When to change the bow

Hi Ed,
Norman Pickering, an important stringed instrument researcher, couldn't find any evidence for bow hair wearing out with use, and recommended cleaning rather than replacing it if not too many hairs had broken. Luthier David Burgess does report wear from use, though even he doubts it's responsible for most changes in playing quality.

At www.violinist.com/discussion/response.cfm?ID=18371, Andrew Victor says that the easiest way to clean your bow hair

is with the "alcohol swabs" sold individually sealed in boxes of 100 by every drug store for about $2 for 100 swabs.
The key is to understand what the alcohol does to the rosin and other junk on the bow hairs. The alcohol dissolves the rosin, so the alcohol, with the rosin it has dissolved must be removed immediately with a dry cloth. I find it takes 4 to 8 swipes of the alcohol pads to clean a bow's hair well enough. There is enough alcohol on each swab to use it for two swipes (one with each side of the pad), each immediately followed by use of the dry cotton cloth. I consider that I am finished when the yellow rosin no longer shows on the dry, white cotton cloth. Removing the soiling from finger-skin oil that collects on the hair near the frog is the least of the good things such cleaning does for you.
Next it is important to let the bow hair dry completely before re-rosining it. You can check the hair for dryness by touching it to the back of your hand; when it no longer feels cool - it's safe to re-rosin it. It will not be pristine, as when the hair was brand new, but it will still need to be rosined to play properly.
I have found that using alcohol cleaning of bow hair I can keep a bow going just fine as long as it has enough hair to play properly. This is important to me, because I have a lot of bows. Also, when I have experimented with many different rosins, it has been important to get (some of) them off my bow hair.
Use causes rosin to melt into bow hair and this can be detrimental to sound and technique on many bows (however, for some things it might help some players).

If you'd rather use bottled alcohol, note that, though he believes "70% or 91% rubbing alcohol (isopropyl alcohol) works as well as denatured ethanol", some rubbing alcohol contains additives like soap that you wouldn't want on your hair.

The differences between better-quality rosins aren't that large; Pirastro Goldflex should be fine. For what it's worth, among real obsessives, Baker's rosins (which aren't generally available) seem to be liked best, with Larica's in second place and the cheaper Bernardel in third.

Great!

How would you know how fresh a cake of rosin is? There's no "use-by" on my rosin at least. My Pirastro rosin is five or six years old at least, and working fine.

Best wishes,

David

Hi David, if your Pirastro rosin doesn't have a use-by date on it, it's past its use-by date . They started dating them a while ago.

The (small) differences in sound you get with different rosins will never be quite predictable, because they depend in part on the barely-conscious feedback loop involved in your bowing. A change in the friction you feel and the tone you hear will effect your bowing, which will change the friction you feel and the tone your hear...

Moreover, I don't know how well the behaviour of violin rosins maps onto erhus, with their completely different strings and bow. (Because its hair is much tighter, a violin bow really is part of the same vibrating system as the strings and instrument, which is why people will spend $100,000 on one.)

All that being said, I find my Larica Gold sounds very smooth. Larica Gold I will sound smoother than II.

If you Google on "does violin rosin go bad" without the quotes, you will find a good list of violin forum threads on this topic. As on our forum, the opinions are all over the place. Some have used rosin that is decades old, and others replace their rosin yearly.

Interesting.

Best wishes,

David