Bow attributes question - stability

[outofnames]

I own two bows.  The first is the one I started with a little over 8 years ago. JonPaul Aperge carbon fiber that weighs around 60 or 61 grams.  The other I found after trialling bows, I posted it here and consensus was German stick, early 1900s, nice quality but likely mass produced.  When I got this bow I felt like my playing improved significantly, it’s very light at perhaps 53 or so grams and wonderfully balanced.

What I didn’t realize until I was getting it rehaired was that it lacks the stability of the JonPaul.

This leads to first question…what attributes make a bow stable on the strings?  I feel like it’s the flexibility.  The old German stick is almost perfect, but it gets a little jumpy if I play more aggressively or if there’s rapid string crossings.  The JonPaul bow feels quite stiff and is very stable on the strings.  But it’s not as nimble and I just don’t like playing with it.  But the stability is excellent.

I may trial bows with my luthier but I want to tell him what I want to save him time.  I prefer a wooden stick but does a wooden bow offer the stability I’m trying to find?  I also prefer a lighter bow so maybe a light bow like mine cannot be physically stiffer.

Maybe I’m not seeking the right attributes, but for those that have more knowledge than me…what do I look for if I want a wooden bow that is stable and not jumpy?

[Jwillis]

Light bows tend to have more action. You can find everything you want in a wooden bow you may have to trial more 

[GeorgeH]

The more whippy a bow is, the more unstable it becomes. 

[The Violin Beautiful]

Bows that are especially light and/or soft  are often jumpier. The way they’re rehaired can significantly affect their response as well. 

[Brad Dorsey]

Exactly what makes one bow play differently from another is largely a mystery to me.  But simple principles of physics dictate that a lighter bow will be thrown around more by its interaction with the strings than a heavier one will be.  However, the weight disparity is not the only difference between your two bows that could account for the instability that you perceive.

I am imagining an experiment that you could try to eliminate weight as a variable between your bows:  Your carbon fiber bow weighs eight grams more than your wood bow.  So, I suggest than you find two small four-gram weights and fasten them with tape to your wood bow.  The weights could, perhaps, be coins or anything else convenient.  You would fasten one to the bow near the head and the other near the frog, so that the bow's balance point would not be changed.

After adding the weights, you would have eliminated the weight difference between the bows, without changing anything else about the wood bow.  The balance point, stiffness, material, camber, hair and everything else would still be the same.  Even the rosin.

Now, try playing with the wood bow.  If the stability improves, this suggests that the instability was caused by the bow's lightness.  Perhaps a heavier wood bow would work better for you.

I have never heard of anyone experimenting with a bow in this exact fashion, and I don't really know if the results would be valid or what they might mean.  But it might be an interesting thing to try.

The only way you can find the best bow for your violin, and for you, is by trying a lot of them.

 

 

[Violadamore]

1 hour ago, Brad Dorsey said:

Exactly what makes one bow play differently from another is largely a mystery to me...............

The only way you can find the best bow for your violin, and for you, is by trying a lot of them.

It's probably a mystery to everybody here, which makes your last comment the best advice available.  

[martin swan]

I don’t think there’s any relationship between weight and stability …

[Brad Dorsey]

There has to be.  Imagine extreme cases.  A 10-kilogram bow would be a lot more stable than a 10-gram bow.  The only question here, really, is how strong the relationship is given an 8-gram difference.

[martin swan]

51 minutes ago, Brad Dorsey said:

There has to be.  Imagine extreme cases.  A 10-kilogram bow would be a lot more stable than a 10-gram bow.  The only question here, really, is how strong the relationship is given an 8-gram difference.

Imagine a 10kg bow made of cooked spaghetti vs a 10 gram bow made of I beam titanium.

Within the normal weight range for pernambuco there are heavy bows that are very unstable and light bows that are very stable. Camber, wood density and graduations make for big differences as do head and frog heights. 

[outofnames]

So I guess the answer I’m going to have to give him the heads up that I want to trial a bunch of bows…

[GeorgeH]

15 hours ago, outofnames said:

I want to trial a bunch of bows…

Try a Codabow Luma. It is a lighter (58g) carbon fiber bow that is reliably stiff and stable but also lively. I am not suggesting you should buy one necessarily, but it may give you a feeling for what those characteristics feel like in your hand.

 

[outofnames]

47 minutes ago, GeorgeH said:

Try a Codabow Luma. It is a lighter (58g) carbon fiber bow that is reliably stiff and stable but also lively. I am not suggesting you should buy one necessarily, but it may give you a feeling for what those characteristics feel like in your hand.

 

Thanks for that suggestion.  I’ll take a look.

[Don Noon]

22 hours ago, Violadamore said:

It's probably a mystery to everybody here, which makes your last comment the best advice available.  

I see that Colin Gough published a paper re: bow vibrations as analyzed by finite element analysis.  How that relates to what the player experiences, I don't know (I haven't read it).  But it seems to me that the weight of the player's hand might matter, as well as where on the bow you're playing... and a whole pile of other stuff.

It's all a mystery, as are all things related to the violin.  

[outofnames]

1 hour ago, Don Noon said:

I see that Colin Gough published a paper re: bow vibrations as analyzed by finite element analysis.  How that relates to what the player experiences, I don't know (I haven't read it).  But it seems to me that the weight of the player's hand might matter, as well as where on the bow you're playing... and a whole pile of other stuff.

It's all a mystery, as are all things related to the violin.  

Well….as the player the weight of my hand and where I’m playing can be treated as constants.  But my bows are very different.

old German stick, light, nimble = not stable under stress, double stops must be carefully finessed…but all other aspects are wonderful 

jonpaul composite bow = chunky, heavy, very stable at all times and double stops are a breeze but everything else I dislike 

So….?

Dunno

 

[Ganymede Piggot]

^We're wondering if the bow is bad due to the rehair, with you saying you didn't notice some problems before then.  Different bows need different amounts of hair.  Also, what happens if you practice the difficulties with the bow?  Do you get better with it?  You might just need to meet it halfway!  Fischer's Basics has a page of all 7 string levels in every possible order. Very useful for double stops.  

[outofnames]

20 minutes ago, Ganymede Piggot said:

^We're wondering if the bow is bad due to the rehair, with you saying you didn't notice some problems before then.  Different bows need different amounts of hair.  Also, what happens if you practice the difficulties with the bow?  Do you get better with it?  You might just need to meet it halfway!  Fischer's Basics has a page of all 7 string levels in every possible order. Very useful for double stops.  

Ah, understood.  Nope, been rehaired several times and the playing characteristics have not changed.  If I get aggressive or have tricky string crossings the bow gets jumpy.  I have to really concentrate on keeping a light touch to avoid it as I tend to go heavy under stress.  The CF bow remains stable when I start to flake out.     I just don’t like it the rest of the time.
 

There is a possibility that as I gain more experience my preferences have slowly changed (about 8.5 years…so not a ton of playing experience but not a complete beginner).  

[go_oa]

For people who want to measure something, there is the center of percussion.  If you hold the bow normally and tap the string at some point near the tip, the bow will bounce with no tendency of the frog to jump up.  Do the same tapping a point near the frog and the tip will go down and the frog will try to come up.  The center of percussion is the spot on the bow where the two tip feel and the frog feel balance each other perfectly. ( On a baseball bat it is the 'sweet spot')

Your two bows probably have very different center of percussion points.    This caused by different distribution of weight, due to the tapering of the bow.  You can find formal ways to measure this if you look around.

[M Alpert]

4 hours ago, outofnames said:

Well….as the player the weight of my hand and where I’m playing can be treated as constants.  But my bows are very different.

old German stick, light, nimble = not stable under stress, double stops must be carefully finessed…but all other aspects are wonderful 

jonpaul composite bow = chunky, heavy, very stable at all times and double stops are a breeze but everything else I dislike 

So….?

 

Sounds to me like you just answered your own question... you probably want something in between these two. I'm guessing there would be something like that at most decent shops!

But also, try what @Brad Dorsey suggested, and report back to us!

[GeorgeH]

1 hour ago, go_oa said:

For people who want to measure something

 

[Spelman]

If you like light, nimble, and stable, try an Arcus. You might like their T series. Their P and S bows might also be appealing.

[Ganymede Piggot]

If you like practically free, Kmise makes a good carbon fiber bow.  Normal weight and balance and on the stiff side but do springing strokes nicely.  They make CF bows, ukuleles, and hippie drums

[LCF]

On 6/2/2025 at 6:22 AM, martin swan said:

Imagine a 10kg bow made of cooked spaghetti vs a 10 gram bow made of I beam titanium.

Within the normal weight range for pernambuco there are heavy bows that are very unstable and light bows that are very stable. Camber, wood density and graduations make for big differences as do head and frog heights. 

Is head height more or less equivalent consideration to head weight? (Partly answering my own question -- the height also influences the leverage of the hair on the stick, and vice versa.)

In a simpler view there is some effect of that amount of weight at the end of a long elastic stick. It will resonate at some frequency. But it is hard to understand in detail because of the presence of the hair and the tillering of the stick. And everything.

 

[SCorrea]

Is it really weight, or the moment of the stick.  I would think that a very interesting thing to try would be to stick a small piece of wire on the tip of the bow and see how a very small ballast at the bow tip settles things down. 

[LCF]

49 minutes ago, SCorrea said:

Is it really weight, or the moment of the stick.  I would think that a very interesting thing to try would be to stick a small piece of wire on the tip of the bow and see how a very small ballast at the bow tip settles things down. 

Many researchers have studied the dynamics of bows using highcspeed photography, sticking on tiny accelerometers and force gauges and so on.   Colin Gough has some interesting analyses :

https://sites.google.com/view/colingough/home

Bow dynamics:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/10S5dTyPL6ZPN31XLCuxPl1l8k-9kCyy0/view

 

Edited June 3 by LCF
Link

[Dr. Mark]

Could a given bow (plus things alluded to by Mr. Noon) produce a resonant coupling between the string and bow that causes excessive 'bounce', i.e. adversely affects player control of the bow?  The bow + etc. is a rather complex elastic beam, with one free end and something like a heavily damped, hinged, elastic support at the other end.  It would explain some of the phenomenon, i.e. the effect of mass at the bow tip.