Knowing how much rosin to use

[lloccmttocs]

After two and a half years of rosining more or less the same way, my new teacher tells me to kind of cake on the rosin. When he did it, after a few minutes of getting used to the new grab of the bow, it sounded well. I went to go duplicate what he did the next day and the day that followed that, And was left with a sound that was not very pretty. I understand the need for more rosin, but how do I know when to draw the line?

[JoeyNaeger]

When you get ready to practice, play a few minutes before applying any rosin. This will allow to gage how much you need to add. My guess is that you've over rosined your bow, and it will take a lot of playing to get it to clear up.

[Cfederle]

It is a bit like learning how tight to make your bow. Like many things in music it takes experience and practice. I always try my bow first to see how much rosin is on. I also comb it out first usually, just makes the rosin work better from sitting cold for however long.

As to the amount I use it depends on what I am playing often. When I am mostly working on solo stuff I don't really need to rosin my bow that often. When I am playing in the orchestra I tend to put 3 swipes of Pops on every few hours it seems.