Thanks for the replies, Pat and cid.

I do like my Cecilio CVA-500. It needed some luthier touch ups, by me, to be able to play it easier, and could still use a nut string groove fix, that I intend to get to someday, but overall, it is a very good quality instrument. They should do better work on the finish and fittings, but the instrument itself is very nice.

I still want to try a Fiddlerman viola or violin sooner or later though. Maybe next year I will save for another month or two and go for something nice then, for whichever instrument I am liking the most then, violin or viola.

MACJR

Well, Mark, I would not call getting a viola going to the "Dark Side." I think of it as more going a little more towards the "Bass Side." 

I do like playing the lower notes on both the violin and the guitar.

MACJR

The new viola arrived today. It suffered from some shipping, and possibly pre-shipping nicks and dings, but nothing major enough to warrant a return (or the cost of returning it). I wish they had put the instrument, in its box, into a shipping box. More often than not, instruments that arrived damaged are the ones that were shipped just in their instrument box.

For violins, the odds were better that they would survived, even when shipped in just their instrument box, because of the padded cases, but for a guitar, oh my, the damage was extensive.

There was one early casualty when tuning the strings. I had mistakenly assumed that the A string, tuned somewhere near to C#, needed to be tuned upward to reach A, not downward.

SNAP! That is the first time I ever broke a new string.

From previous experience, strings are loose on the Cecilio violins when I order them. Not the case with this viola though. Most of the strings were already near tune, or had too much tension in them.

So it goes.

I have ordered a new A string, but the new "Tonica Viola String Set" might arrive before the replacement A string. If so, I will use those instead of the steel strings that came with the viola.

I have to say though, overall, I am not as impressed with this Cecilio viola as I was with their violins. The bridge is slippery on the slick surface too. It also looks like sloppy work on most, or all, if the fittings.

Luck of the draw I guess. This viola probably belonged in the reject bin though.

MACJR

@Irv, mostly, the imperfections are rather small and I will learn to overlook them in time. It was more banged up than any of my previous instruments, other than the first classical guitar that was sent to me, that was cracked in two places.

Overall though, the varnish work on this viola was done better than it was on my Cecilio CVN-500 violin. But the violin has much better coloring. This Cecilio CVA-500 viola, is yellow-orange. Egad!

I guess I will get used to it... until I can save up for one of those Fiddlerman violas.

However, the most important part is the sound, and from the three strings I have left on it, it sounds nice. All else is forgiven, when the sound is good. 

And about turning the wrong peg, I have no idea what you are talking about. Me, make a mistake like that? Way too many times. 

Especially on the guitar, with those extra number of pegs to mix-up with.

MACJR

I like the flame pattern on the back of my Cecilio CVN-500 violin too.

That was a good luck of the draw.

MACJR

@Irv, that bridge arc difference is mostly illusion. The violin is leaning one way, and the viola is leaning the other way, so the difference is smaller than it looks.

However, that violin is hard to play. It takes a bit of practice to be able to isolate the D string. It was even worst before I fit that new bridge in that violin. Since I am still new at fitting bridges, it may be that I can do better next time, if I find the right specs to use. The specs I used, were better than the bridge that was originally on that violin, but it is still a little tough isolating that D, just not as hard as before.

I have other violins, another acoustic, and an electric, that are both easier to play.

I had no problem adapting to bowing on the viola, even if it only has 3 strings right now. I will not get the true feeling for playing that viola until I replace the missing string, or install those Tonics when they arrive. It depends on which arrives first.

For me, the guitar was easier to learn than the violin. Except that I am still getting used to having so many strings to fumble my way through. I am getting better, but I can still lose track of strings from time to time, on the guitar. Four strings is a whole lot easier to manage. But violins, and violas, have so many more factors to deal with, that make them the more challenging instrument to learn.

I am better at playing the violin, than the guitar, mostly because I am much newer at playing the guitar. If I had started the guitar first, I could imagine being very frustrated trying to learn how to play the violin.

MACJR