Baker's rosin.
I'm looking to buy a cake of Baker's rosin as I suffer from a severe case of tendinitis for years now on my bow arm and left wrist.I have tried sometime ago from a visiting friend,a Baker's rosin and it eased out the excruciating pain because I had to do less work because of the extra grip. I contacted Baker's but they responded that I have to register which I have done. Chances are that I will not be invited to buy for the next couple of years, so PLEASE,PLEASE, If someone out there has a spare fresh cake I could buy please sell it to me. In the long run it might prove to be of no help, but I have to try everything. The time I have used the borrowed Baker's it made playing so much more comfortable. I have a family to feed so I have to go to earth's length if I believe something can help me.
Replies (31)
Sorry about your problem, but maybe a Doctor could be more helpful than a cake of a specific rosin.
Good luck anyway
I am sorry for your pain, and appreciate your situation, but ultimately, I have to agree with Jose.
Baker's may ease a symptom, but it can't address the problem.
Tendonitis won't get better while you are repeating the activity that caused the inflammation.
I have been to doctors on many occasions, had physiotherapy,electric shocks, cortizone pills and ultimately a cortizone injection directly on the elbow joint six months ago. Some doctor suggested surgery but I've heard that if it's not successful I stand a chance of losing all mobility of my arm. I suffer from tendinitis coupled with arthritis.I can only have one more injection and no more, since these injections affect the tendons in a way that they can snap if you have more than two or three in your entire life.
I know that the Baker's rosin will not solve the problem, but if it helps with the pain a little, that is a big plus for me.
I realize that you found that Baker's rosin works for you, but I wonder if there are other things that would help. Maybe you just need more grip with your bow, so that you don't have to work as hard to make sound. (At least, that is what you wrote.) If that is true you could try using a bow that is haired (at least partially) with coarser black horsehair or using softer cello rosin.
Have you tried working with a teacher to see if an adjustment in your playing would assist the problem? I know that, for me, Alexander Technique lessons solved MANY problems, and eased several others. Working with an experienced violin teacher also was a great help.
If you have worked with a sports medicine doctor, and medicine can't help (and I know the limits--you are VERY wise to avoid surgery)trying to make substantive changes to work around the stress areas may be your best bet (and an email to baker's, too, I suppose...)
I recommend that you read this book:
Barbara Paull: The Athletic Musician
http://www.amazon.com/The-Athletic-Musician-Playing-Without/dp/0810833565
It helped me identify the reason for my shoulder pain.
Time to try acupuncture?
I was thinking maybe some herbal supplements.
Dear friends, I have tried most of what you have suggested and although acupuncture did seem to work in the beginning,the pain came back in a short time. The real cure is if I rested my joints and tendons for an extended period, maybe years but in the mean time who is going to put food on the table? Therefore I am looking for ways to ease the exertion of playing to lower levels so I can last longer. One way is to have as you have suggested coarser hair on the bow. I have tried it but the quality of sound suffers.
Thank you all for your input.
How about a lighter bow such as an Arcus?
I own bows from 57gr to 62.4gr. Weight is not the problem.
IF you think changing rosin will help you try "Magic Rosin Ultra." It has all the characteristics you are asking for. Just beware that it is pretty "dusty" - lots of rosin residue. Bt it is really great stuff with outstanding, long-lasting grip.
Andy
dear god what a good advertising campaign can do. bravo 'bakers rosin'.
1. See a doctor if it hurts when you rest.
2. Get a good teacher who will teach you how to be aware of your body. You'll have to make difficult and time consuming changes in your setup and/or technique to fix the problem.
3. Reading some books can be healthy as well.
No healthy person of average proportions should have to have tendinitis or any other such damage.
It simply occurs from having a bad teacher, or practicing poorly.
Everything else, my friend, is snake oil, sold to you by clever salesmen and their hoards of brainwashed followers.
Sorry for my bluntness, but I've been down this path years ago, and only hard and disciplined work fixed me.
Wish you the best,
D
"Everything else, my friend, is snake oil, sold to you by clever salesmen and their hoards of brainwashed followers."
Yes, I agree.
I think you're completely on the wrong way, but why not use melos rosin in the meantime?
Btw. If you're also suffering from arthritis, have you considered giving up eating meat instead of doing that acupuncture or "alternative medicine" nonsense? A reasonable nutrition is always the first step towards a solution.
I wish you success.
Knee-jerk reaction: any advice from a person who indiscriminately calls alternative medicine 'nonsense' has to be considered suspect.
I think the problem with alternative medicine is often context. For example many people seem to feel acupuncture is like western medicine, and forget that it was traditionally used as part of a specific lifestyle - meant to be combined with Chinese medicine, food, exercise/martial art, etc. People who just go for their 1 o'clock acupuncture between their latte and the movie theater - I have to call snake oil! Same thing goes for many such instances. My fellow Americans love the quick fix, because that's how western medicine has trained us. So to look beyond the snake oil, and to try to get a glimpse of the REAL thing - this is difficult and requires a certain vigilance/commitment !!
Marjory,
being skeptical is always recommended.
You know, since more than twenty years I've been active member in the skeptic society where paranormal claims, superstition, quack medicine etc. are being examined in the most unprejudiced way, and with medicine it has come clear that methods that work become accepted by the scientific community. And those who don't are nevertheless practiced by superstitious or ill-advised or even unscrupulous people, they call it alternative medicine instead of quackery.
Acupunture has been researched, and it has been found that it only works as a kind of placebo, if at all. No surprise, as it is completely ignorant of the actual structure of the body.
So our OP is not going to find help when using acupuncture, and it seems he needs real help, not entertaining.
Dear D, no medicine is perfect, and neither acupuncture of 5000+ years nor western medicine of 200 years (well, which one is alternative..) are exception. Why else we see increasing number of western medical practitionrs learn traditional Chinese medicine? Or pharmaceutical companies searching for new active substances in a traditional herbal medicines?
Modern medicine is certainly far beyond what limited understanding the human race had of biology at the end of the Neolithic period.
Daniel's comment about acupuncture as part of an overall healthy lifestyle reminded me of "The Man Higher Up," a famous short story by O. Henry. Here's my favorite part of it:
"'And when you sell a poor woman a pinch of sand for fifty cents to keep her lamp from exploding,' says Bassett, 'what do you figure her gross earnings to be, with sand at forty cents a ton?'
'Listen,' says I. 'I instruct her to keep her lamp clean and well filled. If she does that it can't burst. And with the sand in it she knows it can't, and she don't worry. It's a kind of Industrial Christian Science.'
. Why else we see increasing number of western medical practitionrs learn traditional Chinese medicine?
I hate to be cynical but is it perhaps because there are no controls and they can charge what they like?
Or pharmaceutical companies searching for new active substances in a traditional herbal medicines?
That is just silly. Most core medicines originated from tribal or other biological sources - asprin from tree bark, digitonin from fox glove, penicillin from fungus etc etc. The search just continues because animals and plants - at least those we have not driven to extinction - are amazing chemical factories.
Oops, I guess I opened a can of snakes!
Having no regulation on practitioners is fault of the health care system you have. In BC, Canada, it's regulated and extended medical care covers it. In Japan, it's regulated too, and basic insurance covers it as long as you have prescription by a physical doctor.
It is true that the search of new drug continues everywhere, but it is not random. Unless you have test cases (usually in traditional medicine, Chinese or not), your boss or funding bodies give you a dime to blindly test whatever random substances...
In my case, physiotherapy didn't work but acupuncture worked. And I thought it's a better snake oil than a new cake of rosin...
I switched to Bakers a couple of weeks ago and noticed I was breaking a lot of bow hairs. A few days ago, I switched back to my previous rosin, which is Oliv Evah, and I haven't broken a single bow hair -- maybe just coincidence, not sure.
Say it ain't so!
Hey, if it makes you feel any better, I'm still using a shoulder rest.
It's like I don't even know you any more, Smiley....
With all your woes its really amazing you're still Smiley... Then again, maybe its a 'Little John' moniker ...
a woes by any other name....
Just wondering Smiley if the more sticky Baker's rosin makes the strings tug harder on the hair causing it to break more easily.
Not sure why that hasn't happened to me even when the rosin was new.
Does it also happen with your spare bow (- if you have one - )?
Hendrik,
I think that's exactly what happened. But another possibility is that the Bakers, with its different playing characteristics, has caused me to change my bow arm. I did notice, that my right index finger was getting sore with the Bakers; maybe I was pressing harder.
Yes, I have a spare bow, but I would rather play with my Ludwig Bausch. After a few weeks, I will switch back to Bakers and see what happens.
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February 19, 2014 at 05:51 AM · If you contact them on their help desk with that same message, I should see no reason why they won't help you out. They have helped me in the past- TC is a nice guy and he gets it.