RE: bows for guitars

["Goddard, Duncan" <goddard.duncan@mtvne.com>]

my guitarist has used a violin bow on his stratocasters for about 12
years on & off. the usual problems are lack of control over which
strings you hit, because of the large fingerboard radius & the shape of
the body, & horrible squeaky feedback if you hit the strings in the
wrong place (with either the bow or your fretting hand) & bow some high
harmonics by accident. I'm sure I have some slightly spinal-tap footage
of him playing with the bow's tensioner on stage... :-)

it's an acquired taste- he tends more towards a gentle drone effect,
much as one might achieve with an e-bow if the damn things didn't
overload so easily, rather than the hyperactive whooping of jimmy page
fame. it can be heard all over our album "zabriskie point". & of course,
with his jam man, he can build up mighty droning chords very quickly.

lately he's returned to more traditional glissando guitar techniques a
la keith rowe/syd barrett/daevid allen/steve hillage et al. I'm trying
to get him to write something for wikipedia about this undervalued
approach to guitaring.... we were in the front row as the glissando
orchestra did their thing last year at the gong unconvention. some of it
was excruciating, but I wouldn't have missed it for anything.

there are some bassists who have bowed their instruments too- lee
jackson (of the nice) used to bow his left-handed vox phantom (or
whatever it was- teardrop-shaped, anyway, & with a very slim neck, all
of which helped, but he still had the squeaking problem occasionally) &
I'm pretty sure I've seen jack bruce doing this too, on his little
gibbo.

d.