Upright Bass: Bow Rosin

Video Transcript

"Lets talk about how to put rosin on the bow. Rosin is what gives the bow its stickiness so it can activate the string, when you're pulling it across, otherwise, you'll just hear a whisper sound if you don't have rosin or enough rosin. It comes in these little cakes, you can buy it especially made for bass or you may just find that you'll end up using violin or cello rosin or whatever. For example, if you're a student, whatever the school might have on hand. If it's untouched, you may want to just scratch the top of it a bit, with a key, to get it started. You don't want it to be excessively dusty but you want some of it to be able to come off on the bow hair. What you're going to do with your bow, this one is loose, so using the screw, I'm just going to turn it three times to tighten up the hair a little bit and then what you want to do with that rosin, is run it all the way from one end of the hair, out to the other. It may make a squeaking sound, a little bit, don't let that bother you, especially when you get out to the tip, where the tension is a little more on the hair, you want to make sure that you're getting adequate rosin. Again, covering the hair from one end to the other. Either bow will be the same, again, we're using the French one but you'll do the same thing if you have the German bow. You'll tighten the screw three times, make sure you apply the rosin thoroughly from one end to the other. If you have a new bow, you'll find that you have to use more rosin, more frequently, but once you have it rosined up, it'll make a great sound in the bass, let's move on to doing that."