Fine Tuning a Rosin Recipe

Here at OC Life we come across stories in a whole number of ways. Everyday there are emails and phone calls that might lead to something or another and sometime stories literally walk in through the front door.

But in many cases the next story you write will come from the story you’re working on. It happens more often than not during an interview with someone that other stories and leads present themselves.

So it was in this case: a few weeks back readers might remember we spoke with Violaist Stefan Duwe and his violinist wife Lisa Stewart, half of the acclaimed Acacia string quartet who have made a new home in Orange.

In passing, after the interview, Stefan said something like ‘Do you know that some of the best bow rosin in the world comes from Orange?”

That is the sort of thing that piques my interest.

“Rosin is pine tree sap — pine resin,” says Andrew Baker from his workshop looking up the slope of Mount Canobolas.

Andrew is a violinist of more than 30 years’ experience and the man behind Leatherwood Bespoke Rosin. Andrew studied music at the Sydney Conservatorium and in Europe before moving to Orange where he spent eight years teaching at the local conservatorium. He also founded and leads the Colour City Orchestra.

For those who don’t know, rosin is what string players use to rub onto the hair of their bows, leaving a sticky powder residue. It is the rosin that sticks and grips the strings when the bow is pulled across it causing it to vibrate.

“I became aware there was a bigger difference between recipes than I thought would be the case,” said Andrew, who admits he actually set out intending to prove to himself that it makes little difference what rosin you use.

“I approached it very sceptically and I proved myself wrong… you can really enhance the sound qualities of your instrument by changing the recipe or finding the right recipe and that is really important in our industry because all the instruments sound different, everyone’s playing style is different, but also people want different things.

“If you are a soloist playing in really big concert halls you need a really bright, powerful sound, but if you are playing in the second violin section in an orchestra and sitting right at the back you want a softer more gentle sound that will blend — just changing the rosin recipes is a quick and easy way to make a fairly significant change to the sound.”

So Andrew set about experimenting with different rosins, which can have different characteristics depending on the species of tree used, what part of the tree used, the climate and geography of where the tree is grown and the technique used to extract and distil it.

“It all makes a difference on how it plays on the strings,” said Andrew. “What I did first was profile all the different rosins individually and see how they worked on the violin — what do they sound like, what do they feel like, what were their weaknesses, what were their strong points — and then started to blend them together to see if I could put the two good qualities together into a better recipe…I then realised I could make the recipes better than the general recipes that were out there.”

So three-and-a-half years ago Andrew and his wife Emma, launched Leatherwood Bespoke Rosin, offering not only a range of different rosins for different sounds, but the option for fully-customised rosin based on individual requirement.

“…which is our key difference from other brands; someone can ring us and they can tell us exactly what they play and what sort of instrument they have and we can make a recipe that really optimises their playing experience,” said Andrew.

“I have clients that have two, three, four different recipes and they'll swap them depending on their playing context. People often have two or three different violins that they use for different occasions, so they might find one rosin recipe works better on a particular violin than another.”

Andrew’s rosin doesn’t come cheap, but he has quickly built a strong following and his rosin is prized by musicians all over the world.

“I'm really fussy about accessories and instruments and this is the kind of thing I would have got if it was out there, so I'm not surprised people like it,” said Andrew, whose attention to detail extends to the way he packages his rosin.

“We make [the casing] out of this really beautiful Australian timber and the final product is wrapped in deer leather… so it is a really beautiful product where most other products are mundane, just a little cardboard box with a little cake of rosin. For us, it is about an aesthetic experience as well as the recipe on the string working really beautifully.”

The timber casings and leather wraps are all made in Andrew’s home workshop, where he blends and pours his rosin.

“The process of working with rosin is similar to working with toffee, but much easier because it doesn't burn like toffee does. It melts at low temperatures like 35 to 40 degrees, so I blend the recipes together and pour them into the timber casings and we’re done,” he said.

The demand for Andrew’s rosin has grown so much that he now employs local sculptor Ethan Plaisted to help him in the workshop.

“We ship all over the world; all through Asia, we've done the Middle East, Europe, America, South America… It is still young, but going well and we are working hard to push it further.”