John Addison

Cello

I am a total Arcus fan! I'm busy writing an article at the moment for an American string teachers journal about a new 4th dimension of spatial relationships between touching finger left hand and placement of the bow on the string and recognising that spatial relationship in the production of resonance and therefore more a superior enriched tone with "hidden" harmonics in the overtone series.

This is basically only possible by using an Arcus bow, as they are lighter (yet far stronger) than pernambuco bows, the playing area on the string is far wider therefore making all of this possible.

The higher up the string we travel the greater tension the string has. The primary aim in tone production is to allow the string to vibrate as freely as possible. The very weight of a traditional bow acts as a dampening agent on the string. That's why when we see performers playing in extremely high registers they mostly use only the upper half of their bows. Playing towards the frog not only increases the natural weight of the bow on the string but adds the weight of the performers hand to the equation and the string is just not allowed to vibrate as freely as possible.

As an Arcus bow weighs a fraction of a wooden bow, when playing in higher positions the string is allowed to freely vibrate and due to the absolute perfection of balance the bows possess , players can now use a higher percentage of the available bow. Another aspect of the unique nature of an Arcus bow is that performers can also place their bows much closer to the bridge before the tone strays over to sul ponticello. This allows a greater distance between the left hand touching finger and the bow and this produces a quality of tone that is incomparable.

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