Origin The question of when and where the bow was invented is of interest because the technique of using it to produce sound on a stringed instrument has led to many important historical and regional developments in music, as well as the variety of instruments used. Pictorial and sculptural evidence from early Egyptian, Indian, Hellenic, and Anatolian civilizations indicate that plucked stringed instruments existed long before the technique of bowing developed. In spite of the
ancient origins of the bow and arrow, it would appear that bowed string instruments only developed during a comparatively recent period. The Chinese
yazheng is a zither played with a bow. The earliest Chinese source of the pipe zither
yazheng, bowed with a stick, is from the 8th century. The use of rubbing sticks in
Central Asia seems to be older. Presumably this playing technique was first used in
lutes in
Sogdiana around the 6th century, from where it reached
China. Eric Halfpenny, writing in the 1988
Encyclopædia Britannica, says, "bowing can be traced as far back as the
Islamic civilization of the 10th century ... it seems likely that the principle of bowing originated among the nomadic horse riding cultures of Central Asia, whence it spread quickly
through Islam and the East, so that by 1000 it had almost simultaneously reached China, Java, North Africa, the Near East and Balkans, and Europe." Halfpenny notes that in many Eurasian languages the word for "bridge" etymologically means "horse," and that the Chinese regarded their own bowed instruments
(huqin) as having originated with the "barbarians" of Central Asia. The Central Asian theory is endorsed by Werner Bachmann, writing in
The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. Bachmann notes evidence from a 10th-century Central Asian wall painting for bowed instruments in what is now the city of Kurbanshaid in
Tajikistan. Circumstantial evidence also supports the Central Asian theory. All the elements that were necessary for the invention of the bow were probably present among the Central Asian horse riding peoples at the same time: • In a society of horse-mounted warriors (the horse peoples included the
Huns and the
Mongols), horsehair obviously would have been available. • Central Asian horse warriors specialized in the military bow, which could easily have served the inventor as a temporary way to hold horsehair at high tension. • To this day, horsehair for bows is taken from places with harsh cold climates, including Mongolia, as such hair offers a better grip on the strings. •
Rosin, crucial for creating sound even with coarse horsehair, is used by traditional
archers to maintain the integrity of the string and (mixed with
beeswax) to protect the finish of the bow. (From this information it can be seen that the invention of the bow originates from a Mongol warrior, having just used rosin on his equipment, idly stroking his
harp or
lyre with a rosin-dusted finger, producing a brief continuous sound, thus inspiring them to restring their bow with horsehair, leading to the earliest example of the bow) or
fiddle, 11th century Ireland,
Lough Currane) However the bow was invented, it spread quickly and widely. The Central Asian horse peoples occupied a territory that included the
Silk Road, along which merchants and travelers transported goods and innovations rapidly for thousands of miles (including, via India, by sea to Java). This would account for the near-simultaneous appearance of the musical bow in the many locations cited by Halfpenny.
Arabic rabāb The Arabic
rabāb is a type of a bowed
string instrument so named no later than the 8th century and spread via
Islamic trading routes over much of
North Africa, the
Middle East, parts of
Europe, and the
Far East. It is the earliest known
bowed instrument, and the ancestor of all European bowed instruments, including the
rebec,
lyra and
violin.
Modern Western bow The kind of bow in use today was brought into its modern form largely by the bow maker
François Tourte in 19th-century France. Pernambuco wood, which was imported into France to make textile dye, was found by the early French bow masters to have just the right combination of strength, resiliency, weight, and beauty. According to James McKean, Tourte's bows, "like the instruments of
Stradivari, are still considered to be without equal." is part of the Ansley Salz Collection at the University of California at Berkeley. It was made around 1700, and is attributed to Stradivari. Towards the middle of the century (18th century), there was a move into the Transitional period, the separation of hair from stick became greater, particularly at the head. This greater separation is necessary because the stick becomes longer and straighter, approaching a concave shape. Up until the advent of the bow by Tourte, there was absolutely no standardization of bow features during this Transitional period, and every bow was different in weight, length and balance. In particular, the heads varied enormously by any given maker. Another transitional type of bow may be called the Cramer bow, after the violinist
Wilhelm Cramer (1746–99) who lived the early part of his life in Mannheim (Germany) and, after 1772, in London. This bow and models comparable to it in Paris, generally prevailed between the gradual demise of the Corelli-Tartini model and the birth of the Tourte—that is, roughly 1750 until 1785. In the view of top experts, the Cramer bow represents a decisive step towards the modern bow. The Cramer bow and others like it were gradually rendered obsolete by the advent of
François Tourte's standardized bow. The hair (on the Cramer bow) is wider than the Corelli model but still narrower than a Tourte, the screw mechanism becomes standard, and more sticks are made from pernambuco, rather than the earlier snakewood, ironwood, and china wood, which were often fluted for a portion of the length of the stick. Fine makers of these Transitional models were Duchaîne, La Fleur, Meauchand, Tourte
père, and
Edward Dodd. The underlying reasons for the change from the old Corelli-Tartini model to the Cramer and, finally, to the Tourte were naturally related to musical demands on the part of composers and violinists. Undoubtedly the emphasis on
cantabile, especially the long drawn out and evenly sustained phrase, required a generally longer bow and also a somewhat wider ribbon of hair. These new bows were ideal to fill the new, very large concert halls with sound and worked great with the late classical and the new romantic repertoire. Today, with the rise of the
historically informed performance movement, string players have developed a revived interest in the lighter, pre-Tourte bow, as more suitable for playing stringed instruments made in pre-19th-century style.
Stradivarius bows A Stradivari bow, The King Charles IV Violin Bow attributed to the Stradivari Workshop, is currently in the collection of the
National Music Museum Object number: 04882, at the
University of South Dakota in
Vermillion, South Dakota. The Rawlins Gallery violin bow, NMM 4882, is attributed to the workshop of
Antonio Stradivari, Cremona, 1700. This bow is one of two bows (the other in a private collection) attributed to the workshop of Antonio Stradivari.
Other types of bow The Chinese
yazheng,
yaqin, Korean
ajaeng and
Ryukyu teisō (
kanji: 提箏,
hiragana: ていそう) zither are generally played by "bowing" with a rosined stick, which creates friction against the strings without any horsehair. The
hurdy-gurdy's strings are similarly set into vibration by means of a "rosin wheel," a wooden wheel that contacts the strings as it is rotated by means of a crank handle, creating a "bowed" tone.
The modern Curved Bow with BACH.Bow in 1999 In the 20th century, violinists and cellists used a so-called
Curved Bow to enable polyphonic sounds on string instruments. Renowned string instrumentalists such as
Emil Telmányi,
Rudolf Gaehler,
Tossy Spivakovsky,
Lorin Maazel,
Michael Bach,
Gustav Rivinius,
Janos Starker and
Mstislav Rostropovich, as well as composers such as
John Cage,
Dieter Schnebel, Walter Zimmermann,
Hans Zender and
Michael Bach Bachtischa have dealt with this innovation in string instrument playing. ==Maintenance==