Just finished my first pernambuco bow
I contacted two separate dealers in the US. I'm not sure if i'm allowed to post the dealer names, so for now I will not say who they are. One dealer primarily deals with fine instruments, and in the past they were very helpful with questions I had on strings, so I had them send me three bows: an Otto Hoyer, an Albert Nurnberger and a new J.P. Gabriel. These were the three they said would be good for me to evaluate. I gave them a price range of $1600 and I requested round bows. The J.P. Gabriel was $1500, the Hoyer was $1650 and the Nurnberger was $1700.
The second dealer is one of the larger web/mail-order dealers and I have purchased quite a few items from them. They hand-selected four bows based on the same info I provided the other dealer. Unfortunately they didn't really pay attention and two of the bows were octagonal. These four bows were all new German bows: Klaus Becker 3-star bow, Heiko Wunderlick, Nicholas Delaune and J Norwood Lee Atelier. These bows were priced from $1100 to $1500.
The Otto Hoyer and Albert Nurnberger felt completely different than all the other bows. They seemed to be an extension of my hand. Much more comfortable than my CodaBow Classic (which weighs 61.5 grams). Maybe it was because of their weight (around 59 grams) or maybe their balance. The other five bows all felt the same. Those two bows also easily sounded better under my ear than the others. My friend noted that my violin sounded muted with the CodaBow when compared to those two older bows.
Yesterday my teacher and I spent our entire lesson evaluating the bows. We broke them into two batches and easily narrowed down to three: the Hoyer and Nurnberger from the first dealer and the Nicolas Delaune from the other dealer. He then ruled out the Nurnberger because it was too flexible. He then had me play the remaining two bows for a while. I was easier to do off the string bouncing with the Hoyer, and since it felt better in my hand that is the bow I will be buying. He said the sound was very good with the Delaune, and since it was brand new it was a good buy, but the Hoyer did sound a little better but felt so good in my hand it was an easy decision. My teacher also loved the Hoyer so much that he would have purchased it for himself if I bought the other.
So now i'm very excited to have a high-quality pernambuco bow! I will be sending out to a bow shop to have the leather grip replaced with lizard skin (the grip is worn out) and to have the silver windings buffed out. I feel that I can play much easier with this bow. Maybe it's because it's 59 grams. I don't know, but I now have an awesome bow that's is somewhere around 100 year sold!
Dave
Replies (4)
Now that you have an awsome new bow it must be time to take your technique to the next level too. Your teacher was impressed with it don't be suprised when he expects more from you when you start bringing it to lessons.
This should have been put in the blog, because it was such good writing
Chris,
You are probably right in your conclusion about my teacher. Another positive is that my playing has definately improved with the new bow, and I am playing more because i'm so excited to be using it. I now play an extra 45 minutes on top of what I already did (I play during my lunch break at work).
And Brian, thank you for the nice words about my writing!
Dave
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November 19, 2007 at 07:45 AM · Congratulations, and thanks for the very personal and informative description of the process. The all sound like such great value for under 2000.