A bow maker is a person who builds, repairs, and restores ancient or modern bows for bowed string instruments. These include violins, violas, cellos, double basses, viola d'amore, viola da gamba, etc. The French word for bowmaker is archetier for one who makes bows of the string family of instruments such as violin, viola, cello and double bass. Root of the word comes from archet—pronounced —the bow. A bow maker typically uses between 150 and 200 hairs from the tail of a horse for a violin bow. Bows for other members of the violin family typically have a wider ribbon, using more hairs. White hair generally produces a smoother sound and black hair is coarser, producing a rougher sound. Lower quality bows often use nylon or synthetic hair. Rosin, a hard, sticky substance made from resin, is regularly applied to the bow hair to increase friction. In making the stick of a bow, the initial part of the woodworking is done on a straight stick. According to James McKean, "the bow maker graduates the stick in precise gradations so that it is evenly flexible throughout." These gradations were calculated by François Tourte, discussed below. In order to shape the curve or "camber" of the bow stick, the maker carefully heats the stick over a source of heat a few inches at a time, bending the heated stick gradually to the proper shape. A metal or wooden template is often used to get the exact model's curve and shape while heating.
History
Up until the standardization of the bow by François Tourte c1785, most bows with rare exceptions remained anonymous. And although François Tourte attained an enormous measure of fame in his own lifetime, the tradition of the anonymous bow maker was still so strong that theorists like Woldemar and Fetis called Tourte's new-model bow not the Tourte bow but the Viotti bow, after his contemporary the violinist.- David Boyden With the dawn of a new era in the introduction of the modern bow design by François Tourte, so too was the importance placed on the bow maker rather than the luthier to produce such playing tools.
Quotes
"Giovanni Battista Viotti, the 18th- century violin virtuoso who is rumored to have consulted with Tourte on the bows formulation, to declare: Le violon, c’est l’archet - the violin, it is the bow. The bow is so crucial that much of the music of Beethoven, Brahms and Schubert and their musical heirs would not be performable without it...." "The French bow maker François-Xavier Tourte, more commonly known as François Tourte or Tourte le jeune, is often referred to as "the inventor of the modern bow," or "the Stradivari of the bow." His bows, dating from the end of the eighteenth century and the early decades of the nineteenth, had a marked effect upon the timbre of violins and upon performance practice, enabling new forms of expression and articulation to be developed, and in particular, facilitating the increased use of legato. François Joseph Fétis's entry in the second, expanded edition of his Biographie universelle des musiciens et bibliographie générale de la musique has until recently been the only source of biographical information about François Tourte. Some thirty documents recently discovered in French archives provide further fresh insight into this maker's life and work." Stewart Pollens, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York "Tourte - French family of bowmakers and luthiers. It Nicolas Pierre Tourte and his sons Nicolas Léonard and François Xavier and perhaps Charles Tourte, son of Nicolas Léonard. In addition, at least two channelled bows dating from about 1750–60 exist bearing the brand-stamp A.TOURTE." - Paul Childs
