4/4 (violin) bow hunting

[Kutik73]

At last we are starting a bow hunt!

DS is using a crappy 3/4 bow + a fab 4/4 violin for some time now. But he really needs a decent bow that matches to his lovely handmade £xxxx violin... I am hoping it's not going to be as tedious as our 4/4 violin hunt. I have two shops in my mind and we are visiting Shop 1 this Friday.

I don't play any instrument so although I did research a bit and were given some great advice in the past, still very much a novice... So..., any tip, advice, warning would be greatly appreciated...

Hello Kutik, the Amati auctions are good hunting grounds and they have 15 or so bows up for grabs next Wednesday. You should get down to London this weekend to have a look at them during the viewing window. (This is where we bought my daughter's wonderful c1900 German cello).
www.amati.com/auction/browse.php?id=0&view=list

Hi MidLife, thanks for the info. That would be interesting... I am not sure if I am brave enough to pick a bow from auctions but when I had a meeting with Amati back in Spring, they did suggested I should come to their viewings...

I think as a general rule of thumb you pay 40-50% less at auction than you would pay in a retailer. It's certainly worth having a look! You never know you might even find your dream violin there too.... oh... hang on a minute......too late!!!

No worries, we are pretty happy with what we've ended up at the moment!

HI Kutik,

Congratulations to minikutik on YMS! Saw this news on the other thread. Well done.

On the bow front, what is your budget? I've been given the same advice several times: Under £800, go for carbon fibre, as you really need to spend minimum £1000 for a good pernambuco bow. Coda Bows (carbon fibre) are brilliant and very robust. My DD had a Coda Prodigy 3/4, and we're now thinking of getting a Coda Diamond NX (a bit of a step up).

The other thing you might consider is borrowing an expensive bow from Benslow Trust.

Thanks cingo, though DS got an offer from a music specialist school but it's not necessarily YMS!

Thanks for sharing the info, cingo. Yes, I think a carbon bow would be a good choice at this stage. A bit tricky though, as I have no idea what DS's new teacher from September would think of it. You know, it's like a digital vs acoustic piano. Some people insist you can't learn proper bow techniques with carbon bow.... But for mane good reasons I am leaning towards getting a decent carbon bow though.

Musing have apparently taken over as the number 1 Carbon fibre bow. At the luthiers fair I hear that it became very obvious that Coda Bow technology was comparatively out of date now by comparison - as proved by the fact that I checked the codabow prices a couple of weeks later & the model I have has reduced in price by £150-200! 😞. Codabow representatives were apparently looking very twitchy at the convention watching people's reactions to the new brand.

stringme, thanks for the recommendation. We'll def check out musing tomorrow.

DS's teacher has never used carbon bows so she said she has no opinions on them. She said she likes Hill's bows and also Finkel. No idea if they are within our price range but will check them too.

Any opinion on them, anyone?

Mine's a Finkel - it's served me well! I like the weight distribution.

My Finkel was about £1000 well over 20 years ago, though...

Hills bows will be out of your (& my) price range I'm afraid. The vast majority of teachers now recommend carbon fibre to their students- they don't lose value & it gives you the time to search out a really nice bow a few years down the line

We went to a shop today. They recommended Finkel that has carbon in the core and wood outside (?). But unfortunately it was out of stock.Then don't recommend then! Now we feel like we want it!!

DS tried quite a lot and picked two bows - one carbon and one wooden bow. DS didn't like Coda Diamond by the way. Unfortunately they didn't have any Musing.

Kutik the Carbon inside/wood outside is the bow Simon Watkin calls his 'hybrid' bow. He has some in stock as do Elida trading I think. If he really didn't like The codabow it normally means he is not ready for it yet. The hybrid is a perfectly good bow which trains students how to use a proper bow effectively before they move onto something more expensive. My students have had massive success with them as they are less tolerant of bad habits & encourage the good habits before moving up. At £100 I'd just ask a luthier to pop one in the post, there is nothing to lose. Use it for 6 months then trade up or keep it as a spare, I know lots of teachers who keep one as a spare

Hybrid, veneer carbon, musing, which one do you recommend most for someone who is not particularly keen on codabow?

At the moment DS has a JonPaul Carrera and a lovely wooden bow which I can't remember the maker's name. We had a busy day and he's watching footy on tv now so haven't tried them properly yet. I'm also very open to let DS try your suggestions, stringme.

Not sure if anyone is reading this thread, but just to update our bow search.

We went to another shop yesterday. The shop stocked only codabow for carbon fibre bows so DS tried them again. But again he was not very keen on them. It's not that he doesn't like them but just not keen. In the end he picked three wooden bows. I don't know which one is what, but at the moment DS likes one in particular from those three.

We are showing the teacher this Saturday.

The Musing bows will probably be too difficult for him until he is able to cope with the CodaBow. The hybrid carbon/wood bow would be a good choice I think.
How to test bows:-
1st try staccato off the string strokes near the heel then gradually move up the stick where there will be less control. The further up you can maintain control the better the bow. Try to have as little rosin (preferably none) as possible otherwise you will be feeling/hearing the character of the rosin not the bow, you can remove excess with a clean duster. Keep bow hold as relaxed as possible so he is almost dropping it too. One more question to ask- which bow keeps a straight line better?

Thanks for the advice, stringmealong. I was going to ask Liz or someone to send me Musing but OK I'll leave it for now. Unfortunately we don't have hybrid bows - we have 4 wooden bows and one carbon bow only. DS tried the exercises you suggested and the one the easiest to control was the one he liked the most from the beginning, so it seems we have narrowed it down pretty much. Tomorrow we are showing our selection to the teacher. If she approves of DS's first choice then that's it - our bow search is done for now!