Off to buy my first bow this arvo...

[ZH_Driver]

As I have not started lessons (will start second week of Jan) I have no idea what to look for in a bow. My teacher plays French so I will be getting the same.

Anyone got any tips?

Good/bad things to watch out for?
Do certain features fit bigger/smaller hands/arms etc?

Cheers

[Fletcher Lanning]

If you can't get your teacher to do a bit of shopping with you, you should see if the shop will let you buy it but give you a trial period of about a week or two. This will give you a chance to play with it and get your teachers opinion on how well it fits you and your bass.

[hdiddy]

just pull the bow on open strings - keeping it light as possible. Compare bows, see which one makes a nice sound with the least amount of effort. IMO, No use buying a bow that's hard to pull a sound at this point. I wish I had done that myself and not bought all these cheap student bows. I'd rather get something easy to play, and once I have the chops, move on to something more complex.

[Phil Rowan]

any chance you could speak to your teacher about this before lessons begin?

[SLivinghouse]

1) Figure out your price range.
2) Get your teacher's advice on bows
3) Do a research on bows in that price range using the search function on TB.
4) If you don't know how to play with a bow, they will pretty much all seem similar. It's hard to tell a good one from a bad one until you have had maybe a year or more of practice using one to develop sufficient skill to where the bow quality is a limitation.
5) A good strategy may be to buy a relatively inexpensive CF bow (like Shen Ophelia, Finale, the better Yita's etc.) and use it until you are skilled at bowing enough to have a preference.
6) All due respect to Hdiddy, but pulling a bow across the string looking for the best sound/least effort will tell you more about the hair and rosin than the bow itself. Hair and rosin are both consumables that will be replaced several times over a bows life (like strings.) Bows are generally judged by balance and bounce (the elasticity of the stick) which facilitates bowing technique that you will later learn but have no way of judging now.
7) Check out the Finale demo on the Jason Heath blog, Andrew Anderson and bassius videos on YouTube to become more bow literate.

Good luck

[Bassius]

hey thanks for the plug

[SLivinghouse]

Originally Posted by Bassius

hey thanks for the plug

Bassius
No Problem! Thanks for making the excellent videos! They really helped me a lot (especially before I got the good sense to get a teacher again.) Even with lessons, I still go back to them for reference. Yours were the only one I could find on the web that covered German bow well.

BTW, if you fell like making more, I think a reference video that demonstrates a few measures of each bowing technique would be wonderful. For example a few measures of Spicatto, a few measures of Détaché, etc. so that a student who practices in the mirror can see exactly what the strokes are supposed to look like once they get home and practicing.

Thanks again though,
Steve

[Cairobill]

Hey Bassius

Thanks as well for the German Bow vids - you provide some clear pointers on your channel. Great stuff...

More please!

Cairo