Violas da Gamba Bows

Louis Bégin Viol Bows

Chris English Viol Bows

Van Edwards Viol Bows (new)

Lu-Mi Chinese Bows

Charlie Ogle's Chinese Bows

Bow FAQs

Bows may be tried on approval.

  I normally have a few dozen in stock at any one time.

Louis Bégin Viol Bows

Louis Bégin, a Canadian bowmaker, has been making bows since 1987, with customers in many countries of the Americas and Europe, as well as in Asia.  His models are very personal, basically inspired by early bows, but his models also include many creations that we could call original bows.  His bows are highly regarded in the viola da gamba community.

Chris English Viol Bows

Chris English is a Port Townsend, WA highly skilled bowmaker.  His bows are finely crafted using the highest quality materials, personally chosen from such places as Brazil, Spain and France.  His acquisition and study of materials to learn their characteristics, his interaction with musicians, and his study of bows in collections and museums are all integral factors in his personalized and successful approach to bow making.  His bows are highly regarded in the viola da gamba community.

Bows may be tried on approval.

Approximate Specifications (Examples)

All sizes are the same price.  Other decorative options are available

David Van Edwards Viol Bows

David Van Edwards (Norwich, Norfolk, England) has been making lutes and theorbos for over 30 years.  He also teaches instrument making (lute, theorbo, guitar, viol) and runs instrument building workshops.  His bows are reasonably priced alternatives to the less expensive Chinese bows and the more expensive handmade individual makers' bows.

The normal sizes are:
Bass 73cm stick length; 65 - 70 gm. pernambuco, 75 - 80 gm. snakewood.
Tenor 67cm stick length; 45 - 55 gm. pernambuco, 52 - 57 gm. snakewood.
Treble 61cm stick length; 40 - 44 gm. pernambuco, 46 - 50 gm. snakewood.

Some people prefer a longer bow for the treble and some find the tenor bow a more familiar size for their treble viols. I can make a treble bow any length you prefer, but this is what I recommend.

Bows may be tried on approval.

All sizes are the same price.  Other decorative options are available

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Viol Bow FAQs

from David Van Edwards

Baroque bows have a deeper headed form than Renaissance bows.  This gives a sense of float and grace. Most players find it very satisfactory for the normal run of consort music.
Bows can be made straight, in which case they will take up the convex curve seen in almost all the pictures of the 17th century, or they can be given a reverse (concave) curve like a modern violin bow, which will give a much tighter feel to the hair and will seem to "grip" the string better. Obviously players of modern instruments will feel more at home with this form and it does enable the solo repertoire to be played with considerable brio but it is probably anachronistic for the earlier part of the 17th century. The same bow given a reverse curve will feel completely different and can be made lighter for the same degree of hair tension, reaching the limit of this possibility in the modern violin bow. (Many players do not realize that even modern violin bows are made straight and then given their curve by bending with heat.)

The normal sizes are:
Bass 73cm stick length; 65 - 70 gm. pernambuco, 75 - 80 gm. snakewood.
Tenor 67cm stick length; 45 - 55 gm. pernambuco, 52 - 57 gm. snakewood.
Treble 61cm stick length; 40 - 44 gm. pernambuco, 46 - 50 gm. snakewood.

Some people prefer a longer bow for the treble and some find the tenor bow a more familiar size for their treble viols. I can make a treble bow any length you prefer, but this is what I recommend.

SOME REMARKS ABOUT BOWS AND HAIR

In general a bow has to resonate sympathetically with the instrument and this is affected by almost everything you care to name: weight and tension of strings, hair, bow, bow arm, soundboard, etc etc. So the best bow is the one that works best for you, and may not be the same as the best for the next player or instrument.

Beginning students may have bad habits, of playing position etc. or be insufficiently clear about what they're listening for, in which case the teacher's opinion on the bow, [preferably played on the student's instrument though] may be the most accurate and useful.

The ability of a bow to carry hair to a given optimum tension is determined by its stiffness. So a stiffer bow can carry more hair to the same tension than a weaker stick. Thus modern violin bows, with their very stiff geometry of reverse bend, can commonly carry 180 hairs whereas a bass viol bow is likely to have about 130 hairs. Therefore the number of hairs will vary from bow to bow, from wood type and curvature. If there are too many hairs for the bow they will feel slack. The weight of the hairs in any given hair band will act as a kind of 'inertia' to drive the string, and so in general the more hairs the louder, subject to the provisos above.

For large instruments with all gut stringing such as baroque cellos, large bass viols or bass violins, black hair is often better for getting the thick bass strings moving at the start of a note. This is because the individual hairs of black hair are thicker and thus have a greater area in contact with the string. The microscopic scales on the surface of the hair which hold the rosin and provide the 'stick-slip' grip on the string are also coarser and further apart in the case of black hair, and so, though often louder and quicker to speak, they may produce a rather coarse sound. If your large gut strings are slow to speak and rather feeble, it may be worth experimenting with black hair in your bow.

Try the bow on your instrument, preferably with a friend listening at a distance to compare notes on volume and clarity. Ignore the price ticket and concentrate on getting the best sound and then look at the price!

Pernambuco (Caesalpinia Echinata) This is an orange brown wood, heavy and very stiff and is the standard wood used for the modern violin bow. It was originally imported mostly as a dye wood and legend has it that Tourte was the first to notice its suitability as a bow wood. This is demonstrably untrue as there are many pernambuco bows from before Tourte's time, but it is true that after Tourte it became almost the only wood used for good bows. It produces a very bright, brilliant sound from the instrument.

Snakewood (Piratinera Guianensis) is the other main wood used for bows, particularly earlier period bows. It is difficult to obtain and is ferociously expensive but it does make a wonderful bow. It produces a rich powerful sound and is much used by professional players of period instruments because of the volume it can produce. It is one of the heaviest, stiffest woods known, smooth and dark brown for the most part. However some snakewood has a decorative figure of irregular black patches which look a bit like the markings on a snake, hence the name. This figure varies from log to log, and also within each log, some parts are highly figured, some have a mild figure and other parts have virtually no figure at all. This is a representative selection of what we call in the stocklist description of each bow “highly figured”, “figured” and “unfigured”. These three pieces came from adjacent parts of the same log. It is very strange and beautiful but it adds nothing to the playing character of the bows, only to the cost!