Violin Forum/Message Board

[ctviolin]

[actonern]

Hi Craig:

I don't disagree with anything you're saying... I do believe bow, rosin, player, strings skill etc... all are important...

But I'm also saying that those little tabs can be trimmed in place, while the instrument is strung up, and that you can decisively improve the bow feel and attack response by so doing.

At least I've found this to be the case. It seems to be a useful means of adjusting the instrument's playing qualities, just like adjusting the post length, placement and fit does.

There are places in the Zukerman video, for example, where he's telling the student to "catch" the note, (that incisive "bite" I'm talking about) and while Zukerman demonstrates the technique perfectly it's plain that the student is struggling in places, especially on the e string, and it's not because he can't do what's being asked; the instrument/bow combination is failing him. In one place after repeatedly failing to "catch" the note he says "its the string!" and he's clearly right...his instrument is giving him that "wha wha" that I refered to earlier, or that Zukerman calls "fa fa" in the video... especially from about the fist position b on the e string on up.



Best regards,

E

[ctviolin]

[Janito]

[actonern]

Hi Janito:

The effect is independent to the characteristics of the bow...a worn out bow will just not produce the "bite" as easily.

I really feel like this thread has taken on a kind of campaigning style on my part, which was never intended.

I came on this "discovery" quite by accident. One day I had trimmed out and fit a bridge to a fiddle... after a few days of refining post fit/placement, afterlenght adjustment, string changes etc, I was reading a Strad magazine article with a good shot of an instrument's bridge while being played by someone. For the first time I noticed how short these "points" were compared to the default length that came (in this case from Despiau.)

I knew that bridge trimming was in some respects an aesthetic "signature" by makers... including the cuts to these wings.

So, I thought, what the hey... lets see what happens if I trim the default length a little shorter... it looked better to my eye, which is why it occurred to me to do it.

To my shock, the bow response became crappy, and I mean I took off a tiny bit of wood... the tips would not have been pulled back a full mm.

Despairing that I'd made matters worse and might need to fit a new bridge to bring it back to as good as it had been, I trimmed off a bit more... it started coming back! So it went until I found a "sweet spot."

I tried it on the other fiddles I had lying around... in each case I was able to improve the bow response. I don't know how or why this works... have no charts with squiggly lines to parade... but when I consider just how fiddly violin makers are in adjusting just about everything else, including things like moving a post 1/10 mm this way and that, why shouldn't bridge "adjusting" make sense too?

So, it occurred to me, after all the sharing by other makers that I've so benefited from, that it might be of interest to others to try this. I never put it out there as more than that.

But I really would love to hear from people that have actually tried it!!!

Best regards,

E

[fjodor]

Thanks for the tip Ernie. I did try this on one of my violins with a little sluggish response. I shortened the "tips" twice, now there's only stumps left I wasn't able to notice some remarkable change in sound or response though. The rest of the setup is probably not optimal so this experiment doesn't say much. The idea is certainly worth testing further.

[ollieken]

I have a fiddle that you when you bowed the strings the sound was kind of short did not carry i dont know how to explain it better .

When I put the tuner on & plucked the string it went up 440 & dropped
down quick after i cut the the points & the side a bit like octonern said the tuner stayed up a lot longer it changed the fiddle `s response

I enjoy playing it now a lot more

Now some may think i am crazy thinking this but i cant help it i was born that way..... ken

[kjb]

not crazy, just watching too much " trailer park boys"