Bow hairs are laid half in each direction so both strokes grip equally

Evidence

The bow is held at the end known as the “frog” or “heel,” and the other end is known as the “point” or “tip.” The hairs of the bow are laid out such that approximately half are laid one way round from heel to tip, and half are laid the other way round from tip to heel. In this way, about the same number of hairs are available to grip a string no matter in which direction the bow is moved (up bow or down bow). Rosin is applied to the hairs of a bow to increase its gripping ability. As the bow is moved across a string in either direction, the string is gripped and moved away from its rest position until the string releases itself, moving past its rest position until the bow hairs grip it again to repeat the cycle. — David M. Howard, Jamie Angus, Acoustics and Psychoacoustics, 1105

Categorization

Category: Causal Relationships

• DEFINE: Explains frog/heel and point/tip bow terminology alongside the gripping mechanism.

Related

• Horsehair’s directional grip enables sustained bowed-string notes (similarity 0.90)
• A bowed string alternates constant-velocity grip with rapid snapback motion (similarity 0.84)