Product Review - Sherman's Bass Rosin

Wow, back so soon?  It's almost like a regular blog or something!

Today is a product review day - maybe some day if I get truly organized I can have a regular product review day of the week.  Wacky Wednesdays?  Weekly Wednesdays of Wonder?  Wow.  I'll have to work on that.  If anyone has a better suggestion I am all ears.

Enough with the word play, on to the review!  Today we're talking about Sherman's Bass Rosin.

This is something I bought just out of a need (more like desperation, really) as I had zero rosin for my school's double bass.  This became especially important when I had a student who was interested in playing said double bass - the first time since the instrument came to the school that someone other than me would be using it.

All of my experience with bass rosin prior to purchasing the Sherman's was with Pop's Bass Rosin - the stuff that comes in the little red plastic tub with the attached lid; you open it up and there is the rosin cake sitting in a little paper cup.

This stuff.  Notice the paper medicine cup.

I always had the feeling that this was someone's solution to dealing with the mess of making rosin who cared more about their post-production cleanup than the actual end user's experience.  The paper cup is good in theory, but as you use the rosin you have to peel the sides down, which inevitably (for me, anyway) led to sticky fingers, the awful sensation of the bow scraping the paper, and a lot more mess than I felt was truly necessary.  And heaven help you if you ever leave the rosin somewhere warm.  Good luck prying it out of that cup.  It's like trying to chip off an ice block without the aid of melting.

Enter the Sherman's rosin.

This stuff.  In case you forgot.

It comes in a regular wooden tray just like any other student rosin - almost like bass players are considered to be the same as the violinists, violists, and cellists!  I know, crazy town.  The nice thing about these trays is that they allow for true shadow bowing while you rosin.  This is how I have students practice their bow technique - hold the rosin about where your bridge would be and bow, whether you're bowing a song or just back and forth.  The idea is to reinforce the muscle memory on straight bowing, which is so wonderfully facilitated by the sides of the wooden (sometimes plastic) trays.  The downside to the trays is also one of their strengths.  The ends of the tray are open, so there is nothing holding the edges of the rosin back.  This means that if you have a student who drops their rosin like one of mine did last week, it will not only chip and crack, but also start to fall out.  So perhaps this isn't the best solution from a durability standpoint.

As far as performance of the actual rosin, I have not noticed any difference between the Sherman's and the Pop's rosin.  I will be completely honest in that I have not really paid attention to the sound quality of the rosin in particular, but I have not noticed students having more or less issues using either rosin.  At the very least I can say it does not cause any more issues that the Pop's rosin.

And now my favorite part of my Sherman's Bass Rosin experience: the price.  Sherman's rosin costs $3.95 over at Johnson String Instrument (they also sell through Amazon), while the Pop's rosin is listed at $8.95.  Now, I am all for paying extra for higher quality when necessary, but if you're in a situation like mine where students have far more important things to worry about than their particular grade of rosin, I'll take a major cost savings where possible.  Like I tell my students - get to where you can play all of your notes and rhythms 100% correct 100% of the time and we'll worry about the tiny details then.  Now that is not to say that I wouldn't attribute any kind of benefit to improving the quality of your rosin.  Quite the opposite.  If it helps you play better I am all for it.  The thing is, I'm tired of hearing students talk about their playing difficulties like there is some magical accessory out there that will make up for their lack of consistent practice.

"No, really, Mr. Earley, if I get this $200 rosin that was pressed from old growth Douglas Fir trees in virgin forest land in the Pacific Northwest I'll totally be able to play everything perfectly.  My fifteen minutes of practice a week might even be able to be reduced to ten!"

Not me.  I am not an Asian woman.  Just to be clear.

Right.  More like if you practiced five minutes a week it would be a 500% improvement over the current time spent with the instrument.

But that's the cynical music teacher in me that gets tired of being "fibbed" to on a weekly basis.

And I digress.



So my overall impression and recommendation?

Sherman's Bass Rosin is an excellent value for the money, especially for a student who doesn't have issues with dropping things.  I would love to have a student who progressed far enough that I could hear a limitation of this rosin, but I teach 3-5 strings.  Maybe if it was high school I'd have someone at that point, but not at the elementary level.

Also, as a side note - I am giving very serious thought to an experiment.  I'd like to see if I could re-melt the rosin to get rid of the cracks from it being dropped.  I watched a video of a guy making rosin, and have heard of folks who make their own regularly, so it looks to me like it's a question of getting to the right temperature, holding it long enough, then allowing the rosin to cool properly.

If any of you read a news story about a music teacher from Maryland getting killed by his girlfriend for messing up her oven, you'll know that's me.

Also not me.  But the beard is at least heading in the right direction.

But more on that later.

Product reviews and thoughts

Happy Daylight Savings Time!  Or, as many of my teacher friends think of it - "That day when we lose an hour of sleep and go back to leaving for work in the dark for several more weeks." Daylight Savings has a bit of a nicer ring to it...

One of the things I have learned through my years of teaching so far is that often I have need for particular products that I do not yet have first hand knowledge of.  This means that I am forced to either buy things sight unseen or trust the reviewers on Amazon.  Frequently a product will have hundreds of reviews, but to find the ones that seem like they are done by a person with appropriate qualifications can often be a daunting (or impossible) task.  My hope is that by reviewing music-education-related products on here, I might help guide folks to beneficial products (or steer away from not beneficial ones).  I also have opened an affiliates account with Amazon.com that will provide a small compensation for products purchased through the links I provide.  That said, please know that I will not be receiving compensation directly from manufacturers, so I am free to review any products I see fit, and I will always give you my 100% honest opinion.  Especially if it turns out to be a lemon.  There is nothing that I hate more than reading gushing, glowing reviews on something only to purchase it and find out it is in fact garbage.

So, you might find yourself asking, what exactly are you reviewing?

Well, I intend to cover as broad a spectrum of music ed related items as possible, ranging from curriculum materials to pieces of music to instruments and accessories to classroom equipment and anything else not included in that list (which is completely devoid of commas).

For starters, I am going to pick a topic that is near and dear to my heart.

Trombone slide treatments.

Some of you may know that the trombone is my main instrument.  I have been playing now for 20 years now, and still love the trombone the most.  However, as it is an instrument that is often poorly understood, I have several axes to grind as to the day to day maintenance of the instrument.

First and foremost is slide maintenance.  Most music teachers, and band directors in particular, are not trombonists.  This is understandable, in that most music teachers are nowhere near cool enough or laid back enough to truly understand and master the demands of an instrument that requires more discipline and humility than those that require pressing buttons.  Ok, keys, but still.

The trombone slide is a surprisingly fragile object that requires a good deal of care.  The inner tubes must be straight and perfectly parallel to ensure smooth operation.  The outer tubes must be straight, parallel, and dent-free.  Given that the thickness of the tubing is fairly thin, and that brass is relatively soft, this is often far more difficult than you would think.

Assuming the above conditions are met, the one missing ingredient is slide lubrication.  This has come a long way over the years, with treatments ranging from "You put stuff on it?" to "Lemon Pledge.  But only the kind in the aerosol can, not the pump spray." to "Ponds Cold Cream and water." to far more boutique (and actually instrument-oriented) solutions such as slide cream and valve oil.

Regardless of your product of choice, please know that step one in having a smooth, trouble-free slide is that you start with a clean slide.  Wiping down the inner slide with a clean, lint-free rag will do wonders.  Make sure you are using gentle but firm pressure and wipe the entire length of the tubing.  If you have allowed gunk to build up, a little warm water can be all the cleaning solution needed.  If you have more gunk than warm water will cure, use a damp rag, a TINY amount of Ajax/Comet (something that is powdered but NON-ABRASIVE) and more gentle but firm pressure.  If you see scratches being left by your cleaner, it's the wrong stuff and is damaging your slide.  I only do this when absolutely unable to remove crud any other way.

The second part of cleaning your slide is removing any gunk from the inside of the outer slide.  There are two ways to do this, though both are very similar.

The first is to get a standard trombone cleaning rod like this:




This is just a metal rod that has a flattened eyelet on one end and a ring on the other, sized to fit all the way down one side of the slide tubing. You put a piece of cheesecloth through the eyelet, poked far enough through to keep it from coming out, then wrap the length of the cheesecloth around the length of the rod.  What you end up with looks like a giant mummified Q-tip, with the end slightly larger than the rest.  It must be wrapped such that the leading 5-6 inches makes solid contact with the interior of the tubing all the way around, but not so much you really have to force it.  Make sure you hold the same tubing that you are cleaning, otherwise the force will bend it.  And that is bad.  Swab the tubing until it feels warm (friction is a wonderful thing in this case), then switch to the other tubing and do the same.  Re-wrap the cheesecloth if necessary.  Once the cloth comes out looking fairly clean (the first time you do this you might actually go through several sections of cloth, especially if you have done a lot of playing and not cleaned the slide before), you can put the cleaning rod away.

Now the fun part.

There are three products I recommend for use on slides.  The first is Slide-O-Mix .  This stuff is what got me thinking (way too much) about slide lubrication. It comes in two bottles, one large and one small, and contains a lubricant, a protectant, and a cleaner.  You put a small drop from the small bottle on the bottom of each inner slide, then work the outer slide back and forth over it.  You then put a larger drop or two from the larger bottle on each inner slide and work that back and forth.  You have the option of using a water spray bottle, sometimes that makes things even smoother, other times it may not make a difference.  This stuff will do wonders for most slides.  The only problem I have had with it is a few times I have had the liquid in the large bottle get a little gloppy.  Nothing that seemed to truly prevent the liquid from working, but getting small cheese-like chunks from a bottle of liquid can be unsettling.  Also, having the two bottles plus a sprayer can be kind of a pain.

This brings me to the next option, also from Slide-O-Mix.  It's called Rapid Comfort, and is essentially the contents of the two bottles combined into one.  It works exactly the same way the original does, but in a single step.  I have not run into the cheese problem with this stuff, but I also have not used it as heavily as the original.

The third option, and the one that I use is called "Super Slide " by Reka. It's manufactured in Germany, so it costs a little more, but is absolutely worth the extra money.  I do not know what the true difference is between this and Rapid Comfort, they are applied pretty much the same (minus the water - I rarely need it).  The biggest difference is in how much it takes and how long it lasts.  I can apply about half as much Super Slide as I would Slide-O-Mix and it lasts probably 4-5 times longer.  This is fabulous, since the bottle itself is smaller.  In the end I would imagine the cost works out to being less for the Super Slide since I have to buy it far less frequently than I did the Slide-O-Mix.  I bought a bottle of Super Slide at the Eastern Trombone Workshop when I was in college that lasted me nearly 3 years.  I have a bottle that I bought not long after I started teaching that I just used the last of a few weeks ago (5 years out of one bottle!).  I cannot begin to describe just how smooth this stuff makes my slide.  One of my favorite things to do as a teacher is to offer to clean the slides of students who have been putting whatever on their slide.  Three minutes of cleaning and a couple drops of liquid later and they almost always panic due to nearly dropping their now-super-slick slide.  I have made converts of all of my private trombone students and gotten them turned onto this stuff.  It's wonderful, and I cannot recommend it highly enough.

Now, you may have noticed I have not addressed slide creams or oils.  I hate them both, and for different reasons.

Slide oil is really just valve oil with a different label.  It's thin and runny and smells terrible.  Just ask anyone who has used it and they can talk about the smell that gets on your hands and clothes no matter what you do.  On top of that, it is petroleum-based and can actually cause corrosion.  Or, in layman's terms, it will eat your slide (which you may note is the exact OPPOSITE of what you want).  Unfortunately many students like to use it because it is quick and convenient and doesn't build up.  These students are lazy and need to be shown the proper way of doing things.

Slide cream can be fantastic.  However, it is thick and creamy, and builds up extremely quickly.  The amount of slide cream required to treat an entire slide is so infinitesimally small that most students overdo it without meaning to.  Once there is too much on the slide, you have to clean it off and start over.  Too much is actually worse than not enough.  The purpose of the cream is to make a fine layer of oily stuff on the slide which causes water to bead up.  When you finish applying the cream, you have to spray it with water (not optional).  The droplets of water are then acting like ball bearings to minimize the friction of the slide.  This only works under ideal conditions.  Use too much cream and it's like spreading peanut butter with a knife blade (the sharp part, not the wide part).  Just no good.  You might remember I mentioned cold cream.  It's essentially the same stuff as actual slide cream, and might even smell better.  This method has been causing grief to trombonists for decades, as they are often harassed and questioned as to why they are in the makeup aisles.

So as far as actual slide treatments go, please stick to one of the three I mentioned. They are the best I have found, and cause the least amount of grief.  Here they are again:





Side note: I just noticed that Slide-O-Mix is also manufactured in Germany. I still don't know what the difference is between it and Super Slide, but the Super Slide is definitely worth the difference in price.

Also, another handy item to have is a cleaning snake - do this BEFORE using the cheesecloth for best results.  Here are two options:




I hope this has been a useful and informative review.  I don't know that my reviews will always be quite like this, but time will tell.  If you have experience with any of these products, please feel free to leave a comment.  However, if you are one of those people who worships at the altar of Trombotine, I don't want to hear it! :)