Bowing help please :)

[Beedster]

I've recently invested in a decent bow. I played violin, then viola then cello as a kid, so have some experience. The first time I played the DB with a bow it felt extremely natural. The same couldn't be said for the sound. Whilst my bow control seemed pretty good (e.g., coordination between left and right hands on scales, arpeggios), the quality of the note varied hugely, even with relatively little change in pressure. The main problem I'm finding is that of hitting 8ve harmonics all over the place, , especially on the start of notes. It's actually quite a pleasing tone which would be quite lot more pleasing were I actually trying to do it!

I'm not sure whether as it's a new bow I might have underdone (or overdone) the rosin, whether I need sticker or less sticky Rosin (Pirstro Evah/Oliv, not DB specific AFAIK), whether the strings aren't especially bow friendly (E/A Spiro Weich, D/G Obligato), whether I simply need to work on my technique, or whether it's something else.

Any thoughts welcome

Chris

[stingrayPete1977]

Subscribed as they say!

[fatgoogle]

Its really difficult to help without being able to see and correct. It's probably annoying to hear as it comes up so often but get a lesson or two on basic bow use. It's going to be different from violin and cello and im not sure how much can be carried across.

But if you do want something to practice to help improve the sound. Really slow bows on open strings till it sounds even all the way across and the bow and up and down the string. Once you feel like you've got an even tone, go even slower. 15-20 mins of the this before doing anything else in your practice schedule. And don't move onto anything else until this is happening even if it takes a year. Got have the fundamentals down to a tee.

Edited November 3, 2013 by fatgoogle

[jbn4001]

Hi,
caveat: I'm not an expert, however I've been taking regular lessons for two years including bowing.

Things that affect tone massively:

- the amount of "arm weight" you apply to the bow.
.. this should be a "natural" arm weight - let your whole arm weight rest (relax) in to the bow via your hand. Do not "press" or push the bow in to the string, otherwise it sounds stiff/tense

- not bowing perpendicular to the string for the entire length of the note.
- not applying the string fully to the neck with your left hand.

I used to do all three at once and it sounded terrible! If I'm learning a new piece or exercise, I am still prone to doing at least one of the above and have to remind myself and put myself in to a good, relaxed frame of mind to apply all 3 bits of advice correctly.

I'm not sure what techniques would be involved in viola or cello and thus may be showing grandma how to suck eggs.. :/

Re the unintended harmonics, I think they could be one or both of arm weight to bow and not applying string fully to neck as I used to get this all the time when I first started learning to use bow.

HTH

Edited November 3, 2013 by jbn4001

[jakenewmanbass]

Hard to describe without a demo Chris,
think bow and arrow... put some tension into both bow and string, get the weight right and practice starting notes over and over until you get a clean ping to start the note.
If you're too light it'll skid = harmonics if you're too heavy there will be a sort of grindy scratch.
I'm also no expert on arco so hopefully someone who does orchestral stuff more often will drop a few words in.

[fatgoogle]

Do you have a smartphone?? it would help if you could put up a video of your bowing.

[oggiesnr]

Been there, done that.

Invest in a mirror and watch your bowing action. I discovered that I wasn't bowing straight and when I changed strings I skidded the bow.

The other issue is bow speed and weight. A couple of lessons with a tutor who plays arco would be money well spent.

Lastly, the Tarlton books (Sevcik and Scales) are worth their weight in gold.

Steve

[FLoydElgar]

Tutor ASAP!

[thisnameistaken]

I get exactly the same thing, usually when changing strings. I put it down to me being rubbish and stopped bowing because it was upsetting the dog.

[Beedster]

[quote name='Beedster' timestamp='1383501557' post='2265135']
I've recently invested in a decent bow. I played violin, then viola then cello as a kid, so have some experience. The first time I played the DB with a bow it felt extremely natural. The same couldn't be said for the sound. Whilst my bow control seemed pretty good (e.g., coordination between left and right hands on scales, arpeggios), the quality of the note varied hugely, even with relatively little change in pressure. The main problem I'm finding is that of hitting 8ve harmonics all over the place, , especially on the start of notes. It's actually quite a pleasing tone which would be quite lot more pleasing were I actually trying to do it!

I'm not sure whether as it's a new bow I might have underdone (or overdone) the rosin, whether I need sticker or less sticky Rosin (Pirstro Evah/Oliv, not DB specific AFAIK), whether the strings aren't especially bow friendly (E/A Spiro Weich, D/G Obligato), whether I simply need to work on my technique, or whether it's something else.

Any thoughts welcome

Chris
[/quote]

Funny old thing, I sold my Chadwick this week, and courtesy of new member Muz, I have a stopgap Stentor (plus bow) whilst I find a 4/4 that hits the mark.

Anyway, out of sheer curiosity I thought I'd check out the bow and....... perfect, just like it used to be when I played cello. In fact it sounded great andI was even able to get stuck into a couple of old solo cello pieces (of course the different tuning didn't help). I'm guessing in the situation described above that either the bow or the bass was the problem, I tried numerous times then and I'm using similar strings now.

The moral of the story? It's not always the player I'm really looking forward to practicing scales etc with the clarity of pitch that the bow provides, especially as I've had some right hand tendinitis recently that has limited my pizz playing a lot.

[zbd1960]

@Beedster - I play cello... I have had problems with tendinitis in my left forearm/elbow (caused in part by applying a Vulcan death grip on the neck of the cello....) and a sports physio helped a lot.

[JoeEvans]

I'm trying to develop a semi-respectable arco technique and I have had this same problem. The following fixed it, but as I did them all more or less at once, I don't know whether one or all of them are the answer...
1. New bow. I got a carbon fibre one from Dictum which I am very pleased with.
2. Different rosin (Petz medium).
3. Working on the balance between bow pressure, bow speed and bow placement - on any one note, vary one while keeping the other two constant and see what happens.
4. 'Attack' / 'bite'. I think this one is probably the key to it. There's something which happens at the start of a note, when the bow gets a grip on the strings before coming up to speed. I don't think I can put it into words but you can play around with it, stopping and starting a note several times within a single stroke of the bow until it starts sounding better.