Sul tasto

As Printed on a Score

Printed above the string staff as sul tasto (French sur la touche, German am Griffbrett), and in force until ordinario or naturale. It is often paired with a soft dynamic or dolce. It is not tasto solo, a continuo instruction for the keyboard player to play the bass line alone.

How Composers Use It

Sul tasto is the opposite of sul ponticello — it produces a muted, ethereal sound with weak overtones. Use it for dreamy, distant effects or extremely soft passages where you want the strings to blend into transparency.

Example

Beach, Symphony in E minor (“Gaelic”), Op. 32, fourth movement, first violins, m. 385: “sul tasto” with “dolce”, taken up by second violins and violas in the next bar.

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