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I came across this article when looking for different information. It was quite interesting. I was looking for information on using “Hammer On” with Danny Boy to embellish the areas that are crying for vibrato. I have been experimenting while waiting for vibrato to “make an appearance” because it is a long way off. I am not sure if “pull off” is used with violin like it is on guitar anf banjo, have not investigated that yet, but in the meantime, while in estigating hammer in and pull off, I read this and watched its included video. Kind of neat. Much we already know, but still interesting. Enjoy.
https://www.wqxr.org/story/wha.....olin-bows/
Off to start my day.
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Cid - A very interesting piece, especially the video by Sharon Kwee. Finally an explanation of the physical reason that bows need to be rehaired - when the surface scales/plates wear out and can no longer hold the rosin. I suppose the key thing is to figure out when that is happening as I'm sure it is a very gradual process. Thanks for the link.
Dennis
If I don't have time for a short post, I'll write a long post - (adapted from Mark Twain)
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DennisS said
Cid - A very interesting piece, especially the video by Sharon Kwee. Finally an explanation of the physical reason that bows need to be rehaired - when the surface scales/plates wear out and can no longer hold the rosin. I suppose the key thing is to figure out when that is happening as I'm sure it is a very gradual process. Thanks for the link.Dennis
It's gradual, but at some point you're going to notice that you have to rosin your bow much more frequently than before or tighten the bow more to get the same sound, or that the bow feels like it's slipping on the string.
But that doesn't always mean a rehair is needed. Too much rosin building up on the bow hairs can have the same effect. If you think you need a rehair, first try wiping rosin off the bow hairs with a dry cloth to see if it solves the problem.
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From what I have read, the adhesion is mostly due to the electrical attraction of the rosin particles to the keratin in the horse hair.
Success is the progressive realisation of a worthy ideal. —Earl Nightingale.
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AndrewH said
that doesn't always mean a rehair is needed. Too much rosin building up on the bow hairs can have the same effect. If you think you need a rehair, first try wiping rosin off the bow hairs with a dry cloth to see if it solves the problem.
My teacher was saying something similar yesterday - when she was a student and couldn't afford to rehair so often, she used to remove the frog and wash the bow hair gently by hand in soap and water and then hang it up to dry and that gave it a new lease of life.
She also warned me against touching the hair to feel how much grip it has, as the grease from your fingers can prevent the rosin from sticking to the hair, but that is also solved by washing it.
Andrew
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I'm not sure how much rosin you can remove with water and soap.
I know that some people remove the rosin with alcohol but I've never done it.
Alcohol is frequently used though to remove sticky rosin from one place or another but you must be VERY careful not to get it on your varnish. I will soften or remove varnish as well.
"The richest person is not the one who has the most,
but the one who needs the least."
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Fiddlerman said
I'm not sure how much rosin you can remove with water and soap.
I know that some people remove the rosin with alcohol but I've never done it.
Alcohol dissolves protein. She uses it for strings (about once every 3 gigs, she said) but never for her bow. We were just chatting during lunch, so I may have misheard the beginning of what she was saying. Thinking of times when I've got tree sap on my hands, soap didn't do much good, lol. Well, not in the short term.
Is it possible that the deeply embedded rosin in the bow hair attracts dirt and stuff, and that needs removal?
Andrew
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Gordon, was it you or Irv or someone else who mentioned that static electricity played a role in rosin adhering to bow hair?
So I'm thinking that if the bow hair starts getting greasy either from handling or particles in the air, then its ability to hold an electric charge is diminished. At least that's the way it work when my longish, grey hair is freshly washed... lots of static electricity. When I apply a tiny drop of argan oil, problem solved... static electricity is gone.
That's the opposite of what I want for my bow hair (and no, I've never tried rubbing rosin on my freshly conditioned hair to see if it sticks :-))
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bocaholly said
Gordon, was it you or Irv or someone else who mentioned that static electricity played a role in rosin adhering to bow hair?
I think it was Irv, but at the time I suspected he was being very technical about how many different adhesive mechanisms there are (i.e. how many ways do glues work?). Even certain molecules bind together, technically speaking, by static electricity (e.g. salts. It's more technical than that, but it works as an explanation at high school level). I could be wrong, so I apologise to Irv if I have misrepresented him.
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Rosin mainly adheres to horse hair through electrostatic attraction.
The hair is soaked in warm water mixed with mild soap before the second knot is made in the initial process of hairing a bow (we are, after all, talking about a natural product coming from the hind end of a horse). Soaking the hair in soapy water once insertion is made is likely to cause a lot of loose hairs. It is possible to even out the hair by the use of an alcohol lamp or hot air gun, but that is not an easy process.
I do not know if the need to rehair is due to the gradual descaling, the build up of contaminates which diminish electrostatic charge, a combination of both, or something else. It is obvious that hair quality varies widely in its capacity for rosin. I have had new bows ready to play with rosin after less than a minute preparation. Other bows take ten minutes. I have a few “eBay special” bows that are unplayable because of their complete refusal to accept any rosin regardless of effort.
It would be an interesting experiment to soak inexpensive bow hair in a mixture of warm distilled water and commercial “swimmer’s shampoo” which contains the compound EDTA (which removes chlorine from hair), and see if it improves the quality of the hair.
Success is the progressive realisation of a worthy ideal. —Earl Nightingale.
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What rosin does to a bow is, makes it work.
.
Mark
Master the Frog and you have mastered the bow.
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We even bought a large amount of Zarelon hair that we are supposed to sand lightly with 100 grid paper. About 15 strokes or so. Apparently to increase the grip. I can see where this makes a bit of sense.
"The richest person is not the one who has the most,
but the one who needs the least."
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