too much col legno...

[Joel Larsson]

[Anselm Hauke]

i knew it, when i read the thread title...
was it a good bow?

[Joel Larsson]

A €3000 Otto Dölling. I never knew if it was pernambuco or snakewood, though... now that the wood is in plain sight, does anybody have eyes sharp enough to tell me?

[Anselm Hauke]

pernambuco imho.

my deepest condolences.

(thats why i bought a 30€ yitamusic carbon bow...)

[Anselm Hauke]

did it really happen while playing col legno?
what piece did you play?

[Joel Larsson]

Thanks.
I would've brought my sturdy bow of Romanian origin on my exchange year, but there was only room for one in the case so I left that at home... my bad.
I should get a CF. I should've gotten one long ago. I could survive the loss of the bow, and my stupidity of not buying a CF earlier, if it wasn't that I might have screwed things up insurance-wise, too...

It was a piece by a jazz composer, Erlend Skomsvoll by name. The bass section is supposed to keep a steady, bluesy groove throughout the piece and has to be heard through a big wind section. I thought I would spare the bow by hitting the string with the hair hard enough that the strings slap against the fingerboard and make a 'legno' sound... turned out there are no good way to play a loud col legno with a wooden bow.
Then, there was a thin, dark ring in the wood where the bow snapped. I think there was some weakness.

[Anselm Hauke]

Originally Posted by Joel Larsson

Then, there was a thin, dark ring in the wood where the bow snapped. I think there was some weakness.

i tought of something like this when i saw the partially clean cut

[Joel Larsson]

Yeah, I don't think it affected the sound while it was whole, but it is probably what made this happen. I will try to get the pieces together somehow, I've seen bows repaired with some glue and some fishing line, but that's been closer to the tip where I believe tension is lower than in the middle of the stick. A colleague tells me he has put some super duper glue from hell on a couple of cheap bows that had been broken by the middle, and they had kept together ever since. That's the worst case scenario, I believe. Better than throwing it away, anyway, and it could make a good secondary bow. Hopefully, though, some proper luthier or bow maker will accept the task of reviving it.

BTW, I just realized I posted in the wrong category. Scrolled the index page from bottom to top and picked the first theme that seemed fit. Dang. This just ain't my day.

[Joel Larsson]

Okay. The bow has been stuck in the Norwegian customs for three weeks. They asked me for sme signature allowing them to open the package. I gave it to them. Still nothing. Now it seems like they'll return it to me. Gah. I hate this country.