I've been playing fiddle for a good while now, but there's one thing that I've been wondering and maybe you guys can help me out. When you resin your bow, do you start on the up-stroke or the down-stroke? And do you tend to move the bow through the resin or do you prefer to move the resin over the bow?
I personally do kind of a combination-move, where I begin by moving the resin hand, but as I approach the middle of the bow (upstroke!), I begin to move the bow hand as well and end up with the resin hand stationary and the bow hand moving.
Are you teasing us Glenn? By the way, I prefer the word rosin over the word resin. Any thoughts? (Sorry, didn't mean to hijack your thread so early in the game...)
Oh, and Kerri had asked about raw wool for cleaning off strings in the first thread, and I never answered her about that: go to a store that specializes in fibers for weavers, spinners, and knitters and such lot. They'll either have raw wool there, can order it in, or know where to find it. You can also go to a dance store to see if they have any raw lambswool of the type dancers use to stuff the toes of their toeshoes to ease the weight on their feet.
I place the heel of the bow on the round rosin cake, draw down, then up, on full bows, then repeat twice. Don't believe in too much rosin - does no good in any way (and keeps the fiddle belly clean....). Oh... and keep turning the cake so a groove doesn't form.
There - I said it - but I still think there's an element of a wind-up here!
It's very important to know how to rosin your bow. You begin at the top of the bow and slowly ease it through the rosin, section by section, making sure that all the bow is covered. This is the proper way to do it. Other ways can lead to disasterous circumstances such as the wearing of bow hair and the stick getting bent. You should never move your rosin along the bow. Always move the bow along the rosin. The rosining of a bow is a delicate process which requires skill, time and patience. Good luck with the rosining!
Bow hairs, which are hairs from horse tails, have "micro-hairs" on them, and it is these that in combination with the rosin enable the hair to grip the string and cause it to vibrate. I've been told that the accurate explanation is a bit more complicated, but, as Terry Pratchett says, this is a good enough "lie" for starters! Anyway, it seems that these micro-hairs have directional properties with respect to the horse hair, so someone rehairing a bow and knows what they're about will ensure that half of the horse hairs have the micro-hairs pointing in one direction along the bow, and the other half point in the opposite direction. This ensures, when playing, that the bow hair has the same drag on the string independent of the direction of the bow stroke.
Bearing this in mind, I can't see that it matters whether the rosining process is started on an up-bow or down-bow, as long as the bow-hair gets the treatment equally in both directions.
Personally, when rosining my bow I always draw the bow over the rosin at about the same pressure as I use when bowing the string, and in fact use the process as a mini bowing exercise for a few seconds.
Trevor
Whatever you do (and I like Treabhar's suggestion of treating it as a mini bowing-exercise) it is important to do it slowly. Frantic rosining can cause quite a lot of damage as the friction between hair and rosin heats up the rosin - which doesn't need much encouragement to form a hard, glassy surface which coats the hair of the bow. When this happens, the bow will slide over the string and won't grip it. The temptation is then to put more rosin on, which is unlikely to help. The only cure if this happens is to rehair the bow - not an expensive job but not necessary if you are careful to start with.
Mark, good point about the hard glassy surface on the bow hairs produced by too vigorous rosining. I wonder if this could be one explanation why some players are forever breaking bow hairs - the glassy fragments of rosin biting into the hair and weakening it?
If that is the case I must be doing something right. I've had only one hair on my cello bow break in 5 years of busy playing (and that was when the bow got caught up in a music stand), and only two on my fiddle bows in nearly three years.
Trevor
Resin question
Resin question
I've been playing fiddle for a good while now, but there's one thing that I've been wondering and maybe you guys can help me out. When you resin your bow, do you start on the up-stroke or the down-stroke? And do you tend to move the bow through the resin or do you prefer to move the resin over the bow?
I personally do kind of a combination-move, where I begin by moving the resin hand, but as I approach the middle of the bow (upstroke!), I begin to move the bow hand as well and end up with the resin hand stationary and the bow hand moving.
Any thoughts?
# Posted on December 7th 2003 by glenn
Re: Resin question
Are you teasing us Glenn? By the way, I prefer the word rosin over the word resin. Any thoughts? (Sorry, didn't mean to hijack your thread so early in the game...)
# Posted on December 7th 2003 by Andee
Re: Resin question
http://thesession.org/discussions/display.php/168
and
http://thesession.org/discussions/display.php/1566
# Posted on December 7th 2003 by Zina Lee
Oh, and Kerri had asked about raw wool for cleaning off strings in the first thread, and I never answered her about that: go to a store that specializes in fibers for weavers, spinners, and knitters and such lot. They'll either have raw wool there, can order it in, or know where to find it. You can also go to a dance store to see if they have any raw lambswool of the type dancers use to stuff the toes of their toeshoes to ease the weight on their feet.
# Posted on December 7th 2003 by Zina Lee
Re: Resin question
I place the heel of the bow on the round rosin cake, draw down, then up, on full bows, then repeat twice. Don't believe in too much rosin - does no good in any way (and keeps the fiddle belly clean....). Oh... and keep turning the cake so a groove doesn't form.
There - I said it - but I still think there's an element of a wind-up here!
Jim
# Posted on December 7th 2003 by Worldfiddler
Re: Resin question
It's very important to know how to rosin your bow. You begin at the top of the bow and slowly ease it through the rosin, section by section, making sure that all the bow is covered. This is the proper way to do it. Other ways can lead to disasterous circumstances such as the wearing of bow hair and the stick getting bent. You should never move your rosin along the bow. Always move the bow along the rosin. The rosining of a bow is a delicate process which requires skill, time and patience. Good luck with the rosining!
# Posted on December 7th 2003 by Roger O' Miller
Re: Resin question
Bow hairs, which are hairs from horse tails, have "micro-hairs" on them, and it is these that in combination with the rosin enable the hair to grip the string and cause it to vibrate. I've been told that the accurate explanation is a bit more complicated, but, as Terry Pratchett says, this is a good enough "lie" for starters! Anyway, it seems that these micro-hairs have directional properties with respect to the horse hair, so someone rehairing a bow and knows what they're about will ensure that half of the horse hairs have the micro-hairs pointing in one direction along the bow, and the other half point in the opposite direction. This ensures, when playing, that the bow hair has the same drag on the string independent of the direction of the bow stroke.
Bearing this in mind, I can't see that it matters whether the rosining process is started on an up-bow or down-bow, as long as the bow-hair gets the treatment equally in both directions.
Personally, when rosining my bow I always draw the bow over the rosin at about the same pressure as I use when bowing the string, and in fact use the process as a mini bowing exercise for a few seconds.
Trevor
# Posted on December 7th 2003 by lazyhound
Re: Resin question
Whatever you do (and I like Treabhar's suggestion of treating it as a mini bowing-exercise) it is important to do it slowly. Frantic rosining can cause quite a lot of damage as the friction between hair and rosin heats up the rosin - which doesn't need much encouragement to form a hard, glassy surface which coats the hair of the bow. When this happens, the bow will slide over the string and won't grip it. The temptation is then to put more rosin on, which is unlikely to help. The only cure if this happens is to rehair the bow - not an expensive job but not necessary if you are careful to start with.
# Posted on December 7th 2003 by Mark Harmer
Re: Resin question
how? Often
# Posted on December 7th 2003 by llig leahcim
Re: Resin question
Mark, good point about the hard glassy surface on the bow hairs produced by too vigorous rosining. I wonder if this could be one explanation why some players are forever breaking bow hairs - the glassy fragments of rosin biting into the hair and weakening it?
If that is the case I must be doing something right. I've had only one hair on my cello bow break in 5 years of busy playing (and that was when the bow got caught up in a music stand), and only two on my fiddle bows in nearly three years.
Trevor
# Posted on December 7th 2003 by lazyhound
Re: Resin question
Sorry, yes it was a wind-up. Sorry for misspelling
. And thanks to everyone who cared enough to go into detail....
# Posted on December 7th 2003 by glenn
Re: Resin question
Well, some interesting points were raised. Remember, you read them here first!
Trevor
# Posted on December 7th 2003 by lazyhound