Abstract
It is to the credit of François Tourte (Paris, ca. 1747–1835) that modern bows give a more direct impact on the string than their predecessors. This feature is of utmost importance when applying off-string, bouncing techniques such as spiccato and ricochet, but even for a stroke such as martelé, where quick reduction of bow force is required during the attack. With Tourte’s concave-cambered bow, the bow force increases rapidly when the bow stick is falling or pressed against the string. With the old concave or straight bows, more movement, and thus time, was required for establishing comparable bow force.
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Notes
- 1.
Bow camber is often measured as deflection of stick compared to a straight line from top of head to the frog’s button. However in the present context it refers to the part of stick that actively participates in defining the hair’s tension, that is, the deflection between the head and the frog. In other connections a positive camber refers to a convex arch, but here we follow the convention of bow makers to give concave arches positive camber values.
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Guettler, K. (2010). Bows, Strings, and Bowing. In: Rossing, T. (eds) The Science of String Instruments. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-7110-4_16
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