Hi, it's Geoff here from DiscoverDoubleBass.com.
That's the home of online video double bass lessons.
So if you enjoy this one, you know what to do.
You can go and find more by following the link that's below this video.
Today, I'm going to be talking to you about tensioning the bow.
It'll be the same, whether you play French or German bow.
I've got a German one here to demonstrate.
And I'm going to talk about the variables and essentially how tight you should have
your bow hair.
So let's get straight into it.
Well, the process is quite straightforward, really.
There are a few variables, depending on how your bass is set up, how heavy your strings
are, the different types of bow, etcetera.
But the one thing that you want is the hair to be tight enough so it doesn't come in contact
with the stick when you're playing at a loud volume.
So when you're really pressing down, of the minute, I can actually get the stick to make
contact with the bow hair, which is not good enough.
So I'm going to add a few turns on the bow.
Now, you'll notice that I'm turning the bow, tightening the screw, by holding the bow in
my left hand, tightening with my right.
Don't do it the other way around, where you basically turn the whole bow around the screw.
So you hold the bow in your left hand and tighten with your right.
Now, hopefully...
Yeah, that's pretty good actually.
I can play, and the hair comes close to the stick, but it's not actually making contact
with the stick.
And that's fine.
If it's too tight, you'll find that it makes it harder to play off the string strokes as
well.
There needs to be a little bit of give in the bow hair.
It needs to be a little bit springy.
So if you find that you're playing really loud and the bow hair is bottoming out and
touching the stick, then just give it another turn and you should be able to get a little
bit more power from the bow.
Now, as I said earlier, really, it also comes down slightly to personal preference, but
that's the key thing you should be thinking about, the hair and the stick.
Also, when you're checking this, try not to do...I'm going to demonstrate now...try not
to do this and touch the bow hair to see if that's tight enough.
That's not a great way to do it because you're essentially going to get, you know, any sweat
or whatever on your hands on the actual bow hair and then you'll get rosin on your left
hand as well.
Sometimes, I see people doing that, so I'd avoid it.
Lastly, another common mistake that I see, in terms of how tight the bow hair is, is
that people forget to release the tension after they play.
So when I finish the session, I just release, turn the screw, release the bow hair.
And at this point, I can feel that the bow hair is tight enough to be kind of grouped
together.
It's not flaying apart, and there's not loose hairs all over the place, like there would
be if I kept on screwing.
But the stick isn't under any tension at all.
So the stick isn't being pulled by the bow hair, but the bow hair isn't loose enough
to completely fall apart.
And then that would be fine, put it away in my case, come back to it next time, and I'll
be ready to go.
Well, I hope you've enjoyed today's video lesson.
It's been a really quick one, and if you'd like more lessons on bowing, I cover 30 minutes
of bowing lessons in my beginner's course.
So if you're starting from the beginning and you'd like to cover the fundamentals of the
instrument, check that out.
If you play French bow, everything that I've discussed today is exactly the same.
And if you'd like a sort of deep dive into French bow technique, Lauren Pierce system
has done a video course that's exclusively available on DiscoverDoubleBass.com, and I'll
provide the links for those below.
If you've enjoyed the video, you can also let me know and encourage me to do more by
hitting that thumbs up button on YouTube.
Keep practice hard, and I'll see you next time.