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2.1
The bass bow
I
myself play the double bass a little, and my wife is a professional
bass player. When I go to a concert, I therefore listen to the basses
with special care. My impression is that bass entrances are chronically
late - with the exception of my wife, of course. The bigger
the orchestra, the later the basses come in. In fact, if you watch
the basses play, it looks as if everything is right. But if you
listen, what you get is something like the lag between lightning
and thunder. In the latter case, what accounts for the lag is the
different speed of light and sound. But so far as I know, the sound
of a violin and a bass move at the same speed. Therefore, the delay
we hear originates in the instrument itself. This is no surprise,
considering the difference in size between a bass and a violin.
The string is about three times longer. When the bow moves across
the bass string at the same speed it moves across the violin string,
the bass string needs a correspondingly longer time to start
vibrating. The vibration must then move past the bridge (four
times higher) to the top (with a surface ten times larger). Far
more mass needs to be moved, and a longer path traveled,
before the vibration of the string becomes audible. Therefore, a
bass will always be more sluggish compared to the other instruments.
This sluggishness is a challenge to the bow's response. In
the case of the bass, this means that it is especially important
that the bow's response fit the instrument. The damping capacity
of the bow, on the other hand, is less important, since there is
more than enough of this in the instrument itself. It has
always surprised me that double basses with more than three hundred
cracks and a tangle of badly-executed repairs can still sound so
good. This only makes sense if the damping is understood as an important
part of the tone. The repairs and cracks are actually dampers.
The
instrument's size, of course, is a damper in itself. The damping
capacity of a bass bow is therefore not something that needs to
be worried much about. The real problem is getting the instrument
to vibrate. It is well-known that there is a French and a
German way of holding the bow. The French bow is also constructed
differently. Usually the French bow requires more pressure on the
strings and near the bridge. This calls for a strong bow with a
pronounced response. In the case of the German bow, the string tends
to be drawn from the wrist, allowing the bow to be softer and lighter
in order to achieve a softer response. There is also a significant
difference with respect to balance. The French bow is a bit shorter,
and therefore needs a much more massive head. The German bow, on
the other hand, needs to be light at the tip, since it needs to
cover more distance when changing from one string to another.
It
makes no sense to add a German frog to a French bow. Their respective
qualities should not be mixed, nor should the character of the bow
be modified to compensate for the disadvantages of one or another
style of holding the bow. German is German, French French, and a
good musician is good, whether German, French or Greek.
In
summary, response is the main issue in bass bows.
Tone is largely dependent on response, because the instrument itself
offers more than enough damping capacity.
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