Meet Bella, everyone!

Or, as normal people would call her, my Fiddlerman Apprentice violin. I have never bought a new instrument before (well, other than an electric keyboard, and that just isn't the same).  

First of all, the care that went into simply packing her for shipping was just amazing. I ordered my daughter a violin last year from a music store, and there was nowhere near the same effort put into it. Secondly, after struggling with a zipper missing its pull on my last violin case, I'm quite excited to have a nice case. 

But the violin... I tuned her (and it wasn't that hard- she was about a half-step flat on each string. Not bad at all for going coast to coast), and I played the open strings, and wow! She has that rich, mellow tone I was hoping for. The E string still, well, sounds like the E string does when I play it, but even that had a less strident tone than my last violin. I played around with a couple of tunes on it and was just incredibly impressed. Plus, appearance wise she's just gorgeous. The pictures on the website don't do her justice.

I'm really excited to play her with the new bow- I upgraded and got a sandalwood bow. I've never played with a wood bow before, and I can't wait to hear how she likes it. I just got tired of rosining up the new bow and pulled out my old bow so I could play her. I'll finish tomorrow.

I really think this is going to be a good violin for me to grow with. I can't wait to get off work tomorrow so I can play her some more.  Just had to share with people who would get my excitement, and my inclination to name an inanimate object.