New Bridge

 Old Bridge

Molly (Malone)

@fiddlestix  Thanks Ken. I should clarify that the new bridge is thicker relative to the one that came with the fiddle. It is a standard blank bridge that most ships seem to carry and feels 100x more stable than the old one.

 EDIT: Added a recording of Ashokan with the new one. May be a better comparison.

As I was working on the bridge I discovered the action was away too high, about 1cm off the fingerboard at the G string so I lowered it too. I did wonder why I had such sore joints lately so hopefully it will help.

@coolpinkone Cheers Tony.  Your comments are always so supportive, it's much appreciated.

@Fiddlerman it's great fun! Haha I started playing when I was about 5/6, don't remember exactly, our school had a strong emphasis on music which sadly isn't seen much today ,so we were taught strings, percussion and woodwind. I stopped when I was 12 as our music teacher pushed us a bit too hard and I wasn't interested in playing 2+ hours a day and spending 3 hours a week with the local orchestra. In high school we were taught keyboard, guitar and drums but lost interest in music for a long while.

Now, 11 years later, I caught the bug again after seeing The Budapest Cafe Orchestra play live and wanted to delve into traditional folk music instead of classical.

There is a lot of muscle memory retained when first playing, I could remember finger positions and techniques like pizzicato along with certain symbols on sheet music without too much hassle but it took about 2 months to relearn how to read again which I was pleasantly surprised at. (I thought it would take longer)

It's quite easy, but things like keeping your hand off the neck when playing and keeping a straight bow is a challenge. It's also difficult to reign myself in and take learning slowly.  I always hear a song and think "Oh! I can have a go at that." and giving up when it doesn't sound right first time. I do need to just calm down, go slowly and understand things will happen over time.  Im also getting a bit bogged down with music theory which feels like a foreign language at this point.

But I would highly recommend learning an instrument when your a bit older, keeps the brain young.

Sorry for the essay, I like to waffle.

Hello. Back again finally, haha.

Small update on the past few months, we played another wee show focusing on movie soundtracks in the old Law library, surrounded by oil portraits of important people of the university and glass stained windows. A fairly small room but quite grand in decor. And it actually sold out! :O people were having to stand at the back.

So that is us done for the semster. (Boo) and the next one will be in November when I will be an old weary fourth year soon to be kicked out of uni. Sob.

Anyways. Didnt realise we were being filmed too, so here are the videos they got. Sound is a bit low but not too bad. The third one is the Chamber Choir who sang beautifully for half an hour. Its a shame they only filmed one song.

So now, I'm back playing for funsies to combat stress of writing essays and dissertation preperation and I treated myself to a new bow, which is much lighter and easier to control. It no longer feels like I'm having to wrestle it which is fantastic. I'm also going completely back to basics and working on posture, grip, positions and most importantly rhythm as I am terrible at keeping count on my own. Its so easy in a group! I've got a number of songs I want to work on including stuff from Les Mis and Lord of the Rings so hopefully I may be able to get some videos uploaded too.