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Rosins

post #1 of 20
12/20/11 at 4:04am
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It's been ages since I bought rosin, probably more than 20 years. I remember I had the little student rosin that comes in a rectangular wood block, but I managed to pilfer a broken piece of rosin from a friend. That stuff was circular and came in a little green cloth. It was wonderful stuff, but I can't remember what brand it was.

It went on smooth, and definitely had a different feel than the student rosin. It was darker in color as well. It was a tad softer than my more amber-coloured student rosin.

If you play a bowed instrument, what is your rosin of choice and why?

neat website about rosins
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post #2 of 20
12/20/11 at 7:00am
Oh, Aiona, your post brings back such grand memories - I still have one of my dad's violins, and there is rosin in the case, he always showed me how to do it, although I never became a violinist. I guess I'm not much help in the rosin dept., I don't know much about the brands.
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post #3 of 20
12/20/11 at 8:12am
Back when I was a violist, I played using a few different instruments, but never found changing a rosin made much of a difference. I honestly forget the brands, but I remember trying a ''light'' rosin, a ''heavy'' rosin, and the little block of mystery rosin that my viola came with, and never found much of a difference in sound, though the dark rosin felt like it had slightly better ''grip'' if that makes any sense?

Now strings, those made a big difference that even my friends and family noticed. I prefered the sound of synthetic core strings, but steel Jargars made a huge difference in being heard, especially given the understaffed viola sections typical of student orchestras. There's a reason soloists like Yuri Bashmet use steel, and it comes down to the sheer volume battle of an orchestra versus a solo viola being a losing battle at the best of times.

Most of the upper strings rosin was disappointingly scentless, but if you're ever around a bassist, check out bass rosin. It's soft and sort of candy-like. I wonder how many under-fives make the mistake of trying to eat it.

I had to stop playing viola due to tendon issues in my right hand that ended that career path, but I'd love to be able to play again. Enjoy your time! There's nothing like music-making.
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post #4 of 20
12/20/11 at 3:38pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by IngaMi View Post

Oh, Aiona, your post brings back such grand memories - I still have one of my dad's violins, and there is rosin in the case, he always showed me how to do it, although I never became a violinist. I guess I'm not much help in the rosin dept., I don't know much about the brands.

I'm glad I was able to provide some natsukashii. I too have a lot of memories from my own violin. It's funny to see Aiona Jr. playing with it. I never thought I'd have a kid playing that violin. It makes me wonder how my own parents felt to hear me screeching on it all hours of the day. :P
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post #5 of 20
12/20/11 at 3:41pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sugandaraja View Post

the dark rosin felt like it had slightly better ''grip'' if that makes any sense?

Yes, it does. And I'm hoping to find that same kind of rosin!

Quote:
Originally Posted by Sugandaraja View Post

Now strings, those made a big difference that even my friends and family noticed. I prefered the sound of synthetic core strings, but steel Jargars made a huge difference in being heard, especially given the understaffed viola sections typical of student orchestras. There's a reason soloists like Yuri Bashmet use steel, and it comes down to the sheer volume battle of an orchestra versus a solo viola being a losing battle at the best of times.

Wow! I never thought about that, but I understand that. I have two guitars, one with the strings that came with it, and another which has been strung with good high quality strings. The difference in tone and richness is amazing. It would make sense that it'd be the same for violins or any other stringed instrument!

Quote:
Originally Posted by Sugandaraja View Post

Most of the upper strings rosin was disappointingly scentless, but if you're ever around a bassist, check out bass rosin. It's soft and sort of candy-like. I wonder how many under-fives make the mistake of trying to eat it.

I've never smelled bass rosin. Now you've got me curious. But I do remember I liked the smell of my own violin rosin. And yes, they all have particular smells. Sometimes I wondered if I might make my own rosin from some of our pine trees, but I'm sure it's much more complicated than that!
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post #6 of 20
12/20/11 at 4:28pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Aiona View Post


Wow! I never thought about that, but I understand that. I have two guitars, one with the strings that came with it, and another which has been strung with good high quality strings. The difference in tone and richness is amazing. It would make sense that it'd be the same for violins or any other stringed instrument!

I don't know about guitars, but with the bowed strings it's a good idea to change the strings reasonably frequently to avoid getting a dull kind of sound. My initial pursuit of different rosins lead me to change the strings and see what a big difference there was once I had new strings, as I was initially blaming my rosin for a certain dullness I found creeping up.

As for strings, it's pretty much divided between wound gut, wound synthetic, and steel strings, each good depending on what you want. Steel are durable, easily tunable, good for being loud and staying in tune, and tend to respond fast, but tend to be bright and hard, something that can be a bit more flattering on the lower strings than on the violin. Synthetics some in a lot of varieties ( Evah Pirazzi was a popular choice among my violin-student colleagues, as violinists and violists tend to have a lot overlapping studies ). They stay in tune well, have a warmer sound, slightly slower response, but tend to wear out and be trickier than steel. Gut of course can be beautiful sounding if quiet, short-lived, and tricky to tune! ( No microtuners to help here ).

I don't know where Aiona Jr. is in her playing career, but there are a lot of great synthetic-core strings on the market these days that tolerate microtuners, last a while, and aren't too pricey. Not sure the age of the strings, but if something is sounding unsatisfactory, it might be worth looking into.
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post #7 of 20
12/20/11 at 6:47pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sugandaraja View Post

Gut of course can be beautiful sounding if quiet, short-lived, and tricky to tune! ( No microtuners to help here ).

Not always true for basses....there is quite a bit of a movement going back to gut strings. Some basses prefer the much lower tension of gut. I used to have a 1930's Juzek that hated high tension steel strings, but with Velvet (synthetic gut) or varnished plain gut that was just a cannon of a jazz bass. I used to play a lot of gigs without the help of an amp with those.

I absolutely adore the sound of gut; the best strings I ever had were the handmade gut made by Daniel Larson the Gamut Strings. Unfortunately, they are SOOOOOO expensive I just can't afford them, and they can be miserable to play in the humid summer days. I actually have found plain (unwrapped gut) to be quite stable tuning; I think a lot of the blame goes to steel wrapped gut where the humidity changes affect the core differently than the steel wrapping.

Since my modern bass is quite loud and I'm no longer willing to pay for a full set of gut, for the last few years I've used Evah Pirazzi Weich tension except for the highest string. I have never found a steel string for the G I can stomach pizzacato....they just don't have that snap. I use a Pirastro Oliv which is a silver wrapped gut string that is very nice and warm.
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post #8 of 20
12/20/11 at 7:21pm
Thread Starter 
Thanks for all your comments. I really need to look up how to re-string a violin, before I decide to purchase strings. Y'know that whole "don't take it apart until you can put it back together" thing. Any tips for re-stringing?

But first, rosin.

I kind of forgot that my student violin case has that little cubby where I used to keep the rosin. I found that today, and looked inside. Aside from a ton of shattered rosin debris, I found what was left of that green-wrapped rosin. The label on the wrapper says, "W.E. Hill & Sons."

It was their "dark" rosin, which even though Wikipedia says the company went under in 1992, places are still selling their rosin! If I remember rightly, the reason I ended up throwing it away was because it just kept shattering and chipping to the point where I had nothing I could really use! So I chucked it, but saved the wrapper, so I could find a replacement.

Seeing that they've folded, and wondering if their rosin maybe isn't worth buying if it shatters that easy, I'm still at a loss to decide which rosin I want to buy and how much I want to spend. There's actually a price tag on this rosin wrapper. It says $4.95. That was back in the 80's. Online, W.E. Hill & Sons Rosin now goes for anywhere between $9.95 and $11-something. Ah, inflation!

Some of the pricier rosins run into the $20 to $25 range. It's an investment, I know. So I want to be sure I make a good one, as a cake will probably last me another 35 years!!!! (unless Aiona, Jr. decides to pursue it)

Of interest, there's an interesting discussion of why W.E. Hill & Sons went out of business at http://www.maestronet.com/forum/inde...owtopic=252921.

Michael Darnton, one of their forum members, posted, "There's a joke in the violin business that the first generation of a famous firm is a workman, the second the businessman/expert that builds the father's company into something great, and the third is the generation that flushes it down the drain. That's a bit harsh, but a lot of great firms have followed that general tradition, since without a great expert with a burning violin obsession you don't have a great firm, and that doesn't come along every day."

I thought that was kind of insightful.

And then, someone mentioned that Andrew Hill still operates under W.E. Hill & Sons. And GlennYorkPA says, "If he owns the intellectual property of the WE Hill brand, he needn't ever make a musical instrument again. I can see the T shirts, violin-themed restaurants and fragrances already!"

I thought that was funny. Violin makers marketing fragrances! I wish!

Would there be a bass rosin-smelling one, y'think?
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post #9 of 20
12/21/11 at 6:12am
I've never had a rosin crumble, except for one I hammered a piece off of and burnt to see if it had a smell when burned. I'm honestly not suprised a company that had falling-apart rosin went out of business, even if it sounded good.

I wouldn't worry too much about the lifespan of rosins. A little piece can last years, and years, and years...

As for changing strings, just remember to do it carefully and don't be in a hurry. Replace each one at a time, as letting all the tension out at once can quite literally make a violin fall apart! Choose a day you won't be playing much and don't have the instrument at full tension immediately ( i.e. let the strings be a minor or major third or so flat before tuning them gradually all the way up bit by bit during the day ). When they're in tune it can take a day or so before they settle in, and they tend to need retuning a few times over the next few days before they're really stable.
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post #10 of 20
12/21/11 at 6:24am
Quote:
Originally Posted by jzzbassman View Post

Not always true for basses....there is quite a bit of a movement going back to gut strings. Some basses prefer the much lower tension of gut. I used to have a 1930's Juzek that hated high tension steel strings, but with Velvet (synthetic gut) or varnished plain gut that was just a cannon of a jazz bass. I used to play a lot of gigs without the help of an amp with those.

I absolutely adore the sound of gut; the best strings I ever had were the handmade gut made by Daniel Larson the Gamut Strings. Unfortunately, they are SOOOOOO expensive I just can't afford them, and they can be miserable to play in the humid summer days. I actually have found plain (unwrapped gut) to be quite stable tuning; I think a lot of the blame goes to steel wrapped gut where the humidity changes affect the core differently than the steel wrapping.

Since my modern bass is quite loud and I'm no longer willing to pay for a full set of gut, for the last few years I've used Evah Pirazzi Weich tension except for the highest string. I have never found a steel string for the G I can stomach pizzacato....they just don't have that snap. I use a Pirastro Oliv which is a silver wrapped gut string that is very nice and warm.

Bowing and pizzicato tend to put very different demands on an instrument, and on strings. High tension doesn't necessarily mean more loud for pizz, as was shown when they first tried to revive the harpsichord a century ago and found that the steel-framed, high tension piano approach just resulted in a dry, brittle sound no louder than the low-tension historical models.

For violins, violas, and cellos to a degree, pizzicato tends to be pretty much and afterthought. We don't use it enough for it to take precendence over bowed sound, and it tends to sound brittle anyway. ( I'd be very curious to check out what kind of strings mandolinists prefer, as they pluck exclusively but have the same GDAE tuning as violins ).
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post #11 of 20
12/21/11 at 2:25pm
My old bass was an absolute cannon arco with the gut.

Unfortunately, plain gut is VERY unforgiving with the bow. Can sound beautiful but takes someone with great control.
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post #12 of 20
12/21/11 at 8:05pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sugandaraja View Post

As for changing strings, just remember to do it carefully and don't be in a hurry.

Yeah, I will! I imagine it's a lot like trying to put on false eyelashes, only a lot more expensive. I did take a look at the Evah Pirazzi strings you mentioned and Ay Carumba! They're nearly 1/3rd the cost of my student violin (which tells you how cheap that was!). But, as with anything, curiosity gets to me, so I looked how to restring a violin, and geez. It really doesn't look that hard, does it? (Well, neither did applying fake eyelashes.) But I love how in this video below, the lady at RedDesertViolin talks about how to fix the annoying problem of having your tuning posts at an awkward angle. I don't know why it never occurred to me to just restring it!! Simple solution. Aiona == uncreative mind.



I still haven't decided what rosin to buy. I looked through the whole range, and almost purchased a cake of Andrea for $35, before I stopped myself, and thought I should just ask Robertson (Bryan) what he used, because my violin sounds awesome ever since I got those bows back. Maybe it's just my imagination. 'Kind of like when you go without a scent for a while, and your old favorite smells really nice and dreamy to you. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, and all that dreck.
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post #13 of 20
12/21/11 at 8:08pm
Thread Starter 
I almost bought a cake of bass rosin too.
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post #14 of 20
1/1/12 at 3:37pm
Thread Starter 
I ended up getting a cake of Bernadel, which is what Robertsons used on the bows prior to shipping them back. It's not cheap, but it's not a $35 Andrea either. And I wish I could share how it smells. It smells good. 'Makes me wonder how bass rosin smells.

But since I can't share the smell, here's a picture:



It came with a cute little case, too. I have never had such a pretty piece of rosin!
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post #15 of 20
1/1/12 at 3:46pm
I loved the smell of the rosin when I studied violin as a kid. Do you think it could be made into a tincture?
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post #16 of 20
1/1/12 at 4:21pm
Thread Starter 
LOL! I'm sure it could! But this one is going on my bow.

I have some dragon's blood that Castrensis sent me last spring. I still haven't made a tincture of it. That's a resin also.
I also collected some pine resin from a tree in our backyard, but when I resuspended it in Everclear, it smelled terrible!
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post #17 of 20
1/10/12 at 10:58pm
I neglected to mention the bass rosin I use!

This is simply FABULOUS stuff:
http://www.gregorianstrings.com/history.html

My first teacher had told me about the old Oak Bass Rosin, but it hadn't been around for several years until Gaston's formula was passed down to his student who started making it.

It does smell heavenly, and grips very well.
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post #18 of 20
2/1/12 at 8:12pm
Thread Starter 
Holey moley! I must be living in the dark ages. I had no idea they had strings like this these days. My jaw is on the floor. Luckily I can still type.

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post #19 of 20
2/1/12 at 8:24pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by jzzbassman View Post

I neglected to mention the bass rosin I use!

This is simply FABULOUS stuff:
http://www.gregorianstrings.com/history.html

My first teacher had told me about the old Oak Bass Rosin, but it hadn't been around for several years until Gaston's formula was passed down to his student who started making it.

It does smell heavenly, and grips very well.

My Bernardel has hardly any smell at all, really. It's a tad disappointing in that respect. However, it grips the strings very well, too. I am really enjoying it. I love the way the hair cuts a matte swathe through a shiny cake. I'll take a picture sometime.

I'm still pondering buying a bass rosin, JUST BECAUSE YOU SAID THAT.
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post #20 of 20
1/24/13 at 12:18am
Thread Starter 
Funny how I seem to revisit my violin only in the wintertime. Why is that? Pulled it out since we've all been home with the flu, and this year, Aiona Jr. is a lot better at not touching the bow anywhere but the frog. In fact, I'm actually at little pleased at how much he picks up from me. I kinda wanna get him a little cello.

That said, I *NEVER* did change my violin strings. But.

I'm about to have an unusually expensive string repair on my piano.
I'm worried it won't sound the same. The repair guy said, "Funny how people always say that. They like the sound of their own pianos." Well DUH! I love my piano. Flaws and all.

Oh, and Robertsons Violins sent me a Christmas card. Handwritten message inside. Very nice touch. I wonder if they remember what they did for me.... The Bernardel rosin is really so awesome. It makes me sound like I actually know how to play.
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