More About Rosin

[dsouthwood]

I have been taking erhu lessons for a short time, and one of the things I have struggled with is getting the right amount of rosin on the bow. My erhu teacher told me the right amount is "not very much" and that he might rosin his bow once a year.

My guzheng teacher, who also teaches cello, didn't think much of the rosin that came with my erhu, and implied that it was 99-cent store quality at best, so I got some nice violin rosin from the Internet. I then took the advice from another thread on this forum and used shampoo to clean the old rosin off my bow and then applied the new rosin. It took a while before the amount of rosin seemed even on all parts of the bow hair, and by that time I had too much rosin on it. So as an experiment, I took the can of compressed air that I have for blowing the dust out of my computer and used that to blow the excess rosin off the bow hairs. It worked; I now have a bow that gives me a nice, smooth sound without too much grab.

I would love to see feedback on this.

[paulv]

dsouthwood,

What ever you do, be careful when cleaning your bow. I've successfully washed my bow several times (because I also would put too much rosin on it), but one time I didn't want to wait and ended up scrapping off the rosin. Consequently, this ruined my bow and my erhu playing sounds horrible now. I don't want to buy a new bow because I like the bamboo on my bow so I have to buy another in which the hair is easy to remove so I can install it on my existing bamboo.

Anyway, you want some advice and not hear my sob story.

My teacher told me to hold the bow like I would while normally playing and snap the hair to shake off excess rosin.

How much and how frequently to apply rosin is determined by the rosin you have and how much playing you're doing (and also temperature/humidity). I've learned now to put just enough rosin to make the erhu sound good and that's all.

Good luck,

Regards,
Paul...

[paulv]

dsouthwood,
Forgot one thing -- which rosin are you using as everyone has their "pet" rosin?

Regards,
Paul

[davidmdahl]

I have not had nearly so much trouble with rosin. I just apply about ten full up and back strokes per side every couple of weeks when the sound is becoming uneven. It seems to me that once per year is not very much. I suppose this will depend on the amount of playing and the type of rosin, among other factors. It is interesting that there is such a variation. My teacher plays quite often enough. I will have to ask him how often he reapplies rosin.

When it comes down to it, I suppose whatever works is good enough.

Best wishes,

David

[calden]

Hey all:

I play until things start feeling slippy, normallly about two weeks for me if I play 4-5 times a week about an hour each time, then I put on more rosin. I use plain old violin rosin, nothing special. I rub it in short strokes, in 4-5" long sections, about 5-8 times each, moving then to the next section down the bow. I then put it inside the bow and rosin the inside. When I then start to play I have little puffs of rosin dust coming off the bow, and I play really hard to get rid of this excess. Then it sounds good.

I avoid the little lump of stuff that came with my original erhu - it just crumbles and is messy.

Carlos

[maaltan]

the little green lump that came with mine does nothing. I rubbed it on hard for at least 30 minutes and it still barely grabbed the strings. To bad really. it was pretty. a very dark green.

the cheapo cake i got from a random local music shop (well there is only one ...) worked within 5 strokes.

I doubt im going to invest in any of the professional grade cakes for a while. I just don't see what benefit of precious metals included in some of them other than to just increase the price.

on the other hand, lead maybe. Lead is slippery and might even out the affects of the rosin. I wouldn't want to be around anybody with leaded rosin. They will eventually go crazy.

[davidbadagnani]

Lead rosin! Wow, that's a wild idea. Almost as bad as the mercury sulfide they use to tune sheng reeds...

From my experience, the rosin might not have worked well if the surface was shiny because you have to "get it going" by breaking the surface a little bit. On my violin I usually use the metal end of the frog and break the surface a bit to get some rosin dust started. Otherwise, you can rub the bow hair on the shiny new rosin block for a while but not really get any rosin on there.

[yehzhaofeng]

I use Super Sensitive Rosin. Dark.

It's pretty good, a good 3 strokes on the side nearest to the bamboo and the one facing me.


I think if you put too much, it sticks on to the strings so you get cracking screeching sounds. When you don't have enough, your bow 'slips' and sometimes makes a muffled sound, or the notes skip because it doesn't stick onto the string.

[maaltan]

i did break the surface of the green chunk. still didnt work

hey that super sensitive dark stuff is the cheapo block i got.

Has anyboy tried any of the other "super sensitive" brand products? Specifically the "pro" rated products.

[yehzhaofeng]

hehe

Pirastro is pretty good.

[dsouthwood]

The rosin I used is Hill light rosin (although it looks fairly dark to me; their dark rosin must be like tar). I bought it from music.misupply.com/.

This is my erhu teacher, from program notes for a recent concert: "Minghuan Ren is the director of the San Diego Chinese Music Ensemble. He was formerly a composer and erhu performer at the Harbin Opera House in China. He presently teaches music at the Hua-Xia Chinese School and gives private violin and erhu lessons."

Thanks for all the discussion!