Double Bass Bow Analysis

Around the globe, professional musicians have made complaints of conductors giving erroneous instruction pertaining to the techniques they should use to play a particular composition. Most instrumentalists agree these faulty directives are unintentional and stem from incompetent knowledge on the techniques of each instrument; however, they also agree these poor directions negatively affect the sound of the individual, the section, and ultimately the orchestra as a whole. Because the sound of the orchestra is not fully reaching its potential, audience members are unwittingly paying to see a performance not up to par. Though not all, most conductors are culpable of unintentionally giving flawed instruction proving conductors need to be better educated on the unique techniques of each instrument, especially on neglected instruments such as the double bass. Since the double bass often falls victim to a maestro’s ignorance and players have vocalized the problem, this instrument can adequately illustrate the effects of orchestral conductor’s reprehensible advisement. The prominent issue discussed by bassists
As written in Filip Pantelic and Jurij Prezelg’s scholarly article, “Hair Tension Influence on the Vibroacoustic Properties of the Double Bass Bow”:
Bow hair, additionally coated with rosin, has properties that cause it to stick to the string of an instrument. By drawing the bow the string is displaced, resulting in a transversal force. When the force becomes large enough, the string is detached and continues to slip along the bow hair. Together, the sticking phase and the phase of slipping along the hair of a bow, form one cycle that is constantly repeated when using a bow for playing a continuous tone. The period of this cycle is the same as the period of the fundamental frequency of a string. (p.