4/4 Violin hunting

I am also a snob when it comes to pianos. I find clavinovas and digital keyboards extremely frustrating. You just can't get a sound out of them!

horseymum - We have a Yamaha clavinova and it has been used for the last year or so to accompany the kids in their music lessons, but nobody likes playing it. DH and DC insist that the feel of a clavinova is not the same...... they are keyboard snobs and insisted on a piano. If you shop around you can find bargain grands - the market for them has really dried up. To give you an indication, ours cost lest than a Howarth S20 oboe (and that includes the transportation cost...!!!). Obviously go for a mini grand as you won't need something with a concert hall sound unless your living room is the size of the Festival Hall....

Morning all, so yesterday we went violin shopping to Woodbridge Violins in Suffolk. As we're in Essex it's about an hour and a half from us on a good day. Ds's violin teacher didn't want us to go there and was insistent that he come with us and choose it for him. We said no (tho ha are not going well with this teacher and we are moving away from him against dh's wishes).

We had a budget in mind and we would p/ex his 3/4 violin which we got from there.

Russell was wonderful as ever. As we were looking for violin and bow we told him what our budget was and that we couldn't go over it and he said that was fine. He brought out 4 Violins initially. We didn't know the price of any of them. Ds tried them he immediately discounted 2. He played the other 2 a bit more but was unsure. Russell brought out another 2 and ds put both of those aside as possibles. They both had a lovely tone but I couldn't pick one over the other.

We asked Russell to come and play them and give us his opinion. He chose one over the other saying that it had a lovely feel to it and said that playing it was effortless. Dh and I agreed. He said similar about the other one but the first one had the edge. He got ds to play them and ds picked the other one i.e. not the one that we all thought sounded better. Ds just preferred it!!

Then we went on to bows. Ds has been playing with a carbon fibre bow with his 3/4 but he wanted to try wooden but really wanted a round stick rather than octagonal as he finds it more comfy?? Russell brought out about 5 bows varying massively in price from under £100 upto £400. We went through the same process but also ds felt the weight of it and did a few other things. He discounted 3 straight away but there were 2 clear favourites. Russell came back and tried them all and him,dh and I all liked the same one. Ds tried them again but opted for the other one!! Russell said good on him for standing by his own choice and not be swayed by others' opinions.
It was all a bit stressful in many ways as ds was clearly overwhelmed and had bought with him a ridiculously hard piece of music which he can play but not very accurately and tbh I thought it sounded bloody awful but hey ho. He did play a couple of grade 6 pieces including the Intermezzo and Mozart. I dread to think what Russell thought of his playing 😩. We have it on a weeks approval before we have to pay or not. He has chamber orchestra (string ensemble)on Monday night so he will take it with him and get the tutors to look it over. They all know Woodbridge Violins well. He also has a trial on Friday after school with a new teacher who is a violinist so we will see what she thinks. He loves it though and unless there is something fundamentally wrong,we will go with it.

Phew!! Just got to buy a nice case now!!

Oh wow, I won't let my husband know about the grand piano from eBay, we are having to upgrade our upright as it refuses to stay in tune and is useless with the oboe. We have 99.9 percent decided on an electric one as we can get better quality for the price and it is only him that really hankers after a decent accoustic, I'm happy with electric. He reckons we would just about have space for a grand!

Hi Kutik, you'll be amused by DH's latest auction purchases..... he's become a tad obsessive in recent months.

So far (following on from the 2 cellos he's already bought), he's bought 3 cello bows at auction and 1 grand piano off Ebay. All without seeing or trying.

The first bow is an absolute bobby dazzler. Lovely pernambuco and DD and DS both love it. It was an absolute bargain.

The second bow was immediately bought off us by the kid's cello teacher. (DH insisted on a £1 profit as he's a business man!). She absolutely loved the bow the minute she tried it - her eyes literally lit up. She says it's the perfect bow for solos and ensembles - it gave a fuller sound than her normal bow. A bit of research suggests it was possibly worth 5x what we paid for it. But the kids preferred the first bow so we were happy for her to have it as she's now a very good friend of the family.

Then came the grand piano - bought off Ebay for not very much money (we needed to replace our old upright as it doesn't hold tune for more than a fortnight and is uneconomic to repair/replace the sound board). A Bluthner. It arrived a couple of weeks later and we are now week 3 into the settling in period - the tuner is coming at the end of next week. It looks beautiful for a 100 year old instrument and has been really well looked after. The previous owner, who sadly died, had had it in his family for 60 years. I think he'd be delighted to see how much it's being used by my 3 DC in the last couple of weeks. Assuming it tunes up well (it hasn't been tuned for 5 years), it's feeling like a real bargain. And it's a nice piece of furniture too.

Finally the 3rd cello bow which was very cheap and was always a bit suspicious looking. Another auction purchase from a non music specialist auction. Decent condition. Stamped Bausch - they make fantastic bows. Sadly, it's a fake - basically an entry level student bow made of Brazilwood. Thankfully the hammer price was only £40, but the postage was £25. Anyway, it'll make a decent spare!

So, I think we can give him 75% for his efforts....

Violin duly returned to rather ratty luthier in my lunch break. He seemed a trifle disappointed that it was in perfect condition and questioned my understanding of English (I'm from here!). Might be a blessing in disguise. Kutik you describe him perfectly.

We had driving license copies taken elsewhere never. This other luthier took details of our teacher etc. I just don't appreciate being ranted at down the phone in my working day over something he had said the opposite of in email

But then that luthier knows someone who knows me. Another luthier I didn't know before took my address, but I guess I could have lied about it ...

Stringers took a copy of my driving license but were very nice about everything. One luthier just said take these and try them out in your own home and don't worry, it's all insured.

That is interesting about the carbon fibre bows. I have tried a few over the years -expensive and less expensive - and have never liked any as much as my crappy £120 wooden bow (which I don’t like that much!)

Shows that bow choice is intensely personal, I suppose.

Kutik - yes the one we spoke of......

Dd had a fantastic experience trialling violins and bows elsewhere last Friday. Provided her teacher agrees we will take both......

se22 Sorry you had such a terrible experience. I've not encountered anyone rude so far. Don't deal with him! Hope you find something else from someone more polite.

He was really incredibly rude. I genuinely thought an extension had not been specified. Not had it on the email trail. Refused to listen to a word I said. In my industry clients are spoken to politely (even when you don't feel polite).

se22mother
Sorry for your experience, but you have to understand that not every customer is as trustworthy as you! You wouldn't believe some of the stories I have heard from luthiers over the years of people stealing or abusing their trust - it's no wonder they are so skittish when customers go quiet on them!

Yes, persuade him I would as anything under £2000 is far superior to wood. Just have a look on the Caswell's site (the biggest bow supplier in the uk) & you'll see that they don't even bother to stock wooden bows in that price range anymore! Arcus do veneered Carbon bows but you'd have to spend £2000 to get one of decent quality. Coda, Musing & Glasser all have very good reputations. The only reason the Elida one I pointed out is that cheap is because it's Chinese which actually offer fantastic value for money - European you would be looking at £400 for the same quality

Most frustrating- just had the first luthier we visited really quite abusive on the phone as we hadn't returned the violin. I said he'd given us an unspecified extension. He claims this would have only ever been for a couple of days. So rude. Talking over me and implying I was stupid. Really hostile. Looks like the transaction won't be through him. At least dd preferred another violin so won't be too upset when she comes back to find it gone. Just shocked he would talk to me like that