Thread: To strop or not to strop. (Howard Schechter) Videos

Originally Posted by FoliageFace

I have nowhere near enough knowledge to know if his conclusions are correct; but I have enough knowledge to know that when someone has done as much research as Howard clearly has, their conclusions or at least worth a serious consideration.

His stropping technique is appalling, which taints any empirical deductions he makes because they are based on observation of his own efforts. Research itself is only as valid as the quality of your observations, deductions, testing technique, and controls. Fail in any of those and your 'research' is useless, no matter how much time and effort you put into it.

Very possibly true. However, i think it's hard to make the call that his stripping technique is ineffective based on 10 seconds of video. As a classical bass player and teacher, I can tell you that there are plenty of players whose technique looks less than perfect, but who sound great. What they are doing may not be the best thing for most people, but if they are getting good results, who am I to argue?

Again, I'm not saying he is right or wrong, I have nowhere near enough knowledge to make any such claim. I'm just saying he deserves the benifit of the doubt. At the very least, one should try one of his honings on a known blade and try it out before saying his ideas are BS (which is very different from saying that they are wrong, IMHO).

There's no point arguing about it. Try his method yourself and see what you think. Either it works for you or it doesn't.

Originally Posted by FoliageFace

Very possibly true. However, i think it's hard to make the call that his stripping technique is ineffective based on 10 seconds of video. As a classical bass player and teacher, I can tell you that there are plenty of players whose technique looks less than perfect, but who sound great. What they are doing may not be the best thing for most people, but if they are getting good results, who am I to argue?

Again, I'm not saying he is right or wrong, I have nowhere near enough knowledge to make any such claim. I'm just saying he deserves the benifit of the doubt. At the very least, one should try one of his honings on a known blade and try it out before saying his ideas are BS (which is very different from saying that they are wrong, IMHO).

His stripping technique is something I definitely do not want to see