The acoustic effect of a violin bow

All pieces that compose an instrument are related to the tone of the instrument. Many details such as techniques of production, features of materials, model and measures, polishing and others come together and compose the tone and the voice of an instrument. If a musician, an instrument and a bow are considered to be a whole, it can be said that they each affect each other. The subject of this research is about the effect of a bow on the tone of an instrument. Even if the musician and the instrument are the same the tone of an instrument will change with a bow.The bow has been an important piece within the group of string instruments; because, it composes vibrations when it gets in touch with the strings of the involved instrument. Therefore, it can be said that technical features such as the type, model, weight, length...etc of a bow are important for the voice performance of an instrument. The tone interaction between an instrument and a bow shows that a bow does not only have a technical effect, but also an acoustic one.Violin is taken as a sample instrument, when observing how a bow affects the acoustic characteristics and the tone colour of an instrument. The historical and technical development process of the bow of a violin has been observed begining from the ancient times till the modern times. After researching the technical features and tones of its structure, acoustic trials were carried out. The tone analyses of six different bows were made in a professional studio via a definite violin and definite musician. The obvious differences among the voices revealed that a bow can significantly affect the general tone of an instrument and that each bow has its own characteristics.The significant role of a bow on an instrument should be taken into consideration by musicians and those, who are interested in repairing stringed instruments. If musicians pay attention to such effects when choosing and using their instruments, they can get higher tone performance from their instruments. Those, who are interested in repairing and restoring bows, can create big tone differences through little tone changes, if they take such details into consideration.