Lighter Bows?

[Michael Ryle]

FWIW, my first teacher was Edgar Meyer's father, Ed Sr. I used to play with him in the bass section of the Knoxville (Tennessee) Symphony, and one evening we were at a rehearsal and he handed me bow and said, "Here, try this. Doesn't that feel the way a bow ought to feel?" I tried the bow, and it did feel great. It make the strings speak beautifully, and was almost like bowing air. The bow was extremely lightweight and moved across the strings with almost no resistance. I don't know exactly how much it weighed, but I do know that I can't remember ever using a bow, before or since, that felt as light or played as easily as that one. Ed told me the bow belonged to his son, the now famous Edgar Meyer, and I don't know this for certain but I have the feeling that it may have been the one that Edgar is using now.