violin bow?

do any of u guys know if its safe to muck arnd with a violin bow with an electric guitar or whatever?i was told it could break strings and stuff..

Originally Posted by: jeffhxdo any of u guys know if its safe to muck arnd with a violin bow with an electric guitar or whatever?i was told it could break strings and stuff..

Jimmy Page did it all the time so I'm guessing it's okay. :D

I only messed with that for about 5 minutes (my sister plays violin)...

I didn't break my guitar, but nor did I make any sounds that were pleasant... :D

A violin bow is simply strands of coarse animal hair stretched tight... You'll notice that the hairs will break on the bow... but you won't notice that your strings will break because if you break guitar strings using a violin bow you're doing something very, very, very, very wrong.

Also, the bow is usually rubbed down with rosin. This makes the hairs sort of sticky and produces better tone. Now this rosin will cone off during play. This could potentially get down into the puckup and electronics and muck them up. It should really hurt anything. Just make it dirty.

Originally Posted by: da_ardvarkAlso, the bow is usually rubbed down with rosin.

yeah, thats what i was gunna say. it'll get your strings nice and greasy! wooooo!

Originally Posted by: rockonn91yeah, thats what i was gunna say. it'll get your strings nice and greasy! wooooo!

Didnt Buddy Holly have that problem?

hahahhahhhaaaa. sure did.

IIRC violin bows are quite expensive, and can break quite easily when used with guitar strings. So, do it at your own risk.

Originally Posted by: PRSplayaIIRC violin bows are quite expensive, and can break quite easily when used with guitar strings. So, do it at your own risk.

iirc? so if i were to get a cheap one that shud be alright yea? i was just thinking to get one to have a muck around with...i had no idea there were diff kinds of bows tho

I have no personal experience, but my teacher has, and he says using a violin bow on a guitar isn't very fun. It's an extremely limited type of playing. You can play the high E, the low E, or all of the strings at once. If that sounds cool, go for it.

Originally Posted by: WeslabaI have no personal experience, but my teacher has, and he says using a violin bow on a guitar isn't very fun. It's an extremely limited type of playing. You can play the high E, the low E, or all of the strings at once. If that sounds cool, go for it.

Yep, that is what I was going to ask...Cause the neck one the violin is different than the one on the guitar, and strings are much more apart, so you can play them one at the time.While playing a guitar I think, that would be a problem.
Unless...Hmmmm...If you use some kind of tuning, wher, when you struck an open guitar, no fingers on fingerboard (hope you get what I mean), it would be a chord.Then you could use a slide when playing with a bow...Dunno how it would sound, though.

a slide with a bow..interesting..but wont that be like.... neve campbell in a non sexual film? just doesnt seem possible to function that way...

thanks for the input guys

Violins have curved fingerboards, so by changing the angle at which you hold the bow, you can play one string at a time. the curvature on a guitar fretbaord is much smaller, and so you cant do anything like that...and even if you did, the bow would not work nicely on wound strings.

If you want to make that sort of noise (not a bow on a guitar, which sounds horrid, but a violin like guitar sound) get an Ebow (electronic bow) it is a small electronic device that is held in the right/picking hand, the ebow produces a magnetic field, that causes the string to vibrate...its hard to learn to uses it, placing it so that just one string vibrates can be hard, usually it involves muting the other strings, but once you learn how to use one,an Ebow can sound amazing.

www.ebow.com has some great info to get across what I'm talking about

I have seen an Ebow used to its full potential, and it is a very cool thing. I believe it was Steve Morse who I saw using one. Very cool stuff to watch and listen to. Also, the use of open strings, if done well, can be pretty amazing.

Well, I came across a violin bow in my bedroom a while ago, and the first thing I did was turn up my amp and try to play my guitar with it. The bow, that is. It's true that you can only play the low e, high e, or everything, and you can't really make, like, music, but it was pretty fun to play around with, and it makes lots of people complain. It sure didn't break any strings.