First, the melody is played on the

First, the melody is played on the highest string; then all three strings play together: the melody is repeated by the first two at the octave, while the third string acts as a drone. This practice, which broadens and intensifies the sound, obviously gave medieval bowed music its special characteristics. As in early vocal polyphony-the parallel organum of the Musica Enchiriadis—this ‘mixture-stop' sound can be shown to have been produced by various other medieval instruments. The technique of stopping two or three strings at a time implies that the bow excited several strings simultancously.