After months of waiting, I am FINALLY going bow shopping! I'm so excited! I'm actually glad I waited because it's only lately that I'm beginning to have an idea of how I'm supposed to be using the darn thing, anyway.
I've searched all the past discussions and I know that it's an individual thing, it depends on the player, the fiddle, etc. There are lots of characteristics to consider like weight, balance point, sound, etc. So I thought I'd take an informal poll and see how everyone feels about their bow. What do you like about your bow? What are the good things about it and why? And if there are things that you don't like so much, why not? All input is much appreciated!
I have a Coda Conservatory. I like that it's CF so I can whack people with it at sessions without fear of it breaking.
But seriously, I like the bow a lot. It sounds right and it feels right, plain and simple. It seems a touch heavier and more solid (in a pleasing way) than the Coda Aspire, which I also tried and liked somewhat. And it's definitely superior to the wood bows I have played with.
I think that there is a good chance that this is the best bow I will ever "need"...probably as good a bow as my abilities will ever warrant.
Good topic! I have two main bows that I switch between. They're both very similar--within a few tenths of a gram of 60 grams, balanced toward the frog a bit, and lively. For whatever reason, one bow tends to draw more volume out when I need it, and the other seems better for softer, more nuanced playing. So that's how I use them.
I like the strong, clear, smooth tone both produce, how quick and precisely they respond to bowed triplets and short single bow strokes. I like how even the response of the hair is from frog to tip--no mushy spots, no bouncey spots in the sticks.
And I like how inexpensive they were--after playing with $1,000 to $3,000 (an inherited one) bows for years, I'm tickled to have *two* great pernambuco sticks I paid a total of less than $500 for. They're both Water Violet bows, one by Cirillo, and the other by Zucolotto.
I also still like my Coda Classic for it's big warm tone and power (and indestructibility). It's for sale-- $500 USD including the original bow case (email me if interested).
I like the weight and balance. I feel in control when playing from frog to tip. Don't know much about it as I bought it used many years ago. The only marking on it says Chechoslovakia.
I personally hate the one I'm using now, with a fiery burning passion.
That being said, I'm using my cheap, crap-tacular student one that I keep as a spare, since my god one needs re-hairing and my parents won't take me to get it fixed....
That one was given to me used, too, though, but it's cherrywood and I like it just fine. That's all I know about it.
I also have a Coda Conservatory and am really happy with it. I too started with the crap-tastic(registered trademark) bow; the difference was phenomenal. It just fits. It feels natural.
It's great. I love the balance and weight.
I leave it set at around 70 lbs draw weight. So it doesnt kill your arms but it still packs enough to take out most deer.
Heavy bows are the way to go for ITM. You'd think that they'd be more physical work, but I've found that you can do most of your work with your wrist since you aren't needing to apply manual pressure and speed to get good volume.
Thanks for everyone's comments. I know it's going to come down to actually trying lots of bows and seeing how they feel, but it's good to know what's worked for other people, especially since we're talking about Irish fiddling.
mcdevincabe, it's funny you mention heavy bows---my teacher's bow weighs a ton and he definitely doesn't like the lighter bows. I will make sure to look for those and see how they work!
Be sure to draw it across some open strings slowly, with no pressure, and check the 'wobble' about 2/3 of the way up towards the tip - it's the weakest point of the bow and the most susceptible to any unintentional 'bounce'. If you feel you have to push harder down on the strings at that point to control it, you may want to try some others.(Or just live with it if it sounds awesome anyway.) Each one will sound very different, some sounding better on the low strings, some better on high ones. Heavier bows will sound very good on the G - I used a viola one for awhile (by mistake!) because it sounded nice,on the dark tones, but it was hard for me to do fast, light things. Just try several of them - one will just 'click' with your fiddle!
Sarah
In my extremely limited and totally worthless, suspect personal experience, bow *speed* (rather than weight or pressure) is more a contributor to volume. The difference between a light bow and a heavy one is measured in *grams,* maybe 12 or 15 grams at most to go from one extreme of the spectrum to the other. I've owned a 56 gram bow and a 69 gram bow--the lighter one could play just as loud as the heavy one.
The weight of the bow pales next to the weight of your hand or the pressure you can apply with your muscles. Not to mention the stiffness of the stick and hair tension, which is what allows you to apply pressure in the first place.
Total weight also matters less than where that weight is distributed--a 60 gram bow that is "tip heavy" will feel heavier in your hand than a 64 gram bow that is balanced more toward the frog.
I suppose it's a very personal thing. When I got my current bow about 6 years ago, I would take about 4 home from me from the bowmaker, exchange a couple, exchange a couple more, repeat ad nauseum.
In addition to each subsequent batch of bows being more expensive than the last, the ones I liked were also heavier and better balanced.
I love my new bow and its "carbon-fiber" , whatever that means, and it cost me $65. I played a lot of bows ( this is something of an understatement ) and I'm enamored of this inexpensive bow. Don't denigrate a good re-hairing, though.
It fits for me. It just feels right. After a couple of years of looking, I picked it up and said that was the one.
I know it sounds like a '50s movie, but that's really what happened. I like a slightly heavier bow than many, something that gives me a full, solid sound like so many of the great Cape Breton players. You might consider what sound and effect you're after. Plenty of ITM players seem to prefer a light bow that lets them dash fluidly through those jigs and reels.
This may not help at all, Kennedy, but it's another take on buying to think about. I bought a job lot of old bows from a luthier on e-bay (a few were pernambuco, most needed rehairing at the very least, but they were just a few pounds each, so no big risk.) I took the batch along to my friendly local luthier and asked him to advise on which ones were worth restoring. He chose a few as being potentially of merit and brought them up to scratch. So now I have a small harem of more than decent bows from which to choose, all beauties, and each with its own individual qualities. Not one of them will play in tune of course, but that's altogether another story...
Nearly 30 years into this, I still routinely play as much of any shop's bow inventory as I have time for whenever I wander into a fiddle shop. I've played thousands of bows this way, more often than not on my own fiddle (so I know what I'm comparing them against), and learned a lot about bow feel and idiosyncracies. And it costs nothing.
Yeah, that's what I need, a bow that plays in tune! Where do I find one of those, anyway?
I have a feeling that my first good bow won't be my forever bow. I'm still tweaking my bow grip and trying to develop more wrist flexibility, and what works for me now might be different from what I'll want when I actually know what I'm doing.
Can anyone tell me about the balance point factor---tip-heavy vs. frog-heavy? Does anyone have preferences on this?
I love my wood bow for being lightweigt and springy of stick (responsive) without being uncontrollably bouncy.
Another quality of my bow that I adore is that it lets me play with the hair quite loose. I don't know how to explain it other than this... on my bow, you only need to tighten the hair to the point where at its closest (in about the middle) it's 1cm from the stick. The bow plays great at this tightness, and even playing a loud vigorous march or something, you don't find yourself playing on the stick. On some student bows, the hair has to be much tighter to allow you to apply pressure in the middle. Some of them, you have to tighten so the hair is almost an inch from the stick at the closest place. Needing to tighten the hair this much makes the bow bouncy and hard to control.
I'm sure you've heard this particular piece of advice already, but before you even bother trying out a bow, hold it up to your eyeball and sight down the stick, from the frog to the tip. If the stick is visibly bent sideways, you can eliminate the bow right away. Out bow-shopping with a friend recently, we tried about 20 bows, all under $200 in value. Some of them were bent sideways beyond all usefulness. She ended up picking a really nice bow that I would happily play for hours with, for $100 CDN.
Different bows do get along with different fiddles. Don't ask me why. My fiddle and my spare (carbon fiber) bow hate each other, and it's all I can do to keep them civil when my favoured bow is in the shop.
As I've gained experience over the years, I've gone to lighter bows that are also balanced more toward the frog. I'm not sure, but I'm guessing that this trend is because I've gradually learned to control the bow better, even as I've moved to livelier bows. I've also shifted from playing mostly in the third nearest the tip (as a beginner) to more in the middle of the bow, and using all of the bow, tip to frog, as needed.
Also bear in mind that the balance point can be shifted somewhat by what type of material your "grip" (that little pad around the stick just up from the frog) is made of. Leather, plastic, silver or other metal wire, etc. Different materials and different amounts of material can be used to modify the stick's balance point.
I like a lightweight carbon fiber bow, a bit frog-heavy, with a wide hair-band and a good reverse curve. (The Incredibow, the type of CF bow I use, doesn't curve down toward the hair in the middle; it curves up.) My new Incredibow fits my hand as though it was made for me, and feels perfect. I've been playing an hour or more a day since I got it, and loving every minute.
And I still disagree that a heavier bow necessarily gives you a bigger tone or volume. In my experience, finding a bow that suits your fiddle (or vice versa), as treecipitation suggests above, determines the tone ffar more than the weight of the bow.
There are hundreds of thousands of fiddle bows floating around. How to narrow it down? As a newcomer to the fiddle, I'd look for a bow that is:
(1) stable (not bouncy or skittish);
(2) straight from end to end (not warped);
(3) intact (not broken at the tip or missing bits down at the frog);
(4) within the "norm" for weight--between 58 and 64 grams, say. (Any decent fiddle shop will know each bow's weight, or weigh them for you. Now a days, most shops keep a digital scale on hand.);
(5) feels comfortable in your hand;
(6) lets you feel the vibration of the string in your hand;
and (7) draws the sound *you* want to hear out of *your* fiddle.
You'll most likely pay at least $250 USD to get a decent bow, but you might get lucky and find one for less.
This is such a great site, so many helpful people, I feel very lucky---can I ask one more question? It's about bow hair---I tried a loaner bow a while back and my teacher remarked that the hair was soft---and it did feel kind of "mushy", like you mentioned a while back, Will. Why is the hair on some bows mushy and some not? Is it better to be mushy or non-mushy? (I'm goint a little existential, here, I know, but still...)
I mostly play with my "incredibow." It's very light (like 30 grams!), but plenty loud, and it sounds much better to me than my other (wood) bow. The other one probably needs rehairing, plus it's slightly warped. I don't have a wide experience of bows, but of the ones I've played, I do like my incredibow a lot.
I once got to try someone else's bow (which may have been a Coda something, it had metallic shifting colors) and liked it a lot too. It was much heavier than mine, but that didn't bother me, and the balence was really nice. I wish I knew exactly what it was about the balence that felt so good.
Kennedy, if the hair length isn't set right when a bow is rehaired, it may not come up to tension properly. Hair also responds to changes in humidity, but the design of the stick and a proper hair length should accomodate that. Hair also stretches over time from being pulled up to playing tension, but it'll break before stretching so far that it won't come up to normal tension.
Hair that gets oil on it (oops, dropped my bow in the butter dish; erm, I cleaned by bow with WD-40 and now it won't play) can also go mushy.
The broader answer is that some bows are haired improperly (even when new), some are cambered improperly, and some have problems with the tensioning screw and frog threads. Any of which can lead to hair tensioning and other problems.
I like a bow that comes to playing tension with the hair still very close to the stick, but that will allow a higher tension as needed. It takes a fair amount of camber carved into the bow to do this, and a strong, stable, resilient piece of wood. This gives the bow liveliness and stability--the paradoxical qualities of a well-made bow.
Sometimes a really great bow can be disguised by a sloppy rehair job. But the best rehair in the world won't make up for a poorly made bow.
I have two bows. An expensive (£500) German Pernambuco pine one which I thought was really good until I tried an £80 Incredibow (carbon fibre with kevlar hair) last year. I have not touched the wooden bow since. Incredibows are great; suberbly balanced and you can do everything with it so much more easily as it is so light and responsive.
To CHESHIRE PUDDY TAT. Yes you have luck, you can find a really nice pernambuco bow for less 250US$. Please send to me an e-mail:brasilianbowmakersoutletshop@yahoo.com.br, and I will show you how.
Cirillo.
Hi Natalia -- you're right. I already own one of your husband's fine pernambuco bows (with a beautiful snakewood frog), and I paid less than $250 US for it. It is my main bow.
But I don't need a second one, thank you.
I am encouraging my local music shop to stock Cirillo bows, and several local players are now happy owners of Cirillo bows. Keep up the good work!
What do you like about your bow?
What do you like about your bow?
After months of waiting, I am FINALLY going bow shopping! I'm so excited! I'm actually glad I waited because it's only lately that I'm beginning to have an idea of how I'm supposed to be using the darn thing, anyway.
I've searched all the past discussions and I know that it's an individual thing, it depends on the player, the fiddle, etc. There are lots of characteristics to consider like weight, balance point, sound, etc. So I thought I'd take an informal poll and see how everyone feels about their bow. What do you like about your bow? What are the good things about it and why? And if there are things that you don't like so much, why not? All input is much appreciated!
# Posted on May 2nd 2007 by kennedy
Re: What do you like about your bow?
I have a Coda Conservatory. I like that it's CF so I can whack people with it at sessions without fear of it breaking.
But seriously, I like the bow a lot. It sounds right and it feels right, plain and simple. It seems a touch heavier and more solid (in a pleasing way) than the Coda Aspire, which I also tried and liked somewhat. And it's definitely superior to the wood bows I have played with.
I think that there is a good chance that this is the best bow I will ever "need"...probably as good a bow as my abilities will ever warrant.
# Posted on May 2nd 2007 by crazy_fingerz
Re: What do you like about your bow?
Good topic! I have two main bows that I switch between. They're both very similar--within a few tenths of a gram of 60 grams, balanced toward the frog a bit, and lively. For whatever reason, one bow tends to draw more volume out when I need it, and the other seems better for softer, more nuanced playing. So that's how I use them.
I like the strong, clear, smooth tone both produce, how quick and precisely they respond to bowed triplets and short single bow strokes. I like how even the response of the hair is from frog to tip--no mushy spots, no bouncey spots in the sticks.
And I like how inexpensive they were--after playing with $1,000 to $3,000 (an inherited one) bows for years, I'm tickled to have *two* great pernambuco sticks I paid a total of less than $500 for. They're both Water Violet bows, one by Cirillo, and the other by Zucolotto.
I also still like my Coda Classic for it's big warm tone and power (and indestructibility). It's for sale-- $500 USD including the original bow case (email me if interested).
# Posted on May 2nd 2007 by Will CPT
Re: What do you like about your bow?
He's honest, handsome, funny, rich...........oh, did you say bow?
Thought you said Beau.
Mary
# Posted on May 2nd 2007 by Antikhntr
Re: What do you like about your bow?
Seriously,
I like the weight and balance. I feel in control when playing from frog to tip. Don't know much about it as I bought it used many years ago. The only marking on it says Chechoslovakia.
Mary
# Posted on May 2nd 2007 by Antikhntr
Re: What do you like about your bow?
I personally hate the one I'm using now, with a fiery burning passion.
That being said, I'm using my cheap, crap-tacular student one that I keep as a spare, since my god one needs re-hairing and my parents won't take me to get it fixed....
That one was given to me used, too, though, but it's cherrywood and I like it just fine. That's all I know about it.
# Posted on May 2nd 2007 by possumawesome
Re: What do you like about your bow?
Its a funny one. You get used to the one you have until you get used to another one.
Bit like a fiddle, you're not sure how nice your own is until you get to play another for a while..
# Posted on May 2nd 2007 by richrua
Re: What do you like about your bow?
I also have a Coda Conservatory and am really happy with it. I too started with the crap-tastic(registered trademark) bow; the difference was phenomenal. It just fits. It feels natural.
# Posted on May 2nd 2007 by Agnes Nutter
Re: What do you like about your bow?
Mine ran about $900. USD.
It's great. I love the balance and weight.
I leave it set at around 70 lbs draw weight. So it doesnt kill your arms but it still packs enough to take out most deer.
Or terrorists, or punters.
# Posted on May 2nd 2007 by wormdiet
Re: What do you like about your bow?
Heavy bows are the way to go for ITM. You'd think that they'd be more physical work, but I've found that you can do most of your work with your wrist since you aren't needing to apply manual pressure and speed to get good volume.
# Posted on May 3rd 2007 by mcdevincabe
Re: What do you like about your bow?
Thanks for everyone's comments. I know it's going to come down to actually trying lots of bows and seeing how they feel, but it's good to know what's worked for other people, especially since we're talking about Irish fiddling.
mcdevincabe, it's funny you mention heavy bows---my teacher's bow weighs a ton and he definitely doesn't like the lighter bows. I will make sure to look for those and see how they work!
# Posted on May 3rd 2007 by kennedy
Re: What do you like about your bow?
Be sure to draw it across some open strings slowly, with no pressure, and check the 'wobble' about 2/3 of the way up towards the tip - it's the weakest point of the bow and the most susceptible to any unintentional 'bounce'. If you feel you have to push harder down on the strings at that point to control it, you may want to try some others.(Or just live with it if it sounds awesome anyway.) Each one will sound very different, some sounding better on the low strings, some better on high ones. Heavier bows will sound very good on the G - I used a viola one for awhile (by mistake!) because it sounded nice,on the dark tones, but it was hard for me to do fast, light things. Just try several of them - one will just 'click' with your fiddle!
Sarah
# Posted on May 3rd 2007 by dragonfiddle
Re: What do you like about your bow?
In my extremely limited and totally worthless, suspect personal experience, bow *speed* (rather than weight or pressure) is more a contributor to volume. The difference between a light bow and a heavy one is measured in *grams,* maybe 12 or 15 grams at most to go from one extreme of the spectrum to the other. I've owned a 56 gram bow and a 69 gram bow--the lighter one could play just as loud as the heavy one.
The weight of the bow pales next to the weight of your hand or the pressure you can apply with your muscles. Not to mention the stiffness of the stick and hair tension, which is what allows you to apply pressure in the first place.
Total weight also matters less than where that weight is distributed--a 60 gram bow that is "tip heavy" will feel heavier in your hand than a 64 gram bow that is balanced more toward the frog.
# Posted on May 3rd 2007 by Will CPT
Re: What do you like about your bow?
I suppose it's a very personal thing. When I got my current bow about 6 years ago, I would take about 4 home from me from the bowmaker, exchange a couple, exchange a couple more, repeat ad nauseum.
In addition to each subsequent batch of bows being more expensive than the last, the ones I liked were also heavier and better balanced.
# Posted on May 3rd 2007 by mcdevincabe
Re: What do you like about your bow?
I love my new bow and its "carbon-fiber" , whatever that means, and it cost me $65. I played a lot of bows ( this is something of an understatement ) and I'm enamored of this inexpensive bow. Don't denigrate a good re-hairing, though.
# Posted on May 3rd 2007 by Farr
Re: What do you like about your bow?
it hasn't exploded!
(yes my friend said it has happend to him!)
cool name for a cd... 'the exploding bow'
# Posted on May 3rd 2007 by SamW
Re: What do you like about your bow?
It fits for me. It just feels right. After a couple of years of looking, I picked it up and said that was the one.
I know it sounds like a '50s movie, but that's really what happened. I like a slightly heavier bow than many, something that gives me a full, solid sound like so many of the great Cape Breton players. You might consider what sound and effect you're after. Plenty of ITM players seem to prefer a light bow that lets them dash fluidly through those jigs and reels.
# Posted on May 3rd 2007 by cathrynb
Re: What do you like about your bow?
This may not help at all, Kennedy, but it's another take on buying to think about. I bought a job lot of old bows from a luthier on e-bay (a few were pernambuco, most needed rehairing at the very least, but they were just a few pounds each, so no big risk.) I took the batch along to my friendly local luthier and asked him to advise on which ones were worth restoring. He chose a few as being potentially of merit and brought them up to scratch. So now I have a small harem of more than decent bows from which to choose, all beauties, and each with its own individual qualities. Not one of them will play in tune of course, but that's altogether another story...
# Posted on May 3rd 2007 by P-K
Re: What do you like about your bow?
Nearly 30 years into this, I still routinely play as much of any shop's bow inventory as I have time for whenever I wander into a fiddle shop. I've played thousands of bows this way, more often than not on my own fiddle (so I know what I'm comparing them against), and learned a lot about bow feel and idiosyncracies. And it costs nothing.
# Posted on May 3rd 2007 by Will CPT
Re: What do you like about your bow?
Yeah, that's what I need, a bow that plays in tune! Where do I find one of those, anyway?
I have a feeling that my first good bow won't be my forever bow. I'm still tweaking my bow grip and trying to develop more wrist flexibility, and what works for me now might be different from what I'll want when I actually know what I'm doing.
Can anyone tell me about the balance point factor---tip-heavy vs. frog-heavy? Does anyone have preferences on this?
# Posted on May 3rd 2007 by kennedy
Re: What do you like about your bow?
I love my wood bow for being lightweigt and springy of stick (responsive) without being uncontrollably bouncy.
Another quality of my bow that I adore is that it lets me play with the hair quite loose. I don't know how to explain it other than this... on my bow, you only need to tighten the hair to the point where at its closest (in about the middle) it's 1cm from the stick. The bow plays great at this tightness, and even playing a loud vigorous march or something, you don't find yourself playing on the stick. On some student bows, the hair has to be much tighter to allow you to apply pressure in the middle. Some of them, you have to tighten so the hair is almost an inch from the stick at the closest place. Needing to tighten the hair this much makes the bow bouncy and hard to control.
I'm sure you've heard this particular piece of advice already, but before you even bother trying out a bow, hold it up to your eyeball and sight down the stick, from the frog to the tip. If the stick is visibly bent sideways, you can eliminate the bow right away. Out bow-shopping with a friend recently, we tried about 20 bows, all under $200 in value. Some of them were bent sideways beyond all usefulness. She ended up picking a really nice bow that I would happily play for hours with, for $100 CDN.
Different bows do get along with different fiddles. Don't ask me why. My fiddle and my spare (carbon fiber) bow hate each other, and it's all I can do to keep them civil when my favoured bow is in the shop.
# Posted on May 3rd 2007 by treecipitation
Re: What do you like about your bow?
As I've gained experience over the years, I've gone to lighter bows that are also balanced more toward the frog. I'm not sure, but I'm guessing that this trend is because I've gradually learned to control the bow better, even as I've moved to livelier bows. I've also shifted from playing mostly in the third nearest the tip (as a beginner) to more in the middle of the bow, and using all of the bow, tip to frog, as needed.
Also bear in mind that the balance point can be shifted somewhat by what type of material your "grip" (that little pad around the stick just up from the frog) is made of. Leather, plastic, silver or other metal wire, etc. Different materials and different amounts of material can be used to modify the stick's balance point.
# Posted on May 3rd 2007 by Will CPT
Re: What do you like about your bow?
I like a lightweight carbon fiber bow, a bit frog-heavy, with a wide hair-band and a good reverse curve. (The Incredibow, the type of CF bow I use, doesn't curve down toward the hair in the middle; it curves up.) My new Incredibow fits my hand as though it was made for me, and feels perfect. I've been playing an hour or more a day since I got it, and loving every minute.
# Posted on May 3rd 2007 by sara g
Re: What do you like about your bow?
And I still disagree that a heavier bow necessarily gives you a bigger tone or volume. In my experience, finding a bow that suits your fiddle (or vice versa), as treecipitation suggests above, determines the tone ffar more than the weight of the bow.
There are hundreds of thousands of fiddle bows floating around. How to narrow it down? As a newcomer to the fiddle, I'd look for a bow that is:
(1) stable (not bouncy or skittish);
(2) straight from end to end (not warped);
(3) intact (not broken at the tip or missing bits down at the frog);
(4) within the "norm" for weight--between 58 and 64 grams, say. (Any decent fiddle shop will know each bow's weight, or weigh them for you. Now a days, most shops keep a digital scale on hand.);
(5) feels comfortable in your hand;
(6) lets you feel the vibration of the string in your hand;
and (7) draws the sound *you* want to hear out of *your* fiddle.
You'll most likely pay at least $250 USD to get a decent bow, but you might get lucky and find one for less.
# Posted on May 3rd 2007 by Will CPT
Re: What do you like about your bow?
This is such a great site, so many helpful people, I feel very lucky---can I ask one more question? It's about bow hair---I tried a loaner bow a while back and my teacher remarked that the hair was soft---and it did feel kind of "mushy", like you mentioned a while back, Will. Why is the hair on some bows mushy and some not? Is it better to be mushy or non-mushy? (I'm goint a little existential, here, I know, but still...)
# Posted on May 3rd 2007 by kennedy
Re: What do you like about your bow?
I mostly play with my "incredibow." It's very light (like 30 grams!), but plenty loud, and it sounds much better to me than my other (wood) bow. The other one probably needs rehairing, plus it's slightly warped. I don't have a wide experience of bows, but of the ones I've played, I do like my incredibow a lot.
I once got to try someone else's bow (which may have been a Coda something, it had metallic shifting colors) and liked it a lot too. It was much heavier than mine, but that didn't bother me, and the balence was really nice. I wish I knew exactly what it was about the balence that felt so good.
# Posted on May 3rd 2007 by seisflutes
Re: What do you like about your bow?
Kennedy, if the hair length isn't set right when a bow is rehaired, it may not come up to tension properly. Hair also responds to changes in humidity, but the design of the stick and a proper hair length should accomodate that. Hair also stretches over time from being pulled up to playing tension, but it'll break before stretching so far that it won't come up to normal tension.
Hair that gets oil on it (oops, dropped my bow in the butter dish; erm, I cleaned by bow with WD-40 and now it won't play) can also go mushy.
The broader answer is that some bows are haired improperly (even when new), some are cambered improperly, and some have problems with the tensioning screw and frog threads. Any of which can lead to hair tensioning and other problems.
I like a bow that comes to playing tension with the hair still very close to the stick, but that will allow a higher tension as needed. It takes a fair amount of camber carved into the bow to do this, and a strong, stable, resilient piece of wood. This gives the bow liveliness and stability--the paradoxical qualities of a well-made bow.
Sometimes a really great bow can be disguised by a sloppy rehair job. But the best rehair in the world won't make up for a poorly made bow.
# Posted on May 3rd 2007 by Will CPT
Re: What do you like about your bow?
I have two bows. An expensive (£500) German Pernambuco pine one which I thought was really good until I tried an £80 Incredibow (carbon fibre with kevlar hair) last year. I have not touched the wooden bow since. Incredibows are great; suberbly balanced and you can do everything with it so much more easily as it is so light and responsive.
Mmmmmm! Incredibows.
# Posted on May 4th 2007 by Geoff Pollitt
Re: What do you like about your bow?
What do I like about my Incredibow?
Super-light, very fast, beautiful tone and indestructible hair ... what's not to like (love!).
The first time I used it in a session, my fiddler friends wanted to know if I got a new FIDDLE!
# Posted on May 4th 2007 by KeepFiddlin'
Re: What do you like about your bow?
To CHESHIRE PUDDY TAT. Yes you have luck, you can find a really nice pernambuco bow for less 250US$. Please send to me an e-mail:brasilianbowmakersoutletshop@yahoo.com.br, and I will show you how.
Cirillo.
# Posted on May 17th 2007 by NATALIA CIRILO
Re: What do you like about your bow?
Hi Natalia -- you're right. I already own one of your husband's fine pernambuco bows (with a beautiful snakewood frog), and I paid less than $250 US for it. It is my main bow.
But I don't need a second one, thank you.
I am encouraging my local music shop to stock Cirillo bows, and several local players are now happy owners of Cirillo bows. Keep up the good work!
# Posted on May 17th 2007 by Will CPT