Having a great relationship with your luthier is so SO important, so here’s a story about Mark @ProArteLondon who looks after my bows 🧵
I am hugely clumsy. A few weeks ago I managed to hit my beloved Hill bow on the kitchen counter and was horrified to discover a tiny, TINY chip of wood had come out of the tip. I found it on the floor. It was literally a fraction of a millimetre wide.
Here’s the complication: I have a cat. People will tell you cats are clean animals. Those people have not met my cat. Teddy is an unholy messy eater. I could not be 100% sure that this tiny piece of wood was not, in fact, a tiny piece of dried up cat food.
After worrying for weeks during lockdown I finally took it to Mark today. Took the bow out of the case. Took out a tiny plastic bag containing the “missing piece”. Mark gets it under the magnifying glass, squints at it for a minute, and delivers his diagnosis:
1) Cat food.
2) That tiny chip? That’s probably been there for the last 50yrs.
He had the wonderful job of telling me there was absolutely nothing wrong with my precious bow, and also that for the last few weeks I have been walking around with cat food in my cello case 🤦♀️
2) That tiny chip? That’s probably been there for the last 50yrs.
He had the wonderful job of telling me there was absolutely nothing wrong with my precious bow, and also that for the last few weeks I have been walking around with cat food in my cello case 🤦♀️
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