How to play a banjo, electric or acoustic guitar with a violin bow?

November 29, 2010 5:32 PM

I recently saw the Music Tapes perform, and the lead guy played his banjo almost entirely with a violin bow. I ordered this cheap (but new) bow yesterday. Anybody have any tips/experience playing the electric or classical guitar or banjo with a bow?

One thing I noticed was when Julian Koster (the Music Tapes guy) wanted to play louder, sometimes the bow would sometimes cause a bit of a squeak. Is that unavoidable for a newbie like me, or possibly due to the metal banjo strings or not enough rosin?

Any bow upkeep tips? How much difference would having a very nice bow make with playing a guitar? Any meaningful difference in sound between a cello bow and a violin bow?

Thank you!

posted by Corduroy to Media & Arts (11 answers total)

I've never used a bow on a banjo, but I have used it on 6 and 12 string acoustics. You can produce some good sounds with it, but it does take practice! I wish that I could give you better advice, but I am just an amateur. Fool around with your new toy and you'll get the hang of it. It's helpful to have someone around who knows how to play viola, violin, cello, etc. They can show you some tips on how to hold the bow correctly. Here is a thread with electric guitar tips, although they may not apply to banjo quite so well.
posted by 200burritos at 5:59 PM on November 29, 2010

I've tried and failed (for lack of patience more than anything) on a bass guitar. One thing that would really help, and I imagine for banjo too, would be to have a bridge cut with an exaggerated radius so that you could bow individual strings more readily. Banjo bridges are cheap, maybe it'd be worth experimenting with.
posted by quarterframer at 7:01 PM on November 29, 2010

Julian has removed the fifth string on his banjos. You could keep it, but his playing style never uses it. Buy a few bridges and mod them as you see fit — Grovers are about $3.50.
posted by scruss at 7:56 PM on November 29, 2010

(oh, and - Michael-Owen Liston bows a mean banjo too, and he's a bit better than Julian at answering e-mail ...)
posted by scruss at 7:58 PM on November 29, 2010

Response by poster: Great link, 200burritos, will definitely keep rereading it.

quarterframer, I've googled banjo bridges, but I can't seem to find any that are really arched like a violin. I did find this fellow and his drawings of what he says he can build, and the radiused bridge looks kind of promising.
posted by Corduroy at 7:59 PM on November 29, 2010

Response by poster: Yeah, I'm definitely curious as to what the fifth string might be able to do with the bow, but for now I've tuned it down to non-existence. How would you suggest modding the Grover bridge, scruss?
posted by Corduroy at 8:05 PM on November 29, 2010

Use bass (or cello) rosin on your bow - it'll give you a little more grip on the strings than violin rosin, and hence a stronger sound. (Or at least that's what I found when I was fiddling around with bowing things a few years back).
posted by bubukaba at 9:45 PM on November 29, 2010

Bowing on a vibraphone is tenfold easier when I use a bass or cello bow vs. a violin bow. The extra heft and texture of the strings really get the bars singing. Don't know if the same would apply to a banjo or not.
posted by palacewalls at 11:27 PM on November 29, 2010

That's a good point about using a rounded bridge, as otherwise you won't be able to play anything other than the top and bottom strings and all strings at once.

Be sure to mark the exact location of the bridge if you swap it out, or it'll be very hard to tune it properly.
posted by MonsieurBon at 12:08 AM on November 30, 2010

I'd sand the top in a slight curve, then re-cut notches for the strings. Might make it hard to play without a bow, though.
posted by scruss at 6:38 AM on December 1, 2010

After spending several hours about -> <- this far from Julian, Robbie and Ian at a Music Tapes show, they use regular flat Grover bridges. For melody, they basically seem to bow only the first string, and for that distinctive skronk noise, they bow all the strings. They also bow really close to the bridge.
posted by scruss at 4:54 AM on January 4, 2011