I feel like i've looked everywhere on the internet for a soloution to this problem, or even a reason, but i can't seem to find one.

Basically, i'm a beginner violinist, but i'm not a beginner to playing instruments. I got it about a week ago and i'm learning myself and i'm quite proud of what i've accomplished so far and i really want to see how good i can get.

I have a problem with the bow though. I noticed it originally when first using it, but now it's become a really prominant issue during slurred notes.

Basically, if i use the bow at the frog part, it's literally like i'm using sand paper instead of horse hair. You can hardly hear the note, just a really horrible loud scratchy sound. And it's not just a tiny bit of the bow either. It's about a third of it.

If i do an up-bow, It starts off lovely, and slowly descends into the loud scratching. But a down-bow is the worst as you start off in the scratching and the note doesn't ring out.

It's really driving me crazy. I've been trying to avoid the bottom third of the bow until now, but i've come to a point when i need to use the whole of the bow for a long set of slurred notes. And it's so frustrating.


I thought the issue was a lack of resin initially, but no matter how much i put on, it made no difference at all. Then i thought, oh, maybe it's too much resin and i stopped putting any on that part of the bow. But that didn't help either.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!!

This is a bit puzzling, all i can say is look very closely at your bow to see if any of the hairs are broken, and make sure you've applied rosin evenly all over the hair

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Sort by order of effectiveness the reasons the scratchy sound:
0- Bow technique
1- Violin's responsiveness
2- Material of the hair, and better bow shaft
3- String quality
4- Rosin
*
From the bottom up, you find the easiest solution:
0- Too much, or too little rosin does not make much difference.
1- More expensive strings reduce the scratchy sound.
2- Round, smooth, and even diameter of the horse hair is better.
You can buy the cheapest Chinese bows at 20 dollars each.
3- Mostly Violin's value lays on its responsiveness.
Good responsiveness violins always produce beautiful voices,
projecting high volumn that beat a rock band at medium loudness.
They start at 2 thousand dollars up.
My best violin is below 1 thousand dollars, but it is better than
some violins the owners claimed to be few thousand dollars.
Please, bring the cheapest Violin bows into a Violin shop,
and try it on the cheapest and the most espensive Violin there.
Some violins, the scartchy sound occurs at the high range,
some others the scartchy sound occurs at the low range.

0- You need time (many years to life) to improve your bow technique.
I have played violin for more than 40 years, and I still make bad
sounds (scratchy, and creaky sound). Bad sounds occur when the pressure
of the horse hair on the string does not match with the speed the
horse hair moving on the string. High pressure and low speed produce
creaky sound. Low pressure and high speed produce scratchy sound.
When bad combination occurs, the string vibrate a little, and the
violin (sound box) does not response (quick and strong enough),
then the desired pitch is not produced, but bad noise instead.
When you move the bow diagonally instead of straightly, you also get
the bad sounds. Bad sounds occur more with open strings than notes
on the fingerboard. Bad sounds occur mostly at the two ends of the bow,
when it starts to move, for the violin starts to response to a new sound.

This problem sounds like it has to do with bow pressure and your contact point. Using these two words will help. Violin is a VERY hard instrument to learn on your own, and if you're ever thinking about getting serious in the future, I would start with a private teacher ASAP! The sooner you have one, the less "bad habits" you will have to break.