Music is not all art and glamour. Or rather, making music and playing a musical instrument is not all about being artistic and wowing audiences or impressing other people. Being an artist that can sometimes be difficult to understand or a popular musician that plays to packed crowds and adoring fans is a couple of the pervading images that I have had of musicians. And I must admit that it is has played a major part of what attracted me to become a musician myself. This is despite the fact that I have no prior musical background and there is no one in our family that has been musically inclined in recent generations. Or at least, not that I know of anyone who has been a musician, professional or otherwise so it was surprising for many that I decided to be one.
I decided to learn how to play the violin. Now that is not really an easy choice, but I was challenged by how tough it is to play the instrument. And of course I was captivated by the beautiful sound that the instrument produces, so much so that it was enough to make me choose it over the guitar and the piano. And as I was saying above, music is not all about the art or the excitement of playing it. There are also small details that contribute to the success of playing, and also to the becoming a competent violinist. One such example is learning about the rosin. Rosin is actually the substance that is used to help make the hair on the bow sticky. Without it, the violin’s sound would not even be half as good.
Making Rosin
Since I am the type who wants to know everything that I could about the thing that I’m involved in, I definitely wanted to know more about rosin. So how is violin rosin made? The following tells us:
• The first step would be to prepare the wood molds. A trough needs to be cut along the length of a piece of sap-gum wood on the table router. The rosin will be held by the large groove, while the edges will allow for a place to grip. The sap-gum wood need to be cut into molds that are the size of a matchbox with the use of a table saw.
• The molds should be placed side by side and end to end, with strips of rubber in between. Mix the sylvaros and the beeswax in a saucepan, heating it to around 300 F. The resulting mixture needs to look like molasses.
• Before pouring the rosin into the molds, allow it to cool although applying a little heat is still necessary to prevent the surface from glazing over.
• Pour the rosin into the molds slowly. As the rosin cools, use a hand torch to force any bubbles to the surface as the rosin cools down.