F1 AND  500

These are two cars. Both have four wheels, a steering wheel, a brake pedal, an accelerator and an engine. But the difference is obvious: one is a 6000 (in fact, seen the results this year, an abundant 5700), the other is a 5100!

Both these cars are beautiful. One is the latest technology applied to the four wheels, the other is a small masterpiece of industrial design, that made history even more than the first one, but I believe that no one would dream of running a grand prix with a 500.

These two cars have very different purposes and users. The first is designed and built to run on a track at 300 miles per hour, and every detail, including the pilot, is part of a delicate and perfect mechanism , that can be affected by the smallest set up problem .

The good old dear 500 never stopped! The electrical system was made up of four wires, you could easily walk around with a flat tire, or with worn shocks, because anyway, even if the engine never stopped, instead of horsepower it had donkeys coal, and you could not drive much further than 60 km / h, and above all there was absolutely no need of an experienced pilot, everybody would all be able to drive one.

I did all this car-related preamble , because it is exactly the same thing if we speak about bows . A great bow, like a race car must be perfect, otherwise you may skid.

I often see musicians playing bows facing huge problems, one of the most common is the flat curve (The curve), and they seem not to notice it. The reason is simple and easily explainable. If you remember well, the flat curve and, above all, the sharp corner preceding it, cause a sudden change of grip in the adherence on the string, and if the bow is a Ferrari a fault like this can be almost completely debilitating, but if it is a 500, it becomes little more than an annoyance, just like a little exhausted shock absorber.

Nevertheless the player, or pilot, is not of lesser importance. I am sure that if I try to do a lap with a F1 car,I would not even be able to leave the pits, as the mechanism of this car is a very complicated one. Similarly, good bows, built properly, need to be exploited at their best from a skilled players otherwise you risk to "crash against a wall".

Even from the technical/ building point of view there are substantial differences. While building a track car, the designers must take every smaller detail into account, trying to harmonize power and drivability and making maximum use of all resources to be more competitive of the other ones. With a 500 things are simpler, it is not so extreme, and certainly the knowledge of the Ferrari engineers to build it are not necessary, it was enough to know less. But try to think of a reversed role. Imagine the 500 with the Ferrari engine, perhaps tied to the roof , and vice versa.The F1 would be the best mascot of the world championship , but of course it would end the races beyond the two hours usually granted, while the 500 would take off in search of new galaxies. The same could be said for wood. A great stick needs a skilled craftsman, not limited to plane and stick frogs only. As I said last week our "Mr. 6067" got M° Navea Vera crazy , and certainly in the hands of an inexperienced bow maker, it would not have come out in such a way.

Of course, between Ferrari and 500 there is a lot in between, such as the Rolls, for instance. With the 500, you can only go shopping and little more, but you do it in a more comfortable way and with a lot of elegance and refinement. In this case, the Rolls are the ancient bows , built by great masters and wonderful to see ( last week I got crazy for a button in Persoit's violin), but even if well-preserved they would hardly overcome a well done modern one, because as mentioned above, they are like springs and they get exhausted as time goes by (The Perfect Spring), losing much of the capacity to transmit the sound they had when just built.

So long

Paolo