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Thread: A mandolin/violin relative price story

  1. #26
    Oval holes are cool David Lewis's Avatar
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    Default Re: A mandolin/violin relative price story

    Is it harder to build a violin than a mandolin? I ask out of curiosity. It seems to me that the skill level is the same, but I’m not a word worker and have never built an instrument and have nothing but admiration for those that do. But could that be another factor in the price difference..
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    Default Re: A mandolin/violin relative price story

    Quote Originally Posted by Mandolin Cafe View Post
    Never tire of seeing you wade into these discussions while linking to your site where you sell $300+ penny whistles. Not criticizing the price, mind you, and I've seen your reactions to our pointing this out before. It is what it is. Carry on.
    Private message sent.

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    Default Re: A mandolin/violin relative price story

    Violin bows are very complex and subtle things. And like violins, they all look the same to the inexperienced. Adding to what has been said, a bow needs to perform well. It needs to track straight, bounce off the string in a controlled fashion, start and stop in a very exact way, pull a beautiful sound from a very short distance, not bottom out when playing hard and be able to play clearly at very low volume.
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    Still Picking and Sawing Jack Roberts's Avatar
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    Default Re: A mandolin/violin relative price story

    Quote Originally Posted by DougC View Post
    Violin bows are very complex and subtle things. .....
    According to Phil Salazar, the story goes that in the bow workshop, they build them first, then a violinist comes in and sorts them by how they play. They can look exactly the same, and be made exactly the same from the same raw materials, but the selling price will vary significantly depending on the opinion of the person sorting them.

    Has anyone else heard this?
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    Mediocre but OK with that Paul Busman's Avatar
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    Default Re: A mandolin/violin relative price story

    Quote Originally Posted by DougC View Post
    Violin bows are very complex and subtle things. And like violins, they all look the same to the inexperienced. Adding to what has been said, a bow needs to perform well. It needs to track straight, bounce off the string in a controlled fashion, start and stop in a very exact way, pull a beautiful sound from a very short distance, not bottom out when playing hard and be able to play clearly at very low volume.
    That's helpful. Are any of these characteristics tweakable once the bow is finished? EG- thinning the stick (correct term?) a tad to reduce weight and/or increase flexibility.
    Interesting tidbit... while looking up Pernambuco (alternate name is Brazilwood), I came across the fact that Brazil was named after this wood and not vice versa:

    Perhaps the only wood that was so famous, it was responsible for the naming of an entire nation. When Portuguese ships discovered the trees on the coast of South America, they found that the wood yielded a red dye—which made for a very valuable and lucrative trading commodity. They named the tree pau brasil, the term pau meaning wood, and brasil meaning red/ember-like. Such a vigourous trade resulted from this wood that early sailors and merchants referred to the land itself as Terra do Brasil, or simply, the “Land of Brazil”—and the name stuck.
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    Default Re: A mandolin/violin relative price story

    Quote Originally Posted by Jack Roberts View Post
    According to Phil Salazar, the story goes that in the bow workshop, they build them first, then a violinist comes in and sorts them by how they play. They can look exactly the same, and be made exactly the same from the same raw materials, but the selling price will vary significantly depending on the opinion of the person sorting them. This would be done before anyone would be able to try them.

    Has anyone else heard this?
    I don't know how true that is. A workshop or individual maker will use different fittings for different quality bows. Gold on the best, then sterling, then nickel silver for the winding and the metal on the frog, etc.

    Also, one person's preferences don't mean that everyone else will agree.

  9. #32
    Fiddler & Mandolin Player Dave Reiner's Avatar
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    Default Re: A mandolin/violin relative price story

    This! And I'll add that the best bows can draw an even and beautiful tone over their entire length without having to press down too much. This requires a trained maker who understands the wood, and the subtleties of its strength, thickness, and camber. It's different from the relatively instant contact of a mandolin pick across a string. I love both instruments, but there's a reason really fine bows cost 100x or 200x the cost of a blue chip pick :-). There is one commonality, though - your bow needs to match your fiddle to bring out the instrument's best tones, just as certain picks seem to match certain mandolins.

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    Quote Originally Posted by RobBob View Post
    They are way more than a bundle of horse hair... they are precisely handmade, balanced fulcrums that enable the user to execute passages, fast and slow on this stick that is not, does not act like and does not work like a pick. You pick and string and get an immediate response. You bow a string and you get a micro second delay then a response. There is an art to making bows and they are far more sophisticated than picks.
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    Default Re: A mandolin/violin relative price story

    Quote Originally Posted by Paul Busman View Post
    That's helpful. Are any of these characteristics tweakable once the bow is finished? EG- thinning the stick (correct term?) a tad to reduce weight and/or increase flexibility.
    Interesting tidbit... while looking up Pernambuco (alternate name is Brazilwood), I came across the fact that Brazil was named after this wood and not vice versa:

    Perhaps the only wood that was so famous, it was responsible for the naming of an entire nation. When Portuguese ships discovered the trees on the coast of South America, they found that the wood yielded a red dye—which made for a very valuable and lucrative trading commodity. They named the tree pau brasil, the term pau meaning wood, and brasil meaning red/ember-like. Such a vigourous trade resulted from this wood that early sailors and merchants referred to the land itself as Terra do Brasil, or simply, the “Land of Brazil”—and the name stuck.
    Brazil wood is not the same as Pernambuco, it is a inferior substitute. Snake wood is another. These woods are hard to work on and dull tools quickly.
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    Registered User Christine Robins's Avatar
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    Default Re: A mandolin/violin relative price story

    Getting back to the original question about relative prices of fiddles & mandos, here's my story:

    For fiddling, I'm happy with my $200 garage-sale discovery. It's a pre-war eastern-European instrument that looks like crap, but sounds fine and is very comfortable and responsive. I've played $8,000 violins that I didn't like as much. I ended up selling the violin I'd been using that had cost $2500.

    But my beloved bow is a Pernambuco that I bought 15 years ago for $700. I choose it after spending an hour at a major violin shop trying out a dozen bows in that price range, including carbon-fiber ones. Bows can vary tremendously in weight, balance, springiness, and responsiveness. They're like an extension of your hand, in a way that picks are not.

    On the other hand, my mando is a Collings MT, about $2500 new.

    YMMV!

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    Default Re: A mandolin/violin relative price story

    Quote Originally Posted by Paul Busman View Post
    That's helpful. Are any of these characteristics tweakable once the bow is finished? EG- thinning the stick (correct term?) a tad to reduce weight and/or increase flexibility.
    Bow makers 'tweak' used bows but not by 'thinning the stick'. The stick is usually as thin as possible in the right places and there is no 'going back'. What happens however is that a heavier frog is attached. But that mostly effects the overall balance. The performance of the bow as I mentioned earlier, depends on the curve, or camber as well as the thickness at every point along the taper of the stick. This exacting thickness-ing greatly affects the sound that comes from the bow, not just the performance. What Bow makers can do to 'tweak' or restore a bow is to restore the camber as well as to straighten a warped bow by gently heating the stick and holding it into place. The wood has a 'memory' of it's carved shape and almost by magic, returns to it's shape.

    As for sorting bows, yes sometimes a violinist helps choose the value of bows. But the bowmaker knows their qualities and prices them accordingly. Violin shops have their valuations as well, but the figures are agreed upon with the bow maker before they are sold.

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    Default Re: A mandolin/violin relative price story

    Quote Originally Posted by Christine Robins View Post
    For fiddling, I'm happy with my $200 garage-sale discovery. It's a pre-war eastern-European instrument that looks like crap, but sounds fine and is very comfortable and responsive. I've played $8,000 violins that I didn't like as much. I ended up selling the violin I'd been using that had cost $2500.
    Vintage/antique violins are the one area you can really get a bargain if you know what you are looking for and trust your ears. Especially, since many are unbranded. You can't judge a book by its cover, as they say! Unfortunately, most garage sale violins are not setup to play, so you can't really tell if they are indeed a bargain unless you go ahead and buy it, then spend another $150 on a setup, before you can hear the sound.

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    Dave Sheets
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    Default Re: A mandolin/violin relative price story

    Bows seem to interact with both the instrument and the player in a complex way. If you sit with a stringed instrument player and listen to them try different bows, you can hear the differences. If they switch instruments, the bow that sounded great a moment ago will no longer sound so good. You really have to listen to the combination of the three. Yes, it seems unlikely, but use your ears.

    A good guitar usually sounds (to me anyway) good even in the hands of an inexperienced player. But a mandolin takes a bit more experience to get the best out of it. And fiddles? The best players get a good sound out of anything, and it takes a good player to really get everything out of superb instrument. Duffers like me, uhm, not so much .
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  17. #38
    Mediocre but OK with that Paul Busman's Avatar
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    Default Re: A mandolin/violin relative price story

    Quote Originally Posted by pops1 View Post
    Brazil wood is not the same as Pernambuco, it is a inferior substitute. Snake wood is another. These woods are hard to work on and dull tools quickly.
    That's interesting. One of my Google search hits came up with the thing I posted.
    I've worked with Snakewood. It's gorgeous stuff but as Pops1 says, it's difficult to work with and is VERY prone to splitting.
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    Default Re: A mandolin/violin relative price story

    I’m a retired middle school band director and professional trumpet player. On all of the trumpet websites there are similar complaints about the cost of hand made or boutique trumpets. Then someone chimes in about the cost of a bassoon, cello, or violin. We get humble and thankful really quick. My most expensive trumpets are around $6,000.00 and hand made trumpets range from $2,000.00 to $30,000.00. My Jacobsen #37, Eastman 615, and Eastman815 Mandocello are all deals.

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    Default Re: A mandolin/violin relative price story

    My daughter needs a better flute, next step up is $20+ grand. Preferred flute $65,000. Flutes don't even play in tune you have to intonate with your embouchure. Her flute now is triple my mandolin. There are techniques that stress the flute and she can't do them on her present flute, a better flute will allow her to do these techniques, it's not just wanting, but needing. I think we have it pretty good as others have mentioned.
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    Default Re: A mandolin/violin relative price story

    Quote Originally Posted by pops1 View Post
    My daughter needs a better flute, next step up is $20+ grand. Preferred flute $65,000. Flutes don't even play in tune you have to intonate with your embouchure. Her flute now is triple my mandolin. There are techniques that stress the flute and she can't do them on her present flute, a better flute will allow her to do these techniques, it's not just wanting, but needing. I think we have it pretty good as others have mentioned.
    She should switch from Classical to Irish.

    Just kidding, but as you probably know, in Irish trad we play either wooden antique orchestra flutes from the mid to late 19th Century, or modern replicas of the same type of flute. In both cases, it's hard to spend more than $5,000 - $6,000 unless you're collecting rare antiques that probably won't be played. Antique flutes actually aren't all that desirable because 1) wooden flutes don't age well, they often crack or warp, and 2) the pitch standards were still all over the place in the 19th Century so they often don't work well at A=440Hz.

    The modern "Irish" flute makers still can't charge exorbitant prices because the market is so small and specialized, and even an 8-key conical bore wooden flute just isn't that complicated to make. I have two fairly high-end "Irish" flutes. My first was a newly-made keyless one for $1,600 (current price is $2,000) and the recent one is an 8-key from a modern maker bought used for $3,500. That's $1,000 less than I spent on my Lebeda mandolin. I think new, that flute would be $5,000. Still about the same as a quality luthier-made mandolin, until you get up into the "big names" at $10,000+

    Of course I know that the Classical flute world is different, and the repertoire is far more demanding in terms of pitch range and technique, if not in "years to get good" which can take a lifetime on either type of flute. At my age and late start I'll always be just a dabbler, but I'm having fun with it.

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    Default Re: A mandolin/violin relative price story

    Thank you: "Years ago I got my wife a violin setup (case, bow included) from Stephen Perry for about 5 bills. I am a pretty good judge of tone in acoustic instruments, and to me the thing sounds flat out amazing. Sometimes I'll just drag the bow across the strings to hear it ring out." I do enjoy making the instruments sing.

    From my perspective, the instrument is the person playing. Some are more sensitive than others, most expect different things from other musicians, some are blunt instruments, some are incredibly sensitive and nuanced. Much depends on the sensitivity of the player's hearing, which is something learned. Listeners are rarely finely attuned. So there's lots of noise in opinions. I have found over the many years that the most solid opinions come not from players, but from those who adjust and tweak and make and otherwise deal with the nuts and bolts of things, as an intermediary between players and their equipment. A player gets used to one thing, then tends to want one that's the same but better. An adjuster or someone who hears acutely, with educated intelligence, has an entirely different listening experience. I've had people listen to fiddles and be unable to hear any difference. I've also sat next to someone who heard a recording and opined that the violin sounded like such and such del Gesu, without even lifting his eyes from his work. No big deal. Of course, he was correct. This was not a high fidelity system.

    To bows. There's balance, in a complex way, with the hair being pushed and pulled along the string, moving the fulcrum. There's the vibration of the bow in response, which can vary greatly. There's the stiffness. Resonance. Damping. All kinds of things. In nice carbon bows, there may (in the better ones) be layers of carbon fiber with different orientations. Add some Kevlar. Other mystery materials. A filling foam or whatever that damps all that. And varies along the length. Based upon a broken Coda GX violin bow I have or had. That's the easy part - the assembly. The design of the camber, distribution of weight, etc. And that's a bow that can be designed. For a wood bow, one has to choose and shape the wood to perform. Built to the numbers out of mystery wood not really evaluated, the bow will work, and the player learns to play around it. Built by a master, the stick becomes alive. The best bow I have held I didn't play. I picked it up, and got goosebumps. Tapped the tip against my palm and was riveted by its solid liveliness, the incredible effortless roundness of its response envelope. Took about 1/2 second to realize I had one of the world's most subtle creations in my hands. Of course, it was very very expensive, kept in a vault. But it wasn't a bow a fiddler would like!


    Modify? Yes, I can work a stiff bow by removing wood to make it a bit better, if it's a bad bow. More importantly, I can often (always?) get the vibration worked out. It's tough. Just a little here, a little there, bit by bit, like mandovoodoo for bows. I've done fishing rods, too. Then a simple French polish of the stick. It's a subtle but effective difference.

    My not so subtle opinion, which nobody ever listens to, is that players should find a bow that works with them, dances with them. Then find the instrument that matches well, that the bow likes and that likes the bow, in the hands of the musician, such that the combination of body-bow-violin not only does what the musician wants, but does it in a way that the musician really likes. That's a smaller subset of what will do what is needed. And most coming through and trying things don't really discriminate in hearing, simply muddling through listening for what they like, rather than carefully considering and assessing performance.

    However, in general, a Coda GX (maybe $800) or Luma (my favorite at cheaper), or a good silver mounted special wood stick (about $1400) will suffice for most reasonably sensitive players. Does what's needed. Somewhat limiting if doing subtle or fancy stuff. But not much. The amount of work to get what one wants out of the less expensive is a bit greater than with the near ideal. But that's not critical unless one is spending all one's time flogging the poor things, and is performing for people. Or is simply picky, and enjoys driving the Ferrari to work once a week, just to keep it exercised.

    I have a "bow observations" blurb somewhere on my chaotic site, for those who can't get enough blather here!
    Stephen Perry

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  23. #43
    Mando-Accumulator Jim Garber's Avatar
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    Default Re: A mandolin/violin relative price story

    Quote Originally Posted by Paul Busman View Post
    I don't understand why violin bows can be SO expensive. People talk about better volume,tone,responsiveness etc. Weight and balance I can understand but why should those other factors vary so much. Basically, a bow is "just" a bundle of horse hair attached at each end to a semi flexible stick.I understand the cost of materials can vary a lot but as long as that bundle of horse hair is adjusted to the same tension on the bow,why should one bow be so radically more costly than another?
    Hah! You are joking, right? By the same token a mandolin is just a roundish box with metal strings run across the top. And a flute is just a pipe top blow air in.

    You can get a bow, of course, for under $40 that will be playable by some—in fact you can get a violin or mandolin for about the same price. I don't know if you violin or not but the workmanship that goes into a fine bow can be very high especially on hand-made ones. Quality wood and variations in flexibility,wieght and overall balance affects the playability of a bow.

    Beginners may not have any problem but the more advanced players will find some bows affect their tone and dexterity in their playing.


    Whoops, I missed Steve Perry's extensive post above as I was writing my modest one.
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    Default Re: A mandolin/violin relative price story

    Quote Originally Posted by foldedpath View Post
    She should switch from Classical to Irish.
    She does play some Irish, went to Ireland twice with an Irish band. She also has an Irish flute, but being small the stretches are hard for her, tho she does play it. She is mostly classical tho and committed to that. A little bragging, she has played in several countries and in concert with folks like Harry Connick Jr. among others. Proud dad
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    Default Re: A mandolin/violin relative price story

    Full disclosure:
    I hustled violins and bows, and sold pernambuco from 1979-1984. I was known for the finest available pernambuco blanks and had customers come ( actually show up at my door step in Aptos , Calif) from as far as Paris. I had a regular route from San Diego to Vancouver , Canada driving my 1971 VW bus the "Speed Queen" and sleeping in same for many a night. ,
    and sold to many well known bow makers. This in my off time from my coast to coast commute corporate gig. Yes I am aware that this alienates many of you but it is a fact.

    Bow making is a craft with 3 distinct "schools". Italian, French and German. American is an amalgam in my opinion.
    In every craft, to include violin and bow making, there are artists. Not all bow makers are artists as not all violin makers are artists.
    The finest melodeon ( yes I play the box) I ever played was a plebian ersatz beech/maple/pine plane Jane 2 row from the thirties and I will withhold the maker as I believe them to be the best in the word and no it is not Castagnari ( I have owned 14) or Saltarelle who do not make accordeons ) and do not want them to be accessible by the ..

    My observation was there were more "artists" in decades and centuries past than there are now.

    My instructor/mentor (can't handle that word but use it as it is the new yupspeak) in bow making was Mr. Bolander of Santa Cruz, Calif.

    My personal opinion is that much like the "seriousness of the crime" is more important than guilt, the occupation of bow maker or violin maker has more import than the result.

    A violin makes no sound without a bow, so the violin is hostage to the bow. Hence the importance of the bow. Fact or fiction. Hence the outrageous prices. My wife is a highly skilled violinist former 1st chair at a prestigious California private University.. She has a fine Italian lesser named violin and 2 very fine 19th century European bows found by me for each under $100.


    I have played many mandolins which were superbly made and sounded and played far less than the asking price, likewise I have played many mandolins that were grossly underpriced.

    There is as much work in building a mandolin as there is a violin, perhaps more.

    But what makes a mass produced off the shelf Martin guitar worth more than a completely hand crafted 2 row melodeon from Italy.

    M A R K E T I N G .

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    Default Re: A mandolin/violin relative price story

    All pernambuco is "pao brasil"....

    Not all "pao brasil" is pernambuco.

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    Default Re: A mandolin/violin relative price story

    Hey Jeff! Cool stuff. I noticed the American work is often hard to kind of place in the schools.

    I made a bow once. Ended up with about a $400 student bow as to performance with about as much time as making half a violin. I gave it away. Never did it again. Too much angst, too much blood!!!!

    What I was saying, the bow is the thing. I have an OK one, but got talked out of a magic Hill years ago, still miss it.

    Fun times.
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    Default Re: A mandolin/violin relative price story

    I work in a violin shop selling violins/violas/cellos and bows, and I can say that a lot of the pricing is entirely legitimate, but a lot is also extra-musical.

    As far as I know, violin-family instruments really are much harder to make than mandolins/guitars/etc. Additionally, the violin (for classical players) needs to be more capable than most instruments because any professional-level player needs to be capable of playing some seriously virtuosic music - for instance, when the Tchaik concerto was first written in the 1870s, it was considered nearly unplayable, and it's now expected for everyone to be able to play it. And by the 1870s, violin virtuosos were well established - Paganini had come and gone and been followed by multiple generations, after all.

    I have much less experience with mandolins, but it's really obvious listening to and especially playing a nice violin. We've got a $35k violin right now that plays like butter and sings out evenly across the full register, though its tone leaves something to be desired. I'm in the process of buying a $15k violin (getting a full $5k off for being an employee!) and, while I much prefer its tone, it is clearly inferior when it comes to what's technically feasible on it. Part of what makes world-class players world-class is their instruments - it doesn't matter how good a player is, a plywood instrument from Amazon will not cut through an orchestra or play clearly in the upper register like a Strad (or even a modern solid-wood Chinese workshop instrument) and it will not play cleanly or clearly enough for many virtuosic pieces.

    Bows (along with, well, everything) also make a huge difference. We've got a $5k bow right now that is exquisitely balanced and pulls a richer tone out of violins than most. It is very clean and takes very little effort to play (this with that violin I mentioned from before is just a dream to play - it takes no work to play almost anything). At "only" $5k, it has its flaws, but it just feels wonderful to play with. I can make a $500 violin with a $60 bow sound nice, but it just takes so much more effort, and it never sounds as nice as the more expensive instruments and bows.

    Then there's all sorts of other factors that make a difference. Bridges can make a huge difference. Strings can make a huge difference. Even your shoulder rest can make a huge difference. All aspects are very interdependent, too. Hilary Hahn sounds great using Dominant strings on her Vuillaume, but my violin doesn't take to them very well, for instance. And different players will have different amounts of success depending on their playing style and personal taste.

    Then there's what I call "value as a museum piece." We've got a $200k violin right now that is... nice... but I certainly don't like it as much as ones that are 10-15% its price. But it was made by a very, very famous maker, so it costs that much. On the other hand, part of why my violin is as "cheap" as it is is because it was made by a little-known German maker. How legitimate you find this is up to you - personally I care most about my instrument's sound, and the maker/history is just the icing on the cake - but it's part of the pricing. I had a guitar player once compare it to getting Jimi Hendrix's guitar - even if you have another one that sounds just as nice, Jimi Hendrix's will be worth way more. But if you just want a guitar that sounds nice, you can save yourself an awful lot of money by buying something else.

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  32. #49
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    Default Re: A mandolin/violin relative price story

    Quote Originally Posted by Ranald View Post
    Yeah, but you never have to replace a violin bow, nor are you going to lose it in the depths of the couch. Still, I spend far less on picks than I do on re-hairing my bow, about once a year, at about $90 a shot. Professionals would be getting the bow re-haired a few times a year. In theory, the hair comes from Mongolian stallions, because Mongolian horses have the strongest tail hairs, and the mares are constantly urinating on and weakening their tails. My luthier tells me that the hairs he purchases are supposed to have such a source, but he has no idea whether this is true. I doubt that my grandfather, who, as a sailor in Cape Breton, took up fiddle in the early 20th century, was getting hair from Mongolian stallions. More likely, he persuaded his neighbour to let him trim his horse's tail, or perhaps raided the stable at night.
    You do have to replace the horse hair on a bow though .

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    Default Re: A mandolin/violin relative price story

    Quote Originally Posted by yankees1 View Post
    You do have to replace the horse hair on a bow though .
    Yes, "at about $90 a shot", as I said in the second line of quote you posted.

    This is quite an interesting and informative discussion, as is this other fiddle thread:
    https://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/t...mando-content)
    Robert Johnson's mother, describing blues musicians:
    "I never did have no trouble with him until he got big enough to be round with bigger boys and off from home. Then he used to follow all these harp blowers, mandoleen (sic) and guitar players."
    Lomax, Alan, The Land where The Blues Began, NY: Pantheon, 1993, p.14.

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