Crowbar187 said:

Hello fiddlermen and women. I clean my violin every or every other time I play it. Usually with the bottom of the shirt I'm wearing. Never gets too nasty, however my issue seems to be the strings. They very quickly get to the point where I can wet a string and chip away chunks of rosin with my fingernail. Could I be using too much rosin? Is this normal? Will it affect my sound? I'm relatively new to this(still trying to learn as much as humanly possible). I appreciate any advice I can get. Thanks.

Avoid applying too much rosin; the mess on your strings and violin body isn't worth it. When you apply rosin before playing, there's no need to sweep the bow more than five or six times.

I wipe my violin off every night after my third or so practice session of the day (I usually practice in the morning, the afternoon, and the evening). However, I have a white electric violin, so it doesn't get dirty or smudgy as quickly as a finished acoustic would.