Choosing horse-hair
I aways relied on a luthier to rehair my bow with whatever hair he had and I never went into the technical details about it, but along the years I noticed that the variety of the quality of hair can vary as much as that of the strings. Several times I had the unfortunate experience of having a new hair that was much worse than the old one after long use. And perhaps twice I had such a wonderful hair that it seemed the bow was playing magically. It so happened that I don't want to depend on any luthier to give me whatever he has, but rather I myself want to order something good and then get someone to put it on the bow. So, what should I look for? What is the criteria? WHat are the basic distinctions between the hair hanks available for sale? I see names like Mongolian Stallion, Siberian Stallion, etc. Just a name can mean something in terms of quality?
Replies (14)
It looks stupid but did you know that every bowhair is really bad at the beginning because the rosin is not on yet and the hair need to strech and the rosin to get even! If you are lucky, your maker can apply the rosin for the first time and it can go better but when the players are more experience, it happens that the maker rehairs the bow and that there is no rosin at all on it. You have to put some and it can take two weeks or more to have a bow that play's well. So, don't change hair just before a gig or exam!
Anne-Marie
Well, if you want the best, consistent hair for your bow, perhaps you should buy a whole hank of hair. This way you will have years of supply, know exactly what hair was used on your bow, and your rehairs can be consistent.
For the hair itself, Mongolian, Russian, etc means nothing in the trade. Mongolian must be the dominant source. It's very good, and perhaps best for price.
What does matter is the elasticity. Best hair can be stretched between your fingers, and feels elastic. The greater the elasticity, the better the hair. Avoid hair that breaks upon the slightest stretch.
Natural colour affects marketability, but not playability. I have had equal results for white, grey, brown, black hair. Some will disagree with this point. I avoid the whitest colour, as this hair has been bleached: bleached hair has given me very short service time.
Guage (thickness of hair) seems to affect sound. Finer guage seems to produce the best sound. (I do not know why).
The hair I choose is opaque, very light blonde, and fine guage.
For the source and production of hair, see the website noted.
Ron, how interesting! Ok, I admit that I love horses a lot and this discussion is cool! To have unbleached hair, you must have to command it dirrectly from the farm? (because the makers I know have bleach. A little off topic question, from which horse breed the hair is from? Are they some farms in the countries you mention that have the right horses and produce hair. Does one horse produce many "bows" (I hope so, because it would be sad to kill them just to have the hair!) And I hope they are also alowed to go outside and get durty because horses have to be horses! I would love to go visit such farms and see the horses. I go anually to a fair and this year, I had the chance to pat many horses and one was lying down and I was so curious to see a real horse tail (not on the bow), detail that only a violinist would analyse! The masters found it cute and said "you want to see the product in real"!
I will go visit this site too!
Anne-Marie
I had an experience quite different from those said above. The few really good new hairs I got were all very white, very thick, lasted at least a couple of years, and the most important thing to me: I could get a very sound 'click' . And they sounded good from the very first day with hardly any rosin, rather I was putting rosin EOD for the sound was almost harsh. The staccatos would play as if automatically. On the other hand, the hair I have now is very thin, doesn't properly catch the rosin, and I can't really do decent spiccatos and staccatos with it. As far as I have seem, if the hair doesn't sound good from the very first week, it will never do.
99.99% of the world's bow hair is from slaughterhouse horses, this means that the animals die before the hair is used to make bows.
When Emily and I were in China, we spent a lot of time finding a farmer's cooperative in Inner Mongolia that would be willing to sell us the hair they cut from their living horses. We buy about 20 kilos of their hair each year. We call it MANCHURIAN LIVE, Manchuria for the area where the animals live, and Live due to the fact that the animals are still living when the hair is removed from their tails. Serge Sioufi, a bow maker in Montreal, and one or two other violin shops in the US buy all of our stock. We can get more if there is a demand for it.
Greetings,
aside from moral issues, presumably you are saying there is some quality difference between dead versus live source? That would make absolute sense to me.
Cheers,
Buri
I bought a hank from the breeder, who takes his from living animals. The hair was subjected to a soap washing, air drying, and combing, only. It is not white, but rather light blonde and transluscent. Excellent.
I have no idea if hair from culled animals is different.
I have success with fine guage (not ultra thin), whereas Mr Benford prefers coarse. Seemingly then guage has little or no effect upon playability. This would leave bleaching and elasticity as the main determinants between low and high grades.
This is Intersting Adam! Why are they any farms exclusively for hair in USA or Canada or in Europe? Is it strickly for economical reasons? Someone could combine an equestrian school and sell live hair and earn even more money! If I had horses, I would think about it as a side job and it would be great!
Anne-Marie
Anne-Marie, horses need to come from a cold climate, which is why inner Mongolia, Mongolia, Siberia, Argentina are ideal. The colder the climate, the stronger, thicker the hair.
There used to be a Canadian supplier of bow hair that was fantastic. He is now out of business, retired I think. Michael T. Sowden used to provide me with his hair after sorting it himself. Well, I have found a company that sells me Canadian slaughterhouse tails (sorry folks, that's where they come from), and I ship them to my workshop in Heibei for processing. It's a very expensive process, but I do have customers who will only buy Canadian bow hair. (Robertson Violins in Albuquerque, NM for example)
I also had many times a horse hair that was thick and useless, so it might be just by chance that I didn't came accross any thin hair that was good. Thus I conclude that colour, gauge, name and origin are not ultimate factors to determine the quality. BTW, can anyone tell me why do they slaughter horses? For sure it is not for the hair...
Greetings,
too old to run, too old to work, too expensive to feed. Oh, hang on. Sorry, that`s me.
Cheers,
Buri
Stephan, we can say this of violinists too! Too old to play, to old to work, too expensive to feed!
We will all go there...
Eating meat is ok but I find it awful that for economical or cultural reasons, the methods they use in slaughter houses are absoluntly immoral! I have for principe that you should kill an animal the way you would like to die lol! When, the vet put my old suffering lab a sleep, I swear it was so gentle and my dog didn't feel anything! Many humans die in much horrible conditions that my dog did! Thus, it is our responsability to find such non suffering methods in slaughter houses (shame on us!) but this is another debate and I don't want to go on for too long with this because it is off topic! Every one should have contact with farm animals to see how bright they are. I once had a domestic chicken that was such a lovie. I could take her in the house and pat her four hours. This chicken liked me as if I was her mother and was always joyful to see me. It followed me everywhere when I walked. Too cute... Now, I feel funny to eat chicken and I know that they were not respected... But still, it is a little off topic, sorry!
Anne-Marie
Cold correlates to good bow hair? Like roaches make for good varnish?
Hair quality depends upon the breed, not the climate. Mongolian hair is preferred in PRC, because of its inherent qualities (I do too). I haven't tried hair from say a Morgan, or Hannoverian, so I can't say much about other breeds. But I doubt seriously a Morgan in Virginia would have different hair and quality,were it transported to a colder clime.
For me, best results are achieved with a fine guage, and very pale transluscent colour, from the Mongolian breed. I enjoy reading the experiences of others, especially those different from my own.
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December 8, 2008 at 05:06 PM ·
Hi! I created a website that I think will answer all of your questions about horse hair. If you would like to know more than what's on the site, feel free to message me directly
Here's the site: http://www.bowhair.net/
Enjoy!