lending to another. Imagine a phrase of four sixteenth notes that lead to a quarter note. A typical rubato would be to play the sixteenths a trifle quickle so that you land on the quarter not ahead of the beat, thus giving the quarter note greater emphasis.

Really it's all about feeling; happens all the time when a player is coloring the phrasing from the heart.