Violin for grade4 and above

[MomRose12]

Hi all,
DD (10yrs old) is doing her grade3 exams next month. She has been playing violin for over 5 years now (started doing grade exams only last year). She auditioned for a local orchestra and wlll be starting there next term. She currently has a 3/4 size cheapo violin that we borrowed from a friend. I’m thinking of getting her a really nice violin. Do I upgrade now or wait for her to grow into a full size violin?

How much should I be spending on it? I can go up to £1500, but I don’t want to spend so much if it’s not necessary at this stage. Also, please can anyone recommend nice violin shops near Bromley/London where she can try before buying?

[flowery]

DS1 is 11 and doing his Grade 6. We’ve just got him a nice antique 3/4 violin which was about £2.5k but before that he had one from Stringers that was about £500/£600. That was perfectly fine for Grade 3+ IMO.

Guivier was the place we got his antique one from.

[MomRose12]

Her teacher recommended Stentor Student. I think he thought that was a decent upgrade over her current violin. Is Stentor good enough until finishing grade5 (around 1.5years)?
Should I be looking at buying a new violin or used ones? Do used ones sound better?

[Giraffey1]

Where are you based, OP? I could ask OH for you ....

[MomRose12]

I’m in London (Bromley - close to Kent)

[CrazyCrunk]

Stentors mid range models definitely good enough for grade 5 and are very reasonably priced. You won't lose loads on resale either; worth it for a couple of years.

[MomRose12]

Thank you. Would you recommend any particular model in Stentors? Is Student-2 good? What about stentor-conservatoire?

Do old violins sound better?

[MomRose12]

Bumping for responses

[Crazyfrog007]

I went to grade 7 on a stentor. Absolutely fine and dandy. Would wait till she needs a full size though as no point in spending twice for the same thing really.

[CrazyCrunk]

Conservatoire is overkill for grade 5 imo, student 2 is fine, and the 1 is plenty for grade 3. But the price difference isn't loads so get whichever looks the prettiest if you can afford it!

[MomRose12]

Thanks CrazyFrog and CrazyCrunk

Would Gliga Gama be an overkill too at this point?

I think I will go with Stentor Student2 for now.

[flowery]

DS1's is from 1880, it's French. There's no doubt it sounds miles better than my pretty bog-standard new one, which was I think about £1200ish.

We wanted to wait until he needed a full size for obvious reasons, but he is refusing to have a growth spurt so we got him a good one now, so he can do his Grade 6 on it. We will be able to trade it in and upgrade once he's ready for a full size so the additional outlay won't be that much.

Having said that, if he was on his Grade 3 we would not have bothered. It's totally unnecessary to spend loads at that stage IMO. Follow her teacher's advice and then get something better once she needs a full size.

I did my Grade 8 viola on a £500 instrument perfectly fine. No way could my family have afforded anything else. But as DS1's teacher helpfully said to me when I pointed that out to her, if you've never tried a good antique instrument you wouldn't know what you are missing, and to be fair, now I've tried DS1's, I have to acknowledge she is right. It's loads better than mine, and we are lucky that we can afford it for him. now I want one for myself