A good bow makes all the difference to realising the full potential of your instrument. And just like your instrument needs to be looked after so too does your bow. 

The most important aspect of bow care is making sure you know how to tension your bow ready to play and then (always!) loosening your bow after practice.

In the short video below Myles discusses how to easily find the correct tension for playing, and shows us how to tension and de-tension a bow.

Key points to remember:

• Tension is adjusted by the screw on your bow. Turning the screw right tightens the hair, and turning it left loosens the hair.
• A basic guide to finding the correct playing tension is ensuring you can fit a pencil width between the middle of the stick and the hair of your bow. This will give you the right amount of control when drawing your bow along the strings (remember not to press down too much).
• You want to avoid tightening so much that the stick goes straight, and you certainly want to avoid it going convex.
• Most importantly for the longevity of your bow is remembering to loosen it off after every use. A few turns to the left so you can start to see some loose hairs is sufficient (you don't want to loosen your bow all the way, and you definitely don't want to loosen it so far that the screw comes out).

As always, if you have any questions don't hesitate to give us a call on (03) 8802 7905, or chat with us via the chat icon on the bottom right of the screen.

You can view our range of bows here.