I’ve done something that I’ve wanted to try for a long time. Taking my Christmas gift certificate to Long and McQuade, I bought a violin bow to use on my guitar. Let me tell you, it is not easy to just pick up a bow and start playing. First thing I noticed was that the notes I was hearing were not the notes I was playing. That is to say that there must have been some weird harmonic thing going on because, depending on where I stroked the bow on the string, I could make a whole range of pitches occur. I finally found that it sounds best when I bow right over the bridge pickup. I’ll have to investigate this further, but if pressed for a reason, I’d say it was because the bow sets up a fixed node and I’m hearing artificial fundamentals whose pitch corresponds to where the bow is on the string and either the fretted note or the bridge. This explanation could be entirely bullshit, I don’t know. I did try bowing open strings over the 12th fret, which is a fixed node in the string’s vibration. The results of this were unsatisfactory.
It is a good thing I had strung my guitar with flatwounds some time back, as it is much kinder on the bow. Flat or roundwound, either way you end up with a lot of tacky rosin on your strings … and your guitar. Be sure to wipe up after you’re done.
As the fretboard on the guitar is not arched like stringed instruments that are meant to be played with the bow, single note lines are restricted to the E string (your choice of which). If you want to increase the availability of strings for playing single notes you’ll have to either get a modified bridge or a specially made guitar. The later you can get from TogaMan. Currently I’m liking the sounds of the low E and A string drawing out long growly power chords, I suppose I could open tune the guitar to make use of all the strings. I wonder what it would sound like if I did that and used my slide?
I also found I had to wear my guitar lower. This made the action of bowing easier to do. Holding the bow is a bit odd too. So far the best grip I found, that gives me the most control is to hold it like I’m holding a pencil with the frog (see here) underneath my thumb, and my middle finger pressing on the back of the hairs. Not having my right arm to push back against the body of the guitar, I find it taxing to keep the guitar from swinging when I move my fretting hand.
Some alternatives exist if you want a bowed sound without the bow. The Piranha Guitar Bow is a device that shrinks a bow into a hand-held package. If you want to get even further down the technology path you could always pick up an E-bow from here.
Learning to play with a bow is challenging but yields great rewards in the range of expression you can coax out of your strings. If you’re looking to tackle a new technique to add to your repetoire I would highly suggest picking up a bow from your local music shop and spend some time making beautiful music.
