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Peter said
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What's your take on rosin dosage and management, Jim?
I make sure I have plenty on and don't worry about (slightly) overdoing it. If I don't put enough on (or forget to do it often enough) I soon know about it as the bow starts sort of 'sliding' over the string and it's hard to produce a good sound without excessive pressure.
I usually rosin every couple of days, maybe 4 or 5 rubs up and down.
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Thanks, Jim.
I haven't depleted a bow's rosin enough to produce this sliding (as opposed to grabbing), so either I'm rosining good or not practising enough.
Peter
"It is vain to do with more that which can be done with less" - William of Ockham
"A crown is merely a hat that lets the rain in" - Frederick the Great
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Hmm. I tend to both hear a rough sound and feel a certain grittiness in my right hand when there is too much rosin on my bow, and I get the sliding within two or three hours of playing time after applying rosin. That said, Jade rosin (and perhaps other low-dust rosins?) has a reputation for not lasting very long on the bow after being applied. I probably got twice as much playing time out of rosining my bow when I used Hill Dark.
If I get the feeling I there's too much rosin, I typically wipe it off the strings first; often removing rosin build-up from the strings is enough to correct the problem. If the sound and feel are not intolerable, I'll just play until it feels normal, which doesn't take that long.
That said, other comments are correct: the first time you apply rosin to new bow hair, you need more. After that, adding rosin is just to maintain a certain level.
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Thanks, @AndrewH - I use Hidersine rosins; a small lump (12V "Junior") is carried in the Solid's gig-bag, and a cake of 3V Hidersine is kept with the antique. It looks like the same material.
Hidersine have a useful guide on the website (which I've just discovered) and this would have answered my original question, had I seen it sooner:
It may take many more months before I attain the sensitivity attested to by many of the respondents here.
Peter
"It is vain to do with more that which can be done with less" - William of Ockham
"A crown is merely a hat that lets the rain in" - Frederick the Great
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Peter said
Thanks, @AndrewH - I use Hidersine rosins; a small lump (12V "Junior") is carried in the Solid's gig-bag, and a cake of 3V Hidersine is kept with the antique. It looks like the same material.Hidersine have a useful guide on the website (which I've just discovered) and this would have answered my original question, had I seen it sooner:
It may take many more months before I attain the sensitivity attested to by many of the respondents here.
Do you mean 1V? I have some 1V and some 3V and I was surprised when the 3V turned out to be the same rosin but a bigger cake, or is it smaller?
I wouldn't go paler than those two.
6V is dark and Hidersine say they recommend it for steel strings, which you can perhaps take with a pinch of salt. Many people use dark rosin, especially when the climate is not too hot, but you can choose between that and Hill dark if you want. Hill is also petite and fits in a small case nicely. But one man's petite is another man's rip-off, lol!
My current favourite is Royal Oak Classic which is a darkish amber, and Guillaume is a slightly darker amber, but I only have it on the sidelines at the moment.
@peter, if your bow was new when you took it to your teacher, I didn't realise.
Andrew
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Yes, petite is good: I judge from my short rosin-user time that even the little block I use with the electric will last years.
And yes, it seems that my teacher is off the hook for being a rosin abuser.
I also felt a little affronted when she asked me to get and apply some intonation stickers; I hope the feeling didn't show because my instruction to her was to bomb me back to the raw basics. Whatever your opinion of putting spots or stripes on the fingerboard, I will dot mine lightly with Tippex (in the manner of the tiny dots on the edge of a guitar fretboard) to mollify her and simply ignore them. I have learned my way around the first position of a fingerboard, and visible marks are unlikely to make my aim any better; I know when I'm off and it's worth snuggling up to the pitch over those last few cents, often just a tiniest roll of the fingertip. I'll remove the dots before lesson three and see if she notices.
Peter
"It is vain to do with more that which can be done with less" - William of Ockham
"A crown is merely a hat that lets the rain in" - Frederick the Great
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I had literally never heard of Hidersine in about 18 years of playing violin and viola before I first saw @Gordon Shumway mention it on this forum, so I have no idea what the numbers mean. It seems to have limited presence in the US.
Also keep in mind that I'm mainly a violist and most violists use dark rosin in all climates. I use Hill Light rosin on violin, but I rarely play violin at all. (Note that I've lived in hot climates my whole life.)
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Basically Hidersine are an English company. My teacher knows the owner.
Otoh, Hill are an English company too, but more famous. There seems to be a business link between them - maybe one owns the other, I don't know.
Andrew
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@peter and others. I started with pin stripe tape on the fingerboard. Tune g and e strings (for this example, the others do not matter). Press down respective strings one at a time with something thin (credit card) and pluck to find accurate notes and mark positions on fingerboard with pencil. Connect the fret dots with automotive pin stripe tape.
Success is the progressive realisation of a worthy ideal. —Earl Nightingale.
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Peter said
I know when I'm off and it's worth snuggling up to the pitch over those last few cents, often just a tiniest roll of the fingertip.
Yes, the ears are the most important thing. Musicians need to learn to use them, but the use they serve on the piano, e.g., is very different from the use they serve on the violin, and they need the training as much as the fingers. I suppose the idea with little kids and sticky tape is to train the fingers first and the ears later.
I use Tippex on guitar necks (I've got a nice Spanish guitar with no fret markers). It's not as destructive as people fear - a fingernail gets rid of it easily.
Andrew
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Gordon Shumway said My current favourite is Royal Oak Classic which is a darkish amber, and Guillaume is a slightly darker amber
I bought another cake of Royal Oak Classic as a backup and noticed that it wasn't the same colour as the first. As a result I have slightly less respect for it than I did, but perhaps this is totally normal? What do you think, @Fiddlerman?
As to how much rosin to use, I have recently been reminded yet again that a beginner needs to interpret pro advice, if naive enough to seek it in the first place.
For example, I tried learning chess in the 80s. Books on openings will tell you all the variations and which has a small advantage, etc. It's only when you realise that you are 100% guaranteed to blow any small advantage out of the water with your very next post-opening move that you realise you totally wasted your time reading those books, and all you need is a basic knowledge of the openings and their strategies, then improve your middle and end game before worrying any more about opening theory.
(Don't ask me anything about chess - I gave up well before the 80s were out.)
Recently I've been using my cheaper carbon bow (because I still hate my hybrid) and, while aggressively working on my tone, slathering dark (Hill and Hidersine) rosin all over it with reckless abandon (whereas previously I had been using Guillaume and Royal Oak sparingly), and frankly I sound a lot better now. So as beginners we have to realise that if you sound like crap, don't even ask what pro violinists do, just keep practising (with your ears open).
AndrewH said
I had literally never heard of Hidersine in about 18 years of playing violin and viola...It seems to have limited presence in the US.
Yeah, perhaps they are over-selling themselves when they say they are world famous, lol.
My teacher, a pro-violist, in case you had forgotten, had used Hidersine rosin for 30 years, but she went to a summer school/workshop in Cremona last year where the rosin makers (including Leatherwood) were handing out free samples, and she is now convinced that more expensive rosins are better and worth the money.
Andrew
Verified human - the ignominy!
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