About the speaker

Bernd Müsing, Archetier

Bernd Müsing was born in 1963 in Northern Germany. He studied guitar and violin as a teenager and after finishing school kept playing in amateur ensembles and orchestras. After studies of mechanical engineering he founded a bike shop with two friends in Brauschweig in 1985. Some years later he had an idea for a new kind of high-end aluminum frame. To produce such frames and bikes he sold his share in the bike shop and founded “Müsing Fahrradbau” in 1988 in the same city. The frames produced were both the lightest and strongest frames worldwide. Due to very unfortunate developments with his financial partners he had to leave the company in 1991. Soon after he became head of development at the largest bicycle brand in Germany, “Hercules” in Nürnberg. When this company was sold to investors some years later he started a consulting business for the bicycle industry, specializing in product development, design and marketing. At that time he also began to play the violin more seriously again. With a mind firmly set on research and development he took a fresh look at his violin and bow and came to the conclusion that the bow might be the weakest element here and the limiting factor in making progress in his playing and for drawing the best possible sound from his violin.

Researching the physics of the violin beyond all available literature he discovered that bows made from wood or metal (like aluminum, titanium or steel) would always be too soft and flexible or too heavy. He figured that the perfect bow should be at least 50% stronger than ‘normal’ bows and its weight should be closer to that of a baroque bow.

Carbon fiber composites were originally developed and used in the aircraft industry. For every airplane the reduction of weight combined with improved strength and absolute reliability is of ultimate importance. During the 1990’s this exclusive wonder-material became more affordable and available and was used in race cars, sporting goods (like high end bicycles) and, sure enough, bows for stringed instruments. Spiccato, Arc Verona and Codabow were the first to employ this material to make bows from this material. Their design and properties were closely related to pernambuco bows, trying to emulate their playing properties as well as their sound.

To achieve his goal of a lighter and stronger bow, Bernd Müsing designed bow sticks that were hollow, with extremely thin walls and a particularly low resin content. When he presented his drawings to established makers of aircraft components he was informed that it would be completely impossible to actually produce such a narrow, bent, tapered, ultra thin-walled object, last not least including a solid head, and all in one piece. But he would not drop the idea and instead ventured into developing a new way of producing such a bow together with a good friend from the bicycle industry who had some experience in carbon fiber composite production. In 1996 they made a surprisingly good sounding prototype but it would still take several years of research and development to eventually start a tiny serial production. In summer 1999 they finished and delivered the first batch of ARCUS bows.

The Arcus bows soon gathered international recognition and sales. After a few years the first workshop became too small and new, much larger premises were opened in 2008 in Würzburg. New and improved machinery, accumulating experience in production and finding and training talented bowmakers allowed them to make the bows more and more precise. This in turn allowed to answer the demands and needs of professional players to develop different lines of bows to match the variation in instruments and playing styles. Bernd Müsing and his teams also invested much time and effort into understanding the violin, the viola, the cello and the double bass each on their own and with their particular properties.

The Cites listing of pernambuco in 2007 presented the violin world with a new and potentially huge problem, as no alternative wood could be found to replace this material without sacrifices in sound and playability. Cheap Chinese and mid-prices American carbon bows have so far failed to provide players with an acceptable sound quality and playing properties to replace pernambuco bows equally. The Arcus bows on the other hand are much too difficult to produce and labor intense to make enough bows to satisfy global demands. This led Bernd Müsing to explore new ways to produce bows that should sound and play at least as good as high-quality pernambuco bows but could be manufactured in a more economical way and in sufficient quantities. In 2014 he had the idea to make sticks from 3-dimensional-woven carbon fibers. Their weight and elasticity could be somewhere in between an Arcus and a fine wooden bow. The sticks would be designed to provide a natural playing style and easy handling, aimed at advanced students and amateur musicians. Their sound should be indistinguishable from high quality pernambuco bows. After three years of research and development production began in 2017. They enjoyed instant success, but the production proved to be quite a challenge and it took another 5 years to bring the process, the machinery and tooling to perfection and thus finally arrive at the aspired cost level and productivity.

Currently Bernd Müsing and his team is working on developing a second line of higher level Müsing bows that are meant to close the gap between the current Müsing C-series and the Arcus bows with the hope to create bows that will perfectly suit advanced amateur players as well as conservatory students and orchestra musicians.

Besides coaching and guiding his team of  22 people his workshop, in sales and services, Bernd Müsing never stops researching and developing bows. Besides that he also loves to work on instruments, particularly violins and violas, specializing in sound optimisation. He also never stopped cycling and making music, mainly playing violin and viola in amateur orchestras and making chamber music.