Talk:Bow (music)

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Origin of terminology "frog"[edit]

Does anyone know the origin of the term "frog" as used in the context of the bow? I looked it up in the OED and could find nothing.


I'm afraid no one seems to know for sure! J Lorraine 09:37, 31 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm, the original poster apparently didn't have the most up to date version of the OED. In 1993, they added: "Mus. (orig. and chiefly U.S.). [tr. G. Frosch; cf. am Frosch (played) near the nut." Of course, this doesn't explain why Germans refer to this part of the bow using their word for "frog". Perhaps it looks a bit like a crouching frog? Opus33 15:09, 10 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
A "frog" in general is something that holds two things together. A frog at the neck of a cape to hold it closed is an example. That is my guess. —Preceding unsigned comment added by My Flatley (talk • contribs) 20:47, 11 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Let's glorify Persians[edit]

there should be mention of the persian use of the bow, as it seems to me that those who invented the first string instruments, should have been the first to use the bow. They have in Iran now instruments in which they use the bow, i dont know the name. Still i know they are very old instruments.

it also seems logical for the persians to have had something to do with the bow, as they were practically all of central asia at those time ( the persian empire) and that they were the first group of people to domesticize and use the horse, seems logical that they would have been the first to put some use to horse hair. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.115.152.19 (talk • contribs) 03:22, 15 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]


I don't think this gets history, either of Central Asia or of the bow, very accurately. For better information, I suggest reading the Encyclopedia Brittanica's article Steppe, which is excellent; also the references cited in the article. Opus33 15:09, 10 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
During the Bronze Age, much of Central Asia was indeed inhabited by people related to the Persians. The Scythians and Sarmatians were among the last survivors. Linguists classify them as North Iranian. However, the Iranians are an offshoot of the North Iranians, not the other way around. The Persians were originally one of many Iranian kingdoms and principalities in Iran. They formed an empire and gave their name to the whole of Iran. The horse was likely first domesticated by the Sredny Stog people of Ukrainre circa 4000 BC. Circa 3700 BC their territory overlapped with that of the Funnelbeaker culture and the Cucuteni-Tripolye A culture, giving rise to a hybride culture known as Cucuteni-Tripolye B, considered a likely candidate for Proto-Indo-European. It is possible that the horsehair bow was invented on the steppes of Eastern Europe / Central Asia, but likely not by anyone known as "Persians." Zyxwv99 (talk) 15:23, 19 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, I guess when you're a sufficiently nationalistically-minded Persian (specifically, a citizen of modern Iran) wishing to "glorify his nation", all of the lands between Siberia, India and Mesopotamia have been "The Persian Empire", inhabited solely by "ancient Persians", deep into prehistory, 4000 years ago in the Early Bronze Age, why not 5000 or 5500 years ago, in the Neolithic, too ...
Makes as much sense as if modern French people claimed that Bronze Age Europe was covered in an "ancient French Empire" inhabited solely by "ancient French", or modern Greeks claimed that Copper Age Southern Europe, at the time of the first Pharaohs and Early Bronze Age Minoan Crete, was covered in an "ancient Greek Empire" inhabited solely by "ancient Greeks", or modern Canadians claimed that North America 2000 years ago was a "Canadian Empire" inhabited by "ancient Canadians", or modern Iraqis claimed that Mesopotamia 4000 years ago was an "Iraqi Empire" inhabited by "ancient Iraqis" ... when you don't know anything about history, and substitute burning national pride in the place of knowledge, nothing looks wrong with the radically anachronistic premises involved.
But in reality, no modern nation has existed as such for 4000 years, nor even for 2000 years in a strict sense (modern nations being no more than 200 years old, with only the loosest historical connection to ancient states), and Persians, Greeks, Chinese and Tamils are anomalies created by the decision to straight-out identify modern people with ancient ones who are assumed to be their distant ancestors, fuelling national pride, while ignoring all the changes that happened in between. However, this kind of pseudo-continuity is easy to achieve: just rename modern Italians, French, Spaniards, Portuguese and Romanians "modern Romans", modern Welsh and Bretons "modern Britons", modern Germans "modern Suebians", modern Ossetians "modern Scythians", and voilà, continuity into the Iron Age – over 2000 years ago. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 13:13, 23 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
And yes, German nationalists a century ago did something very similar to the IP above, claiming Bronze Age archaeological cultures (and even Copper Age cultures!) as their direct ancestors, and treating prehistoric Europe as essentially dominated by archaic "Germans", while identifying ancient Germani and die Deutschen as one and the same ethnic group as a matter of course, treating them as exactly identical just like Persian nationalists now treat the Achaemenid kings as essentially "Farsi", being deeply offended at anyone who suggests that there might be significant differences between them – but first, one should be worried and ashamed when one argues exactly like the immediate ideological predecessors of the Nazis did (many of whom became actual Nazis later), and Neo-Nazis still do, and second, even those German nationalists, for all their fanaticism, tended to admit a little more nuance than "Europe has been inhabited by Germans for many thousands of years, and everyone who ever lived in ancient or prehistoric Europe has been German". --Florian Blaschke (talk) 08:19, 24 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
"However, the Iranians are an offshoot of the North Iranians, not the other way around."
Oh, but that part is poorly phrased. Of course the North Iranians are logically offshoots of the Iranians (just like the Northeastern Iranian languages are Iranian languages, not the other way round) – but the Iranians (or more precisely, the Iranian elites) originate in Central Asia, where we later find North Iranians like the Scythians ... and the Western Iranians are offshoots of the Iranians too. In the third millennium BC (the Early Bronze Age), the Iranian Plateau was inhabited by peoples like the Elamites whose linguistic and cultural affinities were neither with Indo-European nor Semitic peoples nor any other surviving groups, as far as we can tell. They were simply old, mostly prehistorical (therefore, we don't know their languages, except for scant remains) West Asian peoples who came into the role of substratum to the Western Iranians. Proto-Iranian was most likely spoken in the mid-second millennium, sometime around 1400 BC, while distinct subgroups appear only in the first millennium BC. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 11:28, 24 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Mechanism of vibration[edit]

Can someone add information on the mechanism of vibration to this article? (ie, a physics perspective) I think I understand how a bow works, but when I came to Wikipedia for confirmation, naught was found...As I understand it, it involves friction and resonant frequencies. Could one craft a bow in such a way as to interact more with an instrument than a traditional bow? --Morbid-o 20:52, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)


Hm, maybe adding a section about "how the bow works" is worth considering. Meanwhile, check out this which might answer some of your questions. J Lorraine 09:50, 31 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

No major edits without scholarly sources[edit]

Hello Jagged85--

I'm not opposed to the Indian-origin theory in principle, but it's not allowed on the Wikipedia to put in a major change without citing your reference sources. If you want to include the Indian theory, please include text like this:

Smith (1997) has proposed that the bow originated in ancient India around 3000 B.C. She bases this claim on ...

Then, at the end of the article, you provide a bibliographic reference for Smith (1997).

If, however, the Indian theory is your own theory, then I'm sorry, but the rules of the Wikipedia do not permit it to be included. For the applicable policies, please consult Wikipedia:Citing sources and No original research.

Yours sincerely,
Opus33 14:37, 16 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]


On this same subject, the line "The bowed psaltery is one of the oldest instruments of this family and uses a small convex-curved bow possibly related to the military weapon from which the bow took its name" is in the article. I cannot find a single, reputable source that affirmatively states that the psaltery was bowed before the mid-nineteenth century. Even the bowed psaltery page does not make that claim. Jmclark56 (talk) 05:19, 23 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

fiddlestick???[edit]

Who refers to the bow as a 'fiddlestick'? I have never heard this term used for a bow in either formal or vernacular english speech. At most, it's only used two ways: as an interjection in speech somewhat akin to a mild expletive, (expressing disappointment or frustration), or as a brand name for devil sticks (fiddlesticks redirects there) J Lorraine 20:46, 9 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well, the Oxford English Dictionary gives "The bow strung with horsehair with which the fiddle is played" as the first definition. But I, too, seldom hear this word used literally. It might be good to move it later than the opening paragraph. Opus33 14:59, 10 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

McKean reference[edit]

The McKean book is a published, authoritative, and very useful reference; to remove it from the article does not help our readers. Also, whoever removed the reference didn't bother to notice that it had been cited in the text, thus leaving the citation stranded.

Opus33 14:52, 29 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Bowed Guitar[edit]

There should be a quick reference to the bowed guitar, (a method of playing guitar by using a bow) made famous by Jimmy Page. I'm not quite sure where it would fit in to the current article though.

Hello, we already had this under String instrument. I put in a cross-reference. Opus33 15:43, 12 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Curved Bows[edit]

Hello. Being a violinist myself, I was told several times that musicians during the baroque era used bows that had a very strong curvature, as compared to the quasi-linear bow used nowadays. Such bows would allow them to play chords containing more than two notes, which happen quite often in this kind of music (take Bach's sonatas and partitas for solo violin, for example). Recently, Michael Bach used a curved bow to play the Number Piece entitled One8 by John Cage. Anybody knows more about curved bows historically and technically ? Alex

I definietly know that when a bow is shown in older art it's stick is concave instead of convex. It seems to be general consensus in society that the bow used for playing insturments was at one point more like the bow used for shooting arrows in terms of the stick, however the article makes no mention of this. I have not heard about playing more than two notes at once, but I'm not exactly a music history expert. I will add something to the article about medival concave bows, but it would probably be worth doing more research on it than I currently have time to do. Heavy Metal Cellisttalkcontribs

This is mentioned in the article on the baroque violin, although there should probably be a mention of it here as well. Also take a look at Viol#Viol_bows. Another place you can find an ambiguous reference to a 'highly curved' bow and a mention of playing several strings at once (although it may be due to the bridge and not the bow) is in the article Lira da braccio. As for my own hearsay, I've been told that the idea that the baroque bow makes triple and quadruple stops easier is not necessarily true, nor is it the main or first difference one notices when playing with a baroque bow after only using modern bows! J Lorraine

06:46, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

We shouldn't call it concave or convex; 'curved in' and 'curved out' would be better. Bows nowadays aren't quasi-linear, they're curved inwards, and become straighter when they're tightened. Someone ought to research when the curvature changed. I find impossible to believe that this came about with François Tourte. The style of music in the 1760s radically changed in a way that must have required a different bow.

Cellorando (talk) 18:20, 15 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe I just found the answer. Evolution de l'archet[[1]] says that bows were curved inwards, though very slightly, at the beginning of the 18th Cent. This might shoot down my 1760s theory. I still haven't tried a baroque bow. It shows photos of bows through its development. It doesn't show a Tourte bow, but has a Vuillaume, which it says is the modern form. The 'highly curved' bow mentioned by J Lorraine would be the one from the 16th Cent., still the Renaissance.

Cellorando (talk) 19:31, 15 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Baroque bows are relatively straight when slack and the wood tends to bend away from the hair when tension is raised on the bow. They do not make multiple stops any easier than a modern bow, a friend of mind and I tested this theory. The ease of multiple stops is based on the instrument's bridge. Jmclark56 (talk) 05:27, 23 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Sexy Cello Bow[edit]

That is one damn fine cello bow! --66.168.179.218 16:58, 15 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Rosin[edit]

No mention of the requirement for Rosin? Rufty 13:16, 6 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Definition of bow is wrong[edit]

Some idiophones can be bowed and are, in some cases, tradionally played this way (e.g daxophone). So I think we should rewrite the definition of bow in this article, which says "In music, a bow is a device pulled across the strings of a string instrument in order to make them vibrate and emit sound." --200.163.159.198 (talk) 20:20, 1 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Added bowed idiophones, mentioning musical saws as an example.
Not sure the daxophone has yet established itself as a part of any musical tradition. That one seems to be a rarity, so I don't believe it needs to be mentioned in the lead of this article. __Just plain Bill (talk) 00:21, 2 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Useful commercial links vs. spam[edit]

I just restored the link to Shar's bow info pages. The Mirecourt link looked more like an ad to me, so I left it off. The edit summary pretty much says it all: "I'm willing to say the Shar link has high info content. Four out of six of the present links are to companies; anyone thinking WP "endorses" them has serious flaws in their understanding of the pedia."

I need to go read up on WP policy regarding commercial links, but my basic feeling here is that it's usually pretty obvious when a link looks like advertising, and when it looks like something useful. __Just plain Bill (talk) 12:45, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for checking this out, JPB. Opus33 (talk) 14:56, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Down and Up Bow[edit]

This nobile and vile theory sounds sounds more vile than noble to me. I could not find one single example in French from Google. They say now tirer and pousser, to push and to pull. I was told that the down-bow symbol represents a frog and the up-bow symbol the point of a bow. "From the tip" and "from the frog" meaning up-bow and down-bow are common expressions in other European languages. But someone must know more than I about this.

Cellorando (talk) 18:33, 15 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I just removed that part. Will need a better cite before restoring it. __ Just plain Bill (talk) 21:02, 16 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Mammoth ivory[edit]

Regarding this diff, I just googled "mammoth ivory violin bow" and got plenty of hits, violin bow dealers offering bows with mammoth fittings. This one came out on top this time, a very nice bow with a mammoth ivory frog. It is pretty well known in the trade that fossil mammoth ivory is useful in applications formerly using elephant ivory such as mandolin and guitar nuts. Since mammoths are already extinct, there is no question of protecting the species from poachers. __ Just plain Bill (talk) 01:51, 8 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comparison of Bows[edit]

As an amateur I would enjoy seeing an illustration of the four common modern bows all together, violin, viola, cello and bass, for comparison of size and shape. An accompanying paragraph would be nice too. My Flatley (talk) 20:57, 11 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ipê (Tabebuia) wood[edit]

Ipê, from Tabebuia species, is becoming well-accepted as a material for bow sticks. Web search for "Ipe violin bow" comes up with the sites of numerous bow makers, such as:

How "scholarly" does a source need to be, to make the case that a particular material is commonly used in a certain industry or trade? Ipê is pretty well-known among those paying attention to the difficulty of getting pernambuco wood for bow sticks. __ Just plain Bill (talk) 13:32, 15 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hello JpB, I just pasted the addresses your provided into the article, so that there would at least be something. But in general, I think that scholarly sources are better. By "scholarly", I mean (1) that the author has no business interest in the matter at hand; (2) the source has passed some kind of expert peer review prior to publication. This isn't just my own opinion; these are pretty standard criteria for evaluating reference sources.
Perhaps there exists some kind of trade journal for violin/bow makers that would offer what is needed? Yours truly, Opus33 (talk) 16:48, 15 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I just replaced the "bowmakers' sites" reference with something looking more like a proper cite. I imagine there is a low likelihood of finding anything in a peer-reviewed journal on this, but I suspect what we have now will lay any challenges to rest. (I take a jaundiced view of trade magazines, having "subscribed" to several in a previous life, and finding them to be little more than vehicles for advertisement.) There might be something in The Strad as well, but I don't get that magazine. Best regards, __ Just plain Bill (talk) 19:09, 15 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, this looks better to me. Thank you. Opus33 (talk) 19:17, 15 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Incredibow[edit]

After I removed the Incredibow link and its mention, it was reverted. I have since changed the link from an inline link to a reference. This still seems sketchy to me, because it's not really a third party, but a site actually selling the bow and claiming its merits. It seems like Wiki spam to me (see External Links Policy and Wiki spam), but I'll leave it open for discussion. ++Arx Fortis (talk) 14:15, 15 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

From the Wikimedia page on Wiki spam: "Wiki spammers edit pages to include advertising links to their sites." In this case, the link was not added by a principal of the company, which seems to mean that this link does not fit that definition of Wiki spam. I am still looking for reliable secondary mention of the Incredibow. So far the only thing that comes close is an award from PETA, which I will allow is pretty sketchy, besides being hyperbolic: "has become the favorite bow of professional and amateur fiddlers, violinists, cellists, and handsaw musicians around the world." Well, really... some players do like them and others have doubts, from what I can tell.
There is plenty of mention of the item in various fora, blogs, and musicians' websites, showing that it has a fair number of adherents. The point here, IMO, is that encyclopedic value is added to this page by mentioning a modern non-standard (i.e. not a Tourte-type) shape for a bow (actually harking back to more ancient "traditional" bow shapes) that is accepted by more than a few working musicians. __ Just plain Bill (talk) 19:25, 15 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I would tend to agree with JPB. Opus33 (talk) 15:23, 16 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Frog screw[edit]

I discovered several years ago when repairing a cheap bow with stripped eyelet and screw that these parts are made in a bizarre mixture of metric and inch dimensions, with the screw's major diameter in integer millimeters and the threads as an integer number per inch. I would be interested in seeing a rationale for this unusual situation if there is anyone who can explain it authoritatively and perhaps list the "standard" screw sizes. (I made and tapped a new eyelet and rethreaded the screw to the next smaller inch-based diameter to fit it.) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.53.195.38 (talk) 19:12, 30 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Short answer: history. Screw-adjustable bow frogs (or "nuts" in UK English) came into use during the early part of the 19th century, about the same time that interchangeable parts were only just beginning to be commonly used. The worlds of bowmaking and gunsmithing may not have overlapped enough to help the situation. Screw_thread#History_of_standardization may have some interesting bits of info.
In the world of bicycle repair, mechanics often speak of "class of fit," since they must deal with threads from multiple international sources. For example, a "class B fit" will go together with a moderate degree of difficulty, with occasional damage to the parts involved, not exactly what you want for an adjuster screw.
Depending on the individual situation, it may be simpler to pay the five bucks and use something like this, rather than research the ins and outs of standard threads. Another common strategy is to keep a drawer full of oddball button screws and eyelets, but that takes time to develop.
All of the above is off the top of my head, so may contain inaccuracies. __ Just plain Bill (talk) 21:30, 30 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Mother-of-Pearl[edit]

Am I the only one who ever had a bow in which the frog was inlaid with mother-of-pearl?
Zyxwv99 (talk) 15:29, 19 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I just included a bit on shell eyes and slides in the frog section. __ Just plain Bill (talk) 19:21, 19 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thumb-adjusted tension[edit]

Volume I of Albert Schweitzer's biography of Bach, p.389, states that in Bach's time, bow tension was maintained by pressure from the thumb of the person using the bow, rather than with a screw. This enabled the tension to be adjusted on the fly, and the lower tensions made it possible to play all strings at once without distortion, for example in the unaccompanied violin suites and sonatas. Is this suitable for inclusion in the history section? (Has this been disproved by later scholarship? - Schweitzer's 1911 biography of Bach cites a 1904 study.)--Wikimedes (talk) 22:42, 13 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

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Don't touch the horse hair[edit]

I heard don't touch the horsehair because the oils on your fingers can make the friction worse — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.167.246.211 (talk) 15:43, 3 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

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