THE FREQUENCY OF A BOWED STRING - DETERMI NATION AND MEASUREMENTS

The vibration frequency of a bowed string depends on the string charac teristics, the string motion and the friction regime of the bow. This multimodal system goes into self-oscillations and its frequency must b e such that a reactive power balance is satisfied. The quantitative li nk between the frequency and the characteristics of the system is expl ored experimentally under two different friction regimes. A hysteresis in the friction cycle introduced at high bow pressure and the subsequ ent flattening effect on the frequency is measured here. Under the ord inary friction regime, the measurements of the frequency are in excell ent agreement with values for which the total reactive power comes to zero.