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Hello Fiddlerman forum!
I am joining the ranks of folks who wanted to teach themselves the violin and decided to only invest a hundred to a hundred and fifty on the endeavor. I picked up a very nice (looking) CVN-EAV after doing the research to learn it's essentially the CVN-300 with different varnish and thus, hoping that the CVN-300 reviews could be trusted to be for this set up as well, went with it.
Upon delivery today I tuned the violin myself using an app - it was a lot simpler than I thought it would be! - by plucking the strings and carefully adjusting both the coarse and fine tuners. The instrument has a few tiny dings upon delivery and the pegs look a bit rough but they're holding their tuning for at least the past 6 hours so... I'll update on that tomorrow.
I also took my new cake of rosin and roughed it with a quarter before starting in on the bow... Since doing that I've run the bow over that rosin for over half an hour in 5-10 minute spurts, at least... It's starting to produce noise when run over the lower strings and when I press quite hard, but still sounds like no rosin at all over the e string. Am I doing something wrong? Or do I just need THAT MUCH cheap rosin on a cheap bow?
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Welcome to the family Kiki, you're gonna love it here. Lots of helpfull members and many of us have been here for years!
...to answer your question quickly, yes quite possibly you will need to rough up that stock box rosin with a sharp knife tip or razor blade to get it loose enough to adequately transfer to the hair strands.
Sometimes it takes a bit more than you'd think to get it sounding good at the beginning and then a couple of strokes with the rosin before your practice sessions to be good to go.
After you play for awhile, does the rosin dust get on your fingerboard and violin top? If so, then you have enough on your bow for a day or two. Remember to wipe off the violin with a soft rag after playing to keep it looking good, and don't use any liquid cleaners either, rosing will just wipe off if it isn't hot and sticky.
Sometimes the rosin just isn't as sticky on the hair as it should be and the hair just slides over the string, especially the E string and won't make any sound at all except a weak squeek or sliding sound...you know the difference when it really vibrates and you get that sweet E string sound.
"If you practice with your hands you must practice all day. Practice with your mind and you can accomplish the same amount in minutes." Nathan Milstein
I will rough it up further tomorrow before continuing to rosin the bow then. I am concerned about the cake though - I can see its once perfect interior is beginning to crack already. Anything I can do to minimize the chance of shattering my free rosin, or do I need to add that to my order of a mute in a few weeks?
I haven't really bothered to continue trying long enough to see if dust will accumulate on the fingerboard because its been the no rosin sound on the e string.
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Fantastic explanation Dennis, thanks.
Kiki, welcome to both the world of violin and the forum.
If there was rosin on dust coming off your bow and onto the fingerboard you would know it by now.
I have a hard time believing that there is something wrong with that rosin but I haven't messed with cheap rosin in a long long time. Dark rosin is more grabby. If you purchase your mute from Fiddlershop.com and write us a note when checking out, I'll through in a slightly used decent rosin. We don't sell used rosin and when I get too many, I am happy to give one away.
Some instruments are not very open and vibrant and require a lot of pressure to sound. Can't be sure without seeing your instrument. The sound post could be crammed in too tight as well which keeps the instrument from vibrating as freely as it should. There are other factors such as a thick bridge, strings embedded too deeply into the nut or bridge, incorrect sound post location, thick top.... the list can go on....
"The richest person is not the one who has the most,
but the one who needs the least."
Regulars
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Hello and Welcome to the insanity of strings.
I too own a Cecilio CVN-EAV I like the look and sound of mine,
I would suggest a better rosin then the Leto 803 that come with the outfit.
You might want to get a Kaplan Dark or Light rosin.
Not sure what type mute you are thinking of getting I use a hard rubber mute, but think the heavier metal ones might be a better choice.
I wish you happy playing, he violin can be addictive.
With violins there is no fretting over the music.
Goodmorning! I am very surprised And impressed by the speed at which I have received responses. Thank you!
Fiddlerman, is there any way to make any of those judgments myself? The tone seemed to vibrate quit nicely and clearly- I could ever so slightly feel it - when I was plucking to tune. It also does produce sound from G D and A strings, just not E, when bowed. All four produced nice sound and tone when plucked. Does that hint at anything? Unfortunately I have work now, but I will be able to try to troubleshoot again this evening.
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Probably not so easy for you to trouble shoot those issues yourself since you have no experience. Try what Dennis wrote and possibly the better rosin first and see if it makes a difference. 30 minutes of rosining for one person equals 5 minutes of rosining from another. 
"The richest person is not the one who has the most,
but the one who needs the least."
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Welcome Kiki to the forum. Hip Hip Hooray!!!!
I see everyone is addressing the rosin issue.. I hope you get some sound soon! And I hope it is the lesser of the issue rather than any other the other issues.
I have hard rubber mute... It works lovely. I don't use it anymore... much to the dismay of my poor Basset Hound. Sigh, about 1 ago he decided he hates the violin and if I am going to make noise .. so is he..so he full on BAWLS when I play..... Oh boy....Poor Dexter. (He is all to happy to roam outside while I play most of the time).
Good luck and happy "Violining"
Toni
Vibrato Desperato.... Desperately seeking vibrato
I dearly hope it is rosin also... I don't want to be out twenty bucks shipping if I need to return it, plus whatever other fees they saddle me with for doing so after opening it...
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Where did you get it?
"The richest person is not the one who has the most,
but the one who needs the least."
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I just bought a CVN-EAV for my beginner daughter. The strings included are pretty bad (I switched to Preludes trying to be cheap but I'm going to switch to synthetic next) and the bow isn't great either. I'm not a fan of Cecilio rosin so I used Jade first thing. It seemed to take forever to stick and I was reapplying often. It's been about 2 weeks now and it's been played every few days and the rosin seems to have worked it's way into the hair nicely... No need to constantly reapply, just a swipe here and there.
Great news! Prepping the rosin with a sharp instrument like a box cutter - rather than the blunt one of a coin - has solved the issue! I am now happily eeking out scratchy notes that my chromatic tuner app says are the correct GDAE! Thank you very much for the assist folks.
And as an update, even though the strings are still stretching in, they were still tuned pretty close to what they needed to be when I opened it up here (so held tune for about 20 hours themselves), and stayed just as closely tuned for my one hour of fiddling around with trying to make pretty noises, instead of just noise.
Does anyone have any suggestions as to how to practice training the ear? I find it easiest to learn by observing someone else doing something correctly, then me trying it, assessing what I did, and then rinse repeat until I do it right. However, I'm not confident at all in my ability to assess whether I'm close or not on the same planet. Does anyone know of a tuner app that doesn't listen for just one note, but will always tell me what note I'm playing (or what note it thinks I'm close-ish to?)
Thank you again everyone, and I'll make sure to share a beginner's rendition of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star sometime in the next week! Atm I was just messing around with Hot Crossed Buns from recorder/alto saxaphone days in elementary school. xD
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Congrats to you on getting sound.
Looking forward to Twinkle... its a special rite of passage.
Woot HOO!!
Vibrato Desperato.... Desperately seeking vibrato
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I started my 'education' of learning to play by ear using youtube videos of tunes and players I could associate with and liked. Of course try to keep it simple, try to duplicate the sounds and bow strokes exactly! Practice with them over and over and over and over.... until you can play exactly like they do without looking.
You will also need to watch and practice the easiest of lessons from Fiddlermans' video collection for beginners. It is a definate plus.
That's the hardest part. You will find if you read music and can find the fingering quicklly you are 1/2 way there... the bowing is the other half of the massive effort required to get things working to your satisfaction.
"If you practice with your hands you must practice all day. Practice with your mind and you can accomplish the same amount in minutes." Nathan Milstein
I will be starting over on that tomorrow. The last thing I did tonight before people returned to my house (and thus I quit sounding like I was strangling cats) was retune my violin. Thank you first chromatic tuner for not teaching ensuring that when I tuned to GDAE, I tuned to the -correct- GDAE. Found another one and got it all set right, and now it sounds much better.
Proud of myself for realizing that I must have something wrong when I couldn't get D on the G string and D open to sound the same at all.
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