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If the instrument is sound, try: 1. Changing the offending string to a thinner gauge string. 2. Using a Si-Hon style mute, which dampens the area around the tailpiece, or twisting a Tourte-style so it wedges between the strings. 3. Fitting a wolf-tone eliminator on the string behind the bridge. Moving the eliminator closer or further from the bridge can alter the pitch, and by placing it on a quarter tone or less vital note, reduce the frequency of the wolf to some degree. Once the optimum location is identified, the eliminator can then be locked in position by tightening the adjustment screw. 4. Altering the sympathetic vibration of the strings. One way is to fractionally lengthen the tailpiece loop (which will slightly shorten the overall string length). 5. Using a heavier tailpiece. Often, switching from a synthetic tailpiece to an ebony or metal tailpiece will noticeably reduce a wolf tone. Can harmonics help tune my instrument? Bowing while lightly touching a string at 1/2 its length, sounds a pitch an octave higher; 1/3 its length, an octave and a fifth; 1/4 its length, a double octave; 1/5 its length, two octaves and a third; and 1/6 its length, two octaves and a fifth. Familiarity with harmonics often facilitates tuning, especially for bass. Touching the D-string at 1/3 its length sounds the same pitch as touching the A-string at 1/4 its length. This also applies to the other adjacent strings. When should the bow be re-haired? Generally, when the ribbon of hair is so thin that there are not enough to perform their function properly, or when the ribbon has become uneven, the bow should be rehaired. Playing on a bow that has had too many hairs broken on one side can actually cause the stick to warp. Caked or dirty hair can be cleaned occasionally with mild liquid detergent, but should only be done with utmost care taken not to get the bow wet - beware especially of capillary action wicking moisture into the mortises. In winter, bow hair may shrink due to lack of humidity, preventing the bow from being properly loosened. Likewise, summer humidity may cause the hair to stretch to such an extent that the bow can no longer be tightened. Either scenario is reason enough to take the bow to a qualified repair person to shorten, lengthen, or even rehair the bow. "Which of us, I wonder, has not pondered the great debt we owe to those strong individuals who taught us and the educational environment of our formative years that allowed and encouraged our minds and sensibilities to develop. I fear for the generations to come in this increasingly materialistic society if they are to be further deprived of those aspects of our culture that can enrich our lives and provide a background for enlightened judgment in their later positions of responsibility. All is not lost, but we must, all of us, exert ourselves to make sure that it is not. The Philistines are among us and would have us believe that the arts do not matter; that vocational training is all that education is about. They are damnably wrong." Raymond Leppard, music director, Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra