Hi,

About a month ago my bow's screw mechanism got damaged and it had to be sent off for a week to be repaired.

As a result I had to borrow a bow. I mean they only charged me £10 to rent it but I disliked the bow mainly because it was brand new and not been played in.

Anyay I am now in the market for a spare bow and wanted your opinion on this bow.
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/MASTER-BOW-A-Pernamb...ShippingPayment

I don't know anything about the bow you've shown above - and don't know much about bows.

I've got a Yita violin and this obviously came with a Yita bow. The bow I have is okay, but the luthier who I took my violin to did comment that the hair was poor quality. I think the bow you've shown is better than mine (it's pernambuco not brazilwood for a start) but it may be that you'd need to get it rehaired to get the full benefit from the bow. Not sure though and probably not the best person to advise...

I was told that pernambuco is the best wood for high quality bows. But I can't comment on this much because I am a begginer.

I have a Yita bow which came with my T20 viola... so I was expecting a fairly good bow. A luthier has looked at it and said the frog is very nice with pretty pieces of abalone decoration. He valued it at around £80 but he is eldery and doesn't trade in bows.

BUT the wedge holding the hair came out. The luthier put it back but it is coming out again. I spoke to the Violin Shop on the phone and they reckoned it was probably a fairly cheap bow and they would take a look.. they reckoned it would need a new wedge cut. By the time I posted it off it would take a couple of weeks to fix and send back so I'm going to buy a new one as a spare just to have anyway. I'm looking at a Dorfler Premium pernambuco and a Carbondix*** cf bow. They both arrive on approval on Friday. http://www.thestringzone.co.uk/categories/...diate-100-250-2

One reason I'm buying an extra one is that I've heard Yita bows are not the greatest so I want a spare in case my yita bow warps or the wedge does come out unexpectedly again (as in an exam - yikes!!). Those are fairly cheap and if I'm still playing I will upgrade later on (if necessary).

I have a pernambuco Marco Raposa bow for my violin and I love it http://www.thestringzone.co.uk/nickel-and-...by-marco-raposo. I preferred it to the CF bow in the same price-range.

a new Yita bow won't have been played in either. if that's the only problem with the one you tried, why not buy that one and use it now and then until it's suitably played-in?

Bows are a very personal thing, that's the trouble, far more personal than violins. It may well be that the bow is a great buy if it suits you. Or it may be that it doesn't suit you and you will either have to sell it on and take a loss or send it back. You just don't know, it's a gamble.

We had some Yita bows in stock which were astonishingly low priced for ther specification but we found them really difficult to sell, people just didn't choose them.

Liz

I just believe it may be a good purchase as yita are known for being great value for money. The problem is being unable to try it out first.

At the moment I use a CF bow costing me £490 which I bought at Chappels in November.

The bow I borrowed from Brittens for £10 was quite enjoyable to use, however there may be others in that price range I would like more. I just used that bow as it as it was the only one they had that was anywhere near the same quality asmy current bow. They told me this one retailed for £300.

I don't rate the Yita bows - their basic student ones are the same as their 'top quality' ones - the only difference is that they stick a bit of fake gold on the 'professional' bows.

I agree with Liz - your best bet is to try some out - they're such a personal thing, and to turn the advice you gave to terra back around to you, perhaps it's time to buy a 'proper' bow rather than a mass produced, factory branded one.

Go to a luthier's and see what they can give you to try out - as you're playing at a good level, you'll probably want a bow that responds extremely well for different bow strokes, it's unlikely that anything mass produced will do it. Your violin maker should have a stock that you can try out and see which one speaks to you.

Be prepared to spend though - a good bow is half the instrument and you'll pay accordingly.

Many people would argue that pernambuco is the only material for high quality bows.
But that doesn't mean that a pernambuco bow is necessarily high (or even acceptable) quality. The most important thing is how well it's made.

I would not buy a bow or violin without trying it first, as they are both very personal to each person. I personally would not worry too much about buying expensive bows until you have enough experience to try a bow out using different bowing techniques etc, and you can really decide if you like it or not.
anyway, lots of luck.

Debra, are you really trying to say that Violin Hero (who is a post grade-8 standard player) isn't experienced enough to be able to tell the differences between bows and can't use different bowing techniques?

I did cello up to around grade 6 standard and could certaintly tell how different instruments and bows responded and how this affected my playing. Although I'm new to the violin (I have had 3 lessons and am apparently around grade 2 standard according to my teacher), I have already got a reasonable strings grounding from my previous cello playing and can tell differences between the 'feel' of different bows and violins. Violin Hero is a lot more experienced than either of us, and he will be able to make a judgement on whether a given bow suits him.

Thanks for all the input. Flossie I am not totally sure I would call myself post grade 8. I am ccurrently learning a couple of pieces that are on the grade 8 syllabus and have yet to attempt anything harder.

also grade 2 in 3 lessons? I don't think anyone, even with previous musical experiance on different instruments could be that good in 3 lessons!

I'm just going on what my teacher said (which did suprise me).

As a rough guide to where I've got to (which you can judge from, as I am only going on what I was told...), 1st position is okay including low 1st finger, low 2nd finger and extended 3rd finger, 3rd position is secure apart from the G string (where I'm finding the 3rd and 4th fingers a bit of a stretch). 2nd and 4th positions still need work as I have a tendency to go too far when I shift from 2nd back to 1st, and I'm finding 4th position a bit harder on the G and D strings (3rd and 4th fingers again ). I need to work on 4th finger strength because it has a tendency to collapse. In terms of scales/keys I'm okay up to 4 sharps or 2 flats for the major keys, but have only just started thinking about minor ones and so have only done A minor. In terms of bowing, I've covered the basic down and up bows, slurs, staccato, accents, marcarto, tied marcato notes and martele. I have started working on spiccato, but need to have a lot more control of the bounce (I'm sure that my bow is longer and harder to control than it was with the cello or rather it feels like it is... ). I've finished the tutor book I had, and have been lent some music by my teacher this week. Have been asked to get book 3 from the suzuki series for next week, but have now idea what that book is like or what kind of standard it is. This week's pieces are Gluck's dance of the blessed spirits (which is totally different to the flute piece of the same name ), a Mendelssohn thing the name of which I can't remember, and some short baroque pieces (can't remember what without the music). I have been able to transefer and modify a lot of my cello technique, which I think has made the violin easier to start with, and my teacher seems to be happy with how things are going. I don't really have anything to compare my progress with as all the violinists I know or have known in the past (e.g. at school) were already at least grade 6 standard when I first met them - so I've never watched anyone learn as a beginner. My lessons are a lot longer than when I learnt the cello, as I only had 15 minutes a week then for the first couple of years, so i probably should be going faster than I did with cello.

Wow! Even faster than you, eh Violin Hero

I'm in a similar position in that I am sort of looking for a new bow as I'm not entirely happy with mine - (it has taken a couple of years to decide that though!).

The only thing I would say is that you might find a Yita bow more difficult to sell on if you want a change. I am pretty sure of getting something back on mine if I replace it from the same dealer, which will give me a bit me a bit more flexibility when upgrading. I assume that that is normal practice?
Anyway I don't know the price of the Yita bow you are considering, and perhaps if not too much it doesn't matter as an experiment - you might get lucky and find something really special.
N

The only thing I would say is that you might find a Yita bow more difficult to sell on if you want a change. I am pretty sure of getting something back on mine if I replace it from the same dealer, which will give me a bit me a bit more flexibility when upgrading. I assume that that is normal practice?
Anyway I don't know the price of the Yita bow you are considering, and perhaps if not too much it doesn't matter as an experiment - you might get lucky and find something really special.

The bow I looked at went for $560.

Quite a lot for an experiment then - whatever the exchange rate! I notice that Yitamusic get very good feedback on Ebay, and have a good returns policy.
N