Why a Frog? Why Are There Frogs on Bows?

Written by Matt Lammers of Fein Violins

It's one of those curiosities that disappeared with age and experience, one of those elephants in the room you asked about as a beginner, and your teacher shrugged it off with a puzzled expression telling you it wasn't worth losing sleep over. It became a part of your vocabulary and was never given a second thought, but in the back of your head you've always wondered: "Why on earth do we call this the frog?" Here at Fein Violins we embrace and resurrect our own childish curiosity and hope to relax the furled brows of confused, [used-to-be] young musicians everywhere.

The frog of a bow is a simple, yet intricate thing

Without Trees There Is No Music: The Conservation of Pernambuco Wood

By Stefan Aune of Fein Violins

Since the earliest European bow makers first sought to perfect the stringed-instrument bow, "pernambuco," or "Brazil wood," has reigned supreme as the material of choice. Sadly, the history of pernambuco is intimately tied to the processes of colonization and resource extraction that have had devastating consequences for the peoples and environments of North and South America. For a frame of reference on the history of pernambuco, check out a previous blog I wrote on the relationship between colonial resource extraction and the wood's rise to prominence in the hands of European bow-makers. Today pernambuco is endangered, and the continuing demand for wood bows is making the material increasingly difficult to acquire. Pernambuco's natural forest habitat is currently at about 10% of its pre-Columbian size, and pernambuco trees are notoriously fickle when grown in controlled, farm environments.

The harvest of pernambuco wood during the colonial period