Sounds of Music C

[rtyagi]

hey sorry im new to this whole thing, but am i allowed to buy a bow and play the violin im making? or can i only pluck it?
also the rules say no rosin, so does that mean i cant rosin a bow? (and therefore just shoudnt use one?)

[hmcginny]

No you can't purchase a bow, as it falls under "a part of a professional instrument" in rule 3.b. You can however make your own bow, and use some other legal substance as a substitute for rosin. Or you could just pluck it as you suggested.

[AlphaTauri]

Yeah, I was experimenting with some athletic tack cloth to "rosin" my bow, which is basically a tree branch I found in my backyard and some horsehair - it works, but not great, so I may resort to boiling pine tar and making my own (although I do understand that it is a helluva smell).

I did pluck the strings on my string instrument (can't say what exactly it is, because that's a team secret :P) at Stoga, and it blended pretty well, since our other instrument is mallet percussion. So you can consider just playing pizz as well, although if you're making a violin, I assume you want to bow it.

[personasaurus rex]

Any tips on making a legal bow? I bought horsehair online, and at Athens yesterday I managed to BS my way into not getting disqualified by the judge but I honestly have no clue where else I would be able to find a substitute for horsehair...

[BoldlyGoingNowhere]

Does anybody know how to make a saxophone mouthpiece? And/or a reed?

[Starapollo1]

Any tips on making a legal bow? I bought horsehair online, and at Athens yesterday I managed to BS my way into not getting disqualified by the judge but I honestly have no clue where else I would be able to find a substitute for horsehair...

Why can't you use horse hair from a horse...

[personasaurus rex]

Any tips on making a legal bow? I bought horsehair online, and at Athens yesterday I managed to BS my way into not getting disqualified by the judge but I honestly have no clue where else I would be able to find a substitute for horsehair...

Why can't you use horse hair from a horse...

The majority of the horsehair you find online are specifically manufactured/harvested for violin bow making, which counts as "professionally made for musical instruments" and therefore illegal. Plus I unfortunately don't live on a farm with horses, despite the general impression of upstate New York...

[Starapollo1]

Lol I totally take it for granted that I live on a farm with horses. A few years ago my older brother used some of our horse hair for his violin... it wasn't a very good violin though

[AlphaTauri]

The problem for those of us who don't live anywhere near a farm with horses (yes, I realize that I live a short drive away from Lancaster County) is that there's not really a good substitute for horsehair.

Anything manufactured - like fishing line - is too uniformly smooth, and human hair doesn't work. Thread/string doesn't have enough roughness either. I'm going to experiment with playing one string with another, but I don't know how that's going to work out.

Edit: I lied - there's a horse pasture right down the road from the development where I live. And I might actually be able to get horsehair from a friend who knows someone who owns a horse...

[waawamellon]

Suppose I cant get a rule book...
Anyone know where I can find the song? It says the main part has to play the exact notes written in the rule book so google-ing "Saint Anthoney's Chorale" may be risky because its probably not the exact same one... I would have had this down already but at our first invitational they told is it was Shenandoah(last year's song), and that threw us off a bit.