Loose Bow Hairs

If you are an Erhu player, you would inevitably have encountered this irritating sight: a few strands of your bow hair are hanging more loose than the rest. Not only does it look aesthetically displeasing, you suddenly feel like those few strands of hair is causing your erhu to sound noisy (yes we blame anything that can be blamed on what we cannot control).

To be honest, it does cause some noise, especially when the stray hairs rub against the outer string when you are playing the inner string. Cut it you must, or even pull it out. But behold! When cutting (or pulling) the hairs, other bow hairs may get caught up during the process, coming loose and thus making things worse.

So here we share a secret method, passed down by our teachers, from our teacher’s teacher, and from our teacher’s teacher’s teacher.

The idea is to use heat to cause the hairs to shrink back to where they came from. A certain level of caution is needed, because the heat might cause irreparable damage to your bow. So please do it at your own risk! (Disclaimer: Eason Music will not be responsible for any bows damage as a result of following this method)

Items that you need:
* Lighter
* A bow with pesky stray bow hairs
* A steady hand

Step 1: Detach your bow
The first thing you need to do is to take out your bow. In case your steady hand goes on holiday, at least your erhu will still be intact.

Step 2: Apply heat to the bow
Now hold the bow horizontally using one hand and hold the lighter a fair distance beneath it. Ignite the lighter and slowly, slowly and slowly (did i mention slowly?) move the lighter upwards towards the bow. You will see that the pesky stray hairs, in order to escape the burning fire and heat, runs back to where they belong! Hooray!

So there you have it! An easy way to get rid of those straggling hairs, passed down by ancient Erhu masters.

No we are not kidding. Here’s a video on how it is done:

If you accidentally burned your bow, here’s where to get more:
https://www.easonmusicstore.com/categories/Bows/44

https://www.easonmusicstore.com/categories/Bows/44