Woohoo! Just wanted to share with you fine stringers my rather fantastic news.

I've been playing with a variety of bows over the last few years and never quite found what I wanted until a violinist friend of mine suggested having one made - well I met up with the bow maker (Michel Jammonneau - one of the last people to complete the Mirecourt bowmaking school before it closed) and tried some of his bows out - I decided that a classical bow would be better for Irish music rather than a modern bow (it's a little shorter and makes fast string crossings etc easier at high speeds) - so off he went and, yesterday I got to pick up my new bow! It's great! I played in the session with it last night and, whilst playing a classical bow takes a bit of getting used to when you're used to modern style bows, it's really excellent for Trad music. It's also a really beautiful piece of work and it's nice to play with a bow and think 'I know the fella who made this...'.

I'll try to post a pic once I've figured out how.

Allan
(now completely poor, but happy as a pig in ... well, you know how it goes )

Sounds great, Allan!

Sounds fabulous - so glad you're happy

What's the difference between a classical and modern bow - do you mean the baroque shape?

Definitely like to see the pics please!!!

No, it's not baroque - it's just a little shorter - the style of bow that would have been used in Mozart's day. It's lacking about 2 cm over a modern bow length, and the camber is slightly different so that it responds very quickly indeed - I'm having to learn not to play in the string so much as I would with a modern bow - it seems that the classical bow just needs to rest on the string to speak all by itself. Very nice!

Am now considering gut strings... is there no end to my insane purchases... help me?????!!!!!!

Here are the photos - I'm not very artistic, so you'll just have to imagine Dolmens and Menhirs in a misty landscape around the bow, rather than the grotty sofa in my music room...







The lapping is in gold plated wire and some blue stuff that I forgot to ask about, but looks nice, the frog is made from ivory and ebony (the ivory is from a natural fall, so expensive, but humane and allowed) and the button from ivory. The wood is a really gorgeous piece of top grade pernambucco.

Funny how all my savings managed to turn into a stick...