Hi Metrics Fans,

I stumbled across this very cool and pretty detailed article on tailpieces and wanted to share it. It's way above my pay grade but my takeaway is that tailpieces and their positioning matter a lot 🙂
https://cdn.shopify.com/s/file.....gTails.pdf

Above, I reported on how the string length was shortened by 5mm on my Sima Traian. That was great for my fingers but not so great for the sound, even with a sound post adjustment. But when Fiddlershop swopped the nice regular sized tailpiece for a smaller harp (thereby increasing the after length) the instrument's super sound was back. 

So yeah, personal experience tells me that tailpieces are really important. I guess I'll just have to reread the article a few more times to understand why 🙂

New chapter in the life of my Sima Traian adjustments:

The bad news is that, 5 months in to my violin adventure, my smallish left hand isn't growing, stretching or becoming more supple. The consequence: I was "lunging" to reach with my 4th finger and couldn't reach a sharp note with my 3rd while still holding my 2nd finger from the previous note in place. 

The good news is that Fiddlershop was able to further shorten my string length by an additional 5mm. That's a lot. My left hand says thank you!

The first string length shortening was achieved by adding a thicker (wider) nut. This second effort involved:
1) Moving the bridge and sound post up 5mm towards the nut.
2) Cutting +/- 8mm off the bridge end of the fingerboard.
3) Replacing the 3/4 harp tailpiece with a standard 4/4.

As you can see from the pic, the bridge is now about 5mm north of the f-hole notches. That gives the following change:
- 321mm = previous string length (with the enlarged nut)
- 316mm = new string length (with additional shifting north of the bridge)

Felix at Fiddlershop, tried just moving the bridge and sound post previously but it didn't sound great. This time, in conjunction with the slight reduction in fingerboard length and the larger tailpiece, the sound works much better.

From what I've gleaned from reading up on this, there is a phenomenon called "fingerboard tuning" and I'm guessing that the shortening put the fingerboard more in phase with the rest of the violin body. It also leaves a better sized gap for my bow since the newly set bridge was a bit too close to the original fingerboard. Just for fun, I'm thinking of getting my hands on some lead tape to attach to the bottom side of the fingerboard to see if that influences the sound. Anyone have a hypothesis on this?

Now for the tailpiece: Yes, it's bigger, @Irv. I remember how happy we were with the 3/4 harp to enhance the instrument's sound. But apparently, the larger the after length, the louder the instrument and the more overtones. Since the Sima Traian is already plenty powerful and sonorous, I'm now giving this 4/4 rosewood item a try. The new after length is 50mm... perhaps a tad short. But then again, I'm all for making this violin experience as quiet as possible. Hence the new Violino strings you see mounted. 

LEAD TAPE AND AFTER LENGTH FOLLOW-UP:

The lead tape experiment was a bomb. I had put a strip about 1/2 inch wide under the bridge end of the fingerboard. First comment from my teacher (who I hadn't clued in) was, "do you have a mute on?" I went home, removed the strip and the sound was, indeed, cleaner without.

As for the after length, I reported, above, that my newly shortened string length / after length ratio was not quite the "standard" 6:1. So I got brave and shortened the tail gut by the amount necessary to achieve that ratio (about 4mm.) Maybe it's the placebo effect but I think the sound is at least as good as before if not a tad more mellow. The really good news is that I didn't dislodge the sound post while trying 🙂

I'm trying to refrain from getting a sound post adjuster... I hear fiddling around with  that can get really addictive. Oh my!

@Irv, if I get it right, you're going to try and put something like a tourniquet around the C-bouts because you want to prevent the sound post from falling when completely loosening all strings at once. Correct?

I'm sure you know how to set a sound post (as opposed to me) so no big danger giving it a try. But my intuition tells me that, because of the violin's geometry (flat and wide) the tourniquet will exert more force horizontally from C-bout to C-bout than vertically from top to bottom plate. If yes, that would cause the top and bottom plates to bulge away from each other and encourage the sound post to fall. 

Now I'm really curious as to how your experiment turns out 🙂

Waiting for the post-noose report, @Irv.

Hope I got it wrong with the direction of the pressure. Love living vicarously over your experiments but don't think I should be fiddling with my sound post. I might be able to learn to use the tools you recommend but I'd spend even less time practicing and more time experimenting 🙂

Thanks, @Irv 
I had already invested an end pin similar to this one:
https://fiddlershop.com/produc.....tton-8-3mm
Mine also has a removable plastic screw in the middle which enables you to peek inside the violin. Sounds superfluous but it's actually pretty convenient if you want to check for exterior light shining through potential cracks or to verify sound post placement. You do have to take off the tailpiece to adjust the tail gut, though. 

Mine was $29 (free shipping over $25) and the ZMT item seems to come out to about $40 plus int'l shipping.

Just for yucks, if you can make an abstraction of my beginner bowing, this is what a scale sounds like before and after I shortened my tail gut by about 4mm:

BEFORE:
https://youtu.be/Pqqvc25PbD4

AFTER:
https://youtu.be/TslEKmuXFJ4

@Irv, Thx for the feedback. I agree.

By the way, here's a pic of that end pin with the removable plastic screw in the center: