Is it more important/urgent to upgrade the strings or the bo

[kuzheng]

I paid about $370 for an erhu, and I have limited cash for buying either new strings or a new bow. Which would you say is more important?

I think my bow's hairs are pretty abysmal. They remind me of the bow hairs on my starter violin.
But the strings I have tend to go scraaaake in a way that I'm not sure if it's me, the rosin, the strings getting gummy even after repetitive cleaning with alcohol, or the erhu itself.

What would you recommend for an erhu bow for $40 and less with shipping
And for strings that last a long time but sound good for $25 and less with shipping?

Eason's shipping fees to USA are pretty high for isntruments so I assume it's going to be expensive for shipping even bows and strings, so I'm avoiding it for now.

[edcat7]

Hi Kuzheng and welcome.

Perhaps you haven't put enough rosin on bow. I can't remember which brand of strings I use but I'm very happy with them and I think they were the one of the cheapest on the market.

I rarely use alcohol to clean my strings. Perhaps you could include a few photos? btw how long did you play the violin and did you get tuition on it.

Ed

[davidmdahl]

Any of the strings and bows at Eason Music would be fine for your erhu. It is not necessary to pay a lot of money for erhu strings. After trying a lot of the soloist strings, I would up with some budget level strings from Huqiu that work best for me and my erhu. Even the Dunhuang/Mudan strings would not be a bad choice. In the same way, any of the professional level bows at Eason should be fine. If you buy elsewhere, look for white bow hair. I understand that there are bows with high-quality black bow hair, but my best experience is with white bow hair.

In my experience, the rosin shipped with a new erhu is not necessarily suitable. I found that a dry light amber violin rosin works best. The dark viola or cello rosin is usually too sticky. I currently use Bernardel rosin, which costs about $12 on Amazon. I have also used Pirastro Obligato with good results.

Best wishes,

David