Anyone play the violin? Please help.

[Miss H]

DD 6yrs wants to play the violin so we enrolled her in lessons when the new school year starts and bought her a violin for Xmas. She wanted to play around with it today and she played with it a bit and it was working fine. Then suddenly it stopped in that the violin still makes the right sounding sounds when you pluck the strings but the bow does not make any noise besides a scraping noise. It plays right at the tip of the bow but not the rest. What can be wrong? I know nothing about musical instruments. I know she shouldn't have been playing it when she does not know how but I thought a bit of playing with it would not hurt. How can we fix this before she has to go to her lessons?

[LionsandBears]

Did you wax the bow?

[LimeSlice]

Sounds like it needs more rosin on the bow.

[Miss H]

I have put rosin on the bow. I did read somewhere that you might need to score the rosin to get it on the bow. Should I try that?

[Santosha]

Is the bow tightened? (done by turning the knob at the end). Careful not to over-tighten.

[Miss H]

The rosin is really hard and nothing seems to come off if you touch it. Is that how it is supposed to be?

[Miss H]

Yes, I did tighten the bow.

[Santosha]

The rosin is really hard and nothing seems to come off if you touch it. Is that how it is supposed to be?

Yep, it won't come off with touch. But friction from the bow should leave a little powdered rosin on the bow. Sounds very odd. I can't think what else could be wrong... I want to come and have a play to figure it out. Pity I'm on the far side of the country!

[Miss H]

I might just have to put it away and let the teacher tell us what it is when she goes for her first lesson.

[LimeSlice]

Yep, rosin is hard rosin, you need to run it quite firmly up and down the bow several times.