G'day,

No fiddler I ... but an old friend who is recently (re-)told the story of his Primary School stage debut ... required to play the old Australian "potboiler" Click Go The Shears in front of a campfire scene (and over a scratchy background track). He had left his violin and bow off-stage during a bit of crowd scene ... and his charming schoolchums picked up his bow ... and ran it repeatedly through their hair ... mostly gunked into place with Californian Poppy hair oil ... or some other concoction of scented vaseline!

When he popped onto stage for the fiddle bit ... not millidecibel of sound ... ! Good trouper, for a 10-year old, he sawed on (hoping something might bite ... somewhere ... sometime ...)! End of track / scene ... Wild Applause! ... he's been hooked ever since.

However, he cleaned the pernicious gunk off with many applications of plain soap and elbow grease - resumably under the direction of his Sydney Symphonic Uncle - and resined like mad to get the bow working.

The germane point, to this thread, is: he swears by soap - and energy - as a full-time musician maintaining what is the life and soul of the instrument.

Regard(les)s,

Bob