MAKING MATTERS

Your bow can give you a lifetime of pleasure and service if it is well looked after. Indeed, there’s no reason why it shouldn’t last many lifetimes! On the one hand, a bow is a remarkably durable item, potentially withstanding all the stresses and strains of performance over the course of centuries. But on the other, it is a very sensitive and in some ways fragile item, and small issues can have very significant effects on its playability, its condition and its value. As such, it needs to be carefully looked after to keep it in good shape. So here are some things you can do to ensure that your bow remains in good condition and performs at its best for all time.

• Keep your bow clean. Wiping the stick with a dry cotton cloth after playing will help avoid a build-up of rosin and dirt on your bow. Apart from the fact that this will help maintain the condition of your bow, your rehair person will thank you for making their task all the more pleasant!

• Never leave your bow in the sun, and never leave it on a chair or a music stand

• Keep an eye on the following:

(1) The straightness of the stick, and the amount of camber (or curve) it has. By sighting along the stick, you might be able to see if the bow has developed a bend to one side or the other. By observing the gap between the middle of the stick and the hair, with only enough tension on the hair to get it flat but without putting tension on the stick, over time you may be able to see if the stick has lost some of its camber. A bow can also twist along its length, such that the head and frog are no longer in vertical alignment.

Your bow is an organic object, and thus it can (and probably will) change over time in terms of twist, and loss of straightness and camber. A change to any of these things can have a dramatic impact on the performance of your bow. Your bow maker can easily rectify any such detrimental changes. (This is one of the reasons why pernambuco is so ideal for bow making: any deformation of the stick can be rectified, and this can be done repeatedly and endlessly.)

(2) The condition of the tip plate on the head. Check regularly to make sure that the tip plate is not coming loose and is entirely intact, i.e. that the little upright part of the tip at the front has not snagged on something and broken off, and that no cracks have developed in the ivory (or mammoth ivory) on either side of the hair (figure 1).

The integrity of the tip plate is important: it serves to reinforce and protect the head. If necessary, a damaged tip plate can be replaced by your bow maker.

(3) The condition of the lapping and the thumb leather, and have them replaced if they become worn. If the leather becomes quite worn, you can start to wear into the stick with your thumb, which can result in quite significant damage over time. If the lapping becomes very worn, it can unravel.

FIGURE 2 An extreme example of a loose frog

FIGURE 3A crack in the nose of a frog

(4) The pearl slide and pearl eyes on the frog. If they become excessively worn, the ebony surrounding them can start to wear down too. Your bow maker can easily replace these parts for you.

(5) The fit of the frog to the stick. If it becomes loose, it can introduce instability to the bow (figure 2). Also, if a frog is loose on the stick, a lot of pressure is brought to bear on the nose of the frog, which can induce cracks in that area (figure 3).

(6) The length of the hair. Horsehair reacts very significantly to changes in humidity. In very dry conditions the hair can potentially shrink to such an extent that you cannot loosen the bow. In very damp conditions it can stretch, such that you cannot tighten the bow. These are extreme examples, of course, but if this kind of thing does occur your bow maker can easily rectify it for you.

Some useful information regarding bow performance and adjustment: Among the many things that determine how well your bow sounds and performs are: the quality of the wood; the dimensions of the stick and its camber; the heights of the head and frog; and how proficiently all these factors have been integrated by the bow maker. Many of these factors are more or less set in stone once the bow has been made, but one thing that can be altered is the camber of the stick.

I cannot stress enough how important the camber is in terms of how the bow performs. Nor can I stress enough how significantly the bow’s playability can be affected by the smallest of adjustments to the camber. It’s no exaggeration to say that sometimes one small adjustment can make the difference between a bow that doesn’t play well and one that performs superbly.

A bow maker will spend a lot of time creating and optimising the bow’s camber, by the very careful repeated heating and bending of the stick. However, what suits one player in terms of camber may not suit another. The character of a bow can be greatly altered by adding camber in or taking it out in specific areas of the stick, or along its overall length. For example, one player might love a particular bow just as it is, but someone else might want more stiffness, or more flexibility, or more lateral strength, or a different character of spiccato, more or less reactivity and so on. Such changes can be brought about to a very significant extent via adjustment of the camber.

I CANNOT STRESS ENOUGH HOW IMPORTANT THE CAMBER IS IN TERMS OF HOW THE BOW PERFORMS

Some of these changes can be so small as to be invisible to the naked eye. So, a bow that doesn’t feel 100 per cent right for you might be made ideal by way of some camber adjustment. This is not to say that any bow can be made ideal for you, but much can be altered. Similarly, a bow that once felt great but somehow no longer feels ‘right’ may simply have changed over time and might just need some adjustment. Often the problem can be rectified in minutes.

We have all heard of bows that seem to have become ‘tired’ and therefore past their best, but often all that is required to restore them to their former glory is a rehair and some adjustment of their camber and/or their straightness. Of course, such work is extremely delicate and should only be carried out by someone very competent and knowledgeable, and with a lot of experience. Look after your bow well and your bow will look after you!