Saints preserve us!

Dave Swarbrick, late of Fairport Convention (being a teen in the '70s meant there was a constant danger of exposure to FC from sentimental older boyfriends) has abandoned his trademark trademark "dashing away with the smoothing iron" bow-hold for this!

Seems as if the new bow-hold hasn't broken any of his fingers, anyway.

LOL! That's quite a common hold in traditional circles - looks odd doesn't it?

when i read the title, i thought - oh, he's changed from the fiddler's hold to a classical hold - but no, he's just changed from one weird hold to another. those wacky fiddlers, eh...

We're a funny lot indeed.

Mind you, I wonder if I'm the only fiddler who uses a standard bow hold? I take my little finger off if I'm trebling a note, or doing a stutter or something, but generally I just use a normal bow hold, at the frog - I've always felt that holding it any higher just meant I had less bow to use!

Doesn't seem to hold back many of the greats, though... and I did once have a classical player who was learning fiddle (refreshing change to those who just think they can already play it cos all fiddle tunes are only grade 3 - excruciating lot to listen to...) tell me that I wasn't holding the bow right for fiddle cos the fiddle hold was higher up and with only two fingers

Hmm, maybe Viohazard has missed his metier - he doesn't hold the bow particularly high, but he used to never have his little finger on the bow.

I forget who it is, but one contemporary classic soloist has a similar "look, no pinky" hold.

Perlman often lets his pinky walk around - but I suppose you only really need it when you're in the lower half.

Besides, I reckon Perlman can do what he likes ! I'm not going to contradict him !

Don't those hair cuts look great!

They are absolute class, aren't they!

by an amazing coincidence, guess who will be playing at my local folk club later this month?

i shall report back on all aspects of his bow hold in great detail.

Poor guy will probably wonder why you have that tennis referee gaze fixed on him...

And his hair cut, please!

surprised to report: he's now using a Baroque bow. (and he shaved his beard!)

A baroque bow - certainly wouldn't have been predicting that!

I'm not sure it's so surprising, you know - baroque music and trad music are very similar in purity of sound, ornamentation and little use of vibrato - a fiddler friend of mine (ex first chair violin of a French national orchestra) often remarks that the only 'classical' music she now plays is bach, because it's the only thing that resembles traditional music in the attack, sound and approach. So true!

How was the concert, then?

What really surprised me was that the baroque bow had become such a normal option - haven't seen one "in real life" in Japan yet, only in magazine articles. Do you see them in use outside the "authentic period performance" world?

I think Baroque music has become rather fashionable, at least in France. Most luthiers carry a selection of tourte bows, what they call Mozart bows (slightly shorter, classical form) and baroque bows.

I use a Mozart bow for playing Irish, I tried a baroque one and it is superb for playing traditional music, but just not loud enough for playing in rowdy sessions !