Hi,

Last night I spent a while messing around with the shoulder rest getting it near but the chin rest was hurting; I could secure the violin with just chin and shoulder but had to apply quite a bit of pressure on the chin rest to prevent the violin rotating. I adjusted the chin rest to nearer the strings whilst allowing a gap but in the end gave up. I'm aware I'm not alone with this problem and eventually will sort it out. Both my violins appear to have identical chin rests so these must be the standard chin rest.

Being such a novice to violin's I would never have guessed just how complicated it is setting everything up correctly; as with anything new and learning a new skill it takes time and patience; it's frustrating but accepted as part of the learning curve.

I'm just so bony with a long neck which isn't helping; I  bent the shoulder rest a number of ways in the end straightening it out where it now is and I can start over. I'm wondering if I can locate a nearby violin store and just request popping in to be correctly fitted with chin/shoulder rest obviously paying which could save no end of hassle; so near though and I've still got the center chin rest yet to arrive to play around with this being a different shape to the other two chin rests. What fun I'm having.

Kind regards, Colin.

Hi,

Busy day so catching up at last.

Thanks Emily; Bron and I are watching lots of YouTube videos and it's surprising how many toddlers are being pushed forward to play instruments and we watched one three year old today playing drums; he was truly amazing but as I said earlier these kids should be enjoying their childhood climbing trees and making a nuisance of themselves; they're much too young to be pushed forward like this but then it's only my personal opinion; as a kid I climbed trees and made tree dens etc but then we struggled to buy food and clothes not violins. We didn't even have electricity until I was about five years old.

Thanks Andrew for your useful information; I've so much to learn and am experimenting with what I already have whilst spending bits on different strings and I'm trying different rosin; the center chin rest is only about £14  bought secondhand through eBay but worth trying; Bron and I have watched lots of YouTube videos on setting up a violin; tonight we watched a guy playing without shoulder rest support just lightly supporting the violin neck with the gap between finger and thumb; he admitted playing towards the body was easiest whilst playing away from the body tends to remove the violin from his shoulder but he compensates for this just by thumb movement; it's all very interesting to watch and gives lots of ideas. I've just recovered from vibrato after last year whilst sinking 3' deep fence post holes through solid stone using a very heavy concrete breaker.

Thanks stringy; I was only holding the violin the way I was in order to take the pictures and show my skinny build; we've watched videos where violin players are using nothing more than cut down car washing sponges in fact why so many have to repeat such things on YouTube so many times beats me. I've even considered making my own shoulder rest because I've got lots of sheet aluminium and mechanical engineering skills whilst having the machinery etc; it's getting too cold though to be pottering around in the workshop. 10C at best today with driving rain in a bitterly cold breeze; we're used to this weather in Yorkshire just look at the opening pictures in Wuthering heights from 1.5 mins in; it gets rather grim here;

Lovely place though during our two day long summers.

At the moment I'm unfamiliar with whom we have locally regarding luthiers or violin dealers; I'm trying too hard as usual and need to back off to take stock. One video we watched made sense in that put the violin with chin rest holding it in playing position against the neck then measure the gap to the shoulder this then is the thickness required to use for packing whether sponge or shoulder rest.

I'm breaking away from my two latest projects then I can concentrate on violins; it takes quite a bit of doing when I've been so involved with learning other new skills; I have a friend who owns a business and he uses tungsten carbide tooling but has struggled to get the high qualty tooling he needs but he's managed to obtain a good supply of very high grade carbide tips which I've been brazing onto tooling but I got very involved and made both a brazing machine using a commercial 1,950W micro wave oven transformer which I wound on the secondary to give 975 amps of raw power. definitely not for a novice but things I like to experiment with I've been over to visit him this afternoon to take over a second machine I've made it being a 2,500W induction heater; what am I on about; have a look at this and it's quite different to stringing a violin but interesting and fun to me; this is just the brazing machine I made first;

Under construction; transformer; circuit boards and relays etc.

The completed machine; what fun I do have but this sort of thing is very dangerous indeed; I learn on a need to know basis and having not been taught electrics I'm extremely careful not to glow in the dark; I've got test equipment and am very safety concious I designed this to have only 12VDC on the controls plus it is fully earthed.

I'm now exercising the same level of enthusiasm to violins finding violins both extremely challenging and hugely interesting; as winter starts to bite I can move more into the new studio spending lots of time on violins.

It's been another long day so now time to settle down to some quality time with Bron before bedtime.

Kind regards, Colin.

Hi,

Thank you Andrew for your informative reply.

I bought a pair of E strings just to experment with because I'd been watching or browsing something; they weren't expensive and highly recommended; they are D'Addario Kaplan Violin Golden Spiral Solo. Funds aren't a problem. I also bought D'Addario rosin seen here;

I removed the gloss using abrasive paper on both types of rosin.

This is the dark rosin which was highly recommended. I'm open to suggestions because I've got a great deal to learn. At the moment I'm too ignorant to notice any difference between the two. Watching YouTube videos can be highly frustrating; just applying rosin to the the bow hair is so full of contradictions and I've watched a lot of these videos; last night a young lady was applying lots of rosin to her bow hair saying at least ten strokes was needed whereas others state do not use too much rosin it messes everything up and the strings and violin end up coated with it.

Many years ago whilst at hospital with Bron the surgeon was saying to Bron if you ask twelve surgeons for an opinion you'll get twelve different answers; it relates to playing a violin; I take deep interest in each and every reply; there's nothing to stop me trying every suggestion put forward.

Regarding shoulder/chin rests I've just been browsing our local stringed instrument store where they have lots of shoulder rests including the Wolf rest I have on sale new at £28.50 unfortunately they only have one chin rest it being a center rest and I've already got one of these due to arrive so I'll hang on.

Going right back to basics though it's very important to be comfortable playing a violin or any instrument; I'm very uncomfortable and often in pain making learning to play my violins more punishment than pleasure and unless I can improve this it's pointless pushing myself where injury is possible.

We have friends who have started to play instruments but having lost their initial enthusiasm walked away; our friend Joan in Brisbane Australia heads a group who play the uke and guitar also singing they do gigs in their their local area; Joan had to learn violin at school but informs me she eventually gave up it being much too painful; our friend Pauline living in Lecestershire surprised us when we were recently told she too had bought a violin but quickly packed it in; yesterday I was talking to a guy who has three expensive guitars he's had these years but never plays them; our neighbour directly across the street from us also surprised us; he has a sax that he started with but not touched it for years.

We've only recently learned of these and I don't want to or intend to follow them; when things start to go wrong for me I find a solution this is how I've learnt so many skills during my lifetime.

I'm so new to the world of violins but it's now my chosen full time hobby and I'm no quitter; no one pushed me to play a violin and I'm not under any pressure to carry on just because I'm struggling at first; I've endured many learning curves some highly dangerous but I've never yet failed; of course I'm slow getting started but if playing a violin was easy I'd quickly become bored; I'll repeat once again my dream is to play Lara's Theme on a violin I've made myself and I'm now heading towards this dream.

Experienced violin players all started at the bottom just as I'm doing but with practice and lots of it they who stuck with it eventually achieved their ambition; I want to join them but not at a professional level; I want to play a violin just for the fun of being able to; it's an hobby to me not a career choice. I've looked at taking lessons but the classes I've seen appear regimented; I could pay for private tuiton too but silly as it sounds I want to make all the mistakes and even enjoy them; I never learn from what I already know. Sorry if I sound to be preaching but like me there are many other novices joining the forum and I always encourage anyone to try something new but not to give up easily as long as they play safely.

I have the benefit of "Kaizen" training and this training can be applied to absolutely anything; I was subjected to the training because of my job but it can be applied to virtually anything I do including learning to play a violin; it's based on taking any job or task all the way back to absolute basics and start from scratch not just doing something because it's been done a certain way for the last 100 years; it definitely works; as an example a customer places an order for an electric motor this motor requires a brake fitting; standard lead time six weeks; during the training course we took it back to basics and hence halved the lead time.

I possibly sound to be rambling on but I can apply this Kaizen to me learning to play a violin; I'm struggling badly in supporting my violin; after 30 minutes uncomfortable practice my left arm hurts and feels on fire this taking quite a while to ease. I've even removed the finish from my violins neck due to the death grip fear of dropping the violin. How many having reached this stage in learning then decide I'll never play a violin and walk away?

I fully appreciate I'm new kid on the block and have little by way of violin experience to share and I can't particpate at an higher level than raw novice at the moment but at the risk of being boring I have plenty of other skills to fall back upon which I'm now sharing one of them.

If the basics of anything aren't right then why proceed because until the basics are right nothing following will be right either; just my take on where I currently am; I need to let go the death grip and until I do I'll never be happy practicing.

Kind regards, Colin.