Playing on Masakichi Suzuki No.6

I received Masakichi No.6 a couple of days later. This violin seemed really well made compared to other 2 Masakichis.
The back was really highly flamed, neck, ribs too.
Top was really nice spruce, (but it’s probably Japanese wood. Since at the beginning of Suzuki violin, they used Japanese materials for almost all of their products. Unfortunately, Japanese materials are not so high quality compared to European materials, from the point of sound.) .
Comparing F-holes to other violins, this one has really nice shape and well finished.

And neck scroll. It’s really well balanced, and perfect shape.
Considering these points, I thought this was handmade by a well-experienced craftsman.

（figure 1: try to put new strings on it ）

（F-hose is also well finished, right?）

How was the sound? Yes, it was preeeety good.
I’d never had such nice sound before. Treble sound was easy to play and beautiful, lower sound was like a human bass voice.
I don’t know how to tell, it’s difficult to describe sound by words.^^;) especially in English.
Anyway, it was the best sound for me at that time, I was crazy about that violin. I played all the time. I was practicing Concerto No.3 of F.Seitz at that time, I felt "Waaah, I became so good at playing this tune!" Hehehe, of course it was a kind of silly confidence.
But few weeks later, I noticed something. It makes a weird noise sometimes.
Like a metallic sound, like electric guitar sound. Why???
Even though I play classical violin, why it makes sound of hard rock? ^^;)
I noticed it’s when I play double string sound. (I don’t know how to say that, is it correct? )
When I play 2 strings at the same time, the vibration of violin is huge.
So it might have been some cracks at somewhere. But I couldn’t find at all.
It was a mystery…

The third Masakichi Suzuki

April 2006
At that time, I had already 2 Masakichi Suzuki violins.
It was supposed to be enough for one player, but one day I found a great look Masakichi violin on the net-auction again!
It was obviously Masakichi suzuki’s label, but seller seemed she hadn’t noticed it.
And other bidders either. And label was showing its No. 6 looked like handwriting.

(but we can't see the number in this picture, ^^;) sorry)

About Masakichi Suzuki violin, handwritten number is really rare, and it was supposed to be especially high-grade model.
But I don’t know this violin is really equivalent to the special grade yet.
I’m not a specialist of this kind of violin. I know few maniac people in Japan though ^^;)
They seem they know everything about Masakichi violin.
It seemed more valuable than the price for me. It was 300$ at that moment.
“No one seemed not noticing this great violin, it should come to my place!”

So, I bought it. Hehehe, I know, it’s pretty useless to buy so many violins.
Especially, player is just one person, me. Of course I can’t play so many violins.
But just by curios, how many violins I had at that time? Let’s see.

1. The first violin, which is made in California
2. Masakichi Suzuki No.A
3. M.Suzuki No.3010
4. my handmade 1st violin(which was under building)
5. and, this M.Suzuki violin No.6

Alalala… I had so many violins already. It is obviously too much for one beginner^^;)

Just a little bit of difference...

Causes huge difference of sound of violin.
Recently, I was feeling that my 3rd violin Guarneri del gesu copy has little bit less volume of sound. Compared to my lttle bit old violin Marengo Romanus Rinaldi(1895), I feel like my 3rd one has smaller sound...

In the past I tried to get bigger sound, I tried few things.
At first, I got an information that how to twist strings on pegs. Usually, when we equip strings, we twist strings on peg from inside to outside of pegbox. Inside of pegbox, strings look like it goes slightly outside of pegbox. This is to prevent peg’s turning back and loosing string’s tension. But according to the information which I read, when strings are twisted on pegs slightly inside of peg box, strings’ vibrations are not disturbed by anything. And they say in this way violin sounds really better. Shortly, the angle of string is the point.
I tried this. After that, hmm, sound became little bit bigger, I thought. But not enough.
Second, it was how to equip a chin rest. Even by how to put a chin rest changes sound of violin a lot (probably most violinists know it). This is often used in the instrument shops. When lower sound is too small, loosen the tension of left side leg of chin rest, tighten the other leg. When treble sound is small, do the opposite. My case, treble was small, so I did the latter method. Certainly, it was kind of effective. But still not enough.

I was wondering, is this a limit of this violin? Before I felt its sound was much more powerful. I thought there must be something.
I tried to move the position of the bridge, just in case. We cannot move a bridge toward the fingerboard nor tail piece. Because it changes length of string from nut to bridge, and it influences a playing. But anyway I tried to move bridge in these directions. But there was not much change. Suddenly I thought about move it in the direction of treble string side. The sound changed so much!! It changed astonishingly. Probably the foot of bridge was not above bass bar before. Suddenly lower sound started to sound with big vibration.
And thanks to lower sound’s volume up, treble sound became bigger and more beautiful.

There’s not much difference from the original position. Maybe 1 mm? Even with this small difference causes such a huge difference of the sound. I thought I knew this violin pretty well, but there’s still things to learn… I think there’s few things to try before we give up on our own violins ^^) (of course same for other stringed instruments) Now my 3rd violin has really powerful and beautiful sound, and it's fun to play it. The thing is... my playing ability though^^;)

VSA exhibition

Last Saturday and Sunday, there was an exhibition of VSA in Tokyo. VSA is an association of violin makers Japan. In USA, there is VSA America, I think. The weather was not so good unfortunately, but there were still many many people in the exhibition hall.

Many amature luthiers(like me) belong to this association. And every year about 60 violins, a few violas and violoncells are showed to everybody. This year there were 48 violins, less than usual. But still there were 48 violins which are all hand maid.
It's still worth to visit this exhibition. Because it's good to look other maker's works. It stimulates my making violin desire, and it gives some inspirations to me.

This time there was a white violin too(without varnish). It was pretty interesting for me. Because without varnish, maker cannot hide his mistake on his violin. So, this person must have had enough confidence to show it to everybody. But for me, its back and table's arch looked little bit too square shape. It looked like my first violin, which was also little bit not shaved enough. But it might be that person's favorite style, we cannot criticize them so easily. Some people love to criticize though...^^;)

Me, I had a wish to meet one maker since long ago. He is a kind of my mentor of making violin. He is Mr.Kazuo Kuga, he is also a member of VSA AMERICA. He is trying to copy the sound of Guarneri del gesu & Stradivarius, not just shapes. This time he brought two violins, one is Guarneri, the other is Stradivari type. Luckily, I could talk with him little bit and I played both of his violins.

(Playing my mentor's violin.Guarneri type.)

I liked Guarneri type. Since its lower sound is pretty deep and powerful, it resembles to my third violin which is a copy of Guarneri del gesu 1741 "Il Cannone". It might be little bit less polite to compare mine and professional person's violin, but the
tendency of sound was pretty alike. I was pretty glad to recognize this.
"My violin is not that bad, actually, it's pretty good! Yes!" ^^)
His Stradivari type was also good, treble sound was more delicate and smooth, easy to play, but I felt it had little bit less volume of sound than Guarneri type. But I mean, his work is excellent! His varnish is pretty beautiful.
Someday I also want to attend this exhibition. ^^)

Fixing Masakichi No.3010

February 2006
I was wondering how can I fix the Masakichi No.3010. This kind of fixing seemed pretty difficult. One day I tried to push ribs (end pin area) by my hands, but they didn’t move even 1mm. I felt it was impossible to push and glue at the same time just by human hands. So I tried to invent one fixing tool.
At first put a kind of pad on each lower corners of the violin, and using long metal screws and butterfly nuts, it can push ribs back inside of sound box. Sorry for the poor drawing, because I don’t have this tool anymore. I already threw ay such a useless tool ^^;)

As you can see in this drawing, by screwing the lower wood plate pushes back ribs and lower block which were completely sticking out of sound box.
According to my plan, this seemed perfect solution. I made this tool immediately, and tried.

At first put two pads on each corner and get ready to turn butterfly nuts … but even this first set up was already difficult. Corners are pretty slippery how many times I tried to set up tool, it went off from the violin. It waaaas frustrating! I had to try many times…
Finally I could set up this somehow and started to turn nuts and screws…
It was supposed to go back to inside of body, but the reality was not! The ribs went back into the body little bit (about few mm)but after that it didn’t move at all. How much I turn up screws, it didn’t move anymore...and I was anxious if I did too much, it might break around corners. So I gave up and glued block and back. Well, this picture is after the fixing… I don’t have the picture of before the fixing, unfortunately.

Even though it ’s still little bit sticking out of the body, it’s muuuch better than before.
Then, how about the sound??? For me, there was not much difference before and after..hehehe. It might be because of players skill and ability of hearing nice tones though. ^^;)

Receiving 2nd Masakichi Violin

So, I bought the 2nd Masakichi Violin(No.3010), even though I had already two violins! When I received it, the case was really old and looked broken. When I opened the case, it had old smell of stuff. You know, smell like inside of garage?! ^^;) But I like it, because it makes me imagine it was sleeping in a garage for a long while and finally it could get out of there! And destined to came to my place...

(The label is really old and it's almost going away from violin)

It's varnish was really old and weak. When I scratch by my finger nail, I could easily remove it... It means I have to be careful not to damage. And also it had a crack on back side and ribs and lower block(which contains end pin usually) were getting out of shape of violin. It little bit difficult to explain in words... I mean, back side(lower block area) was peeled off from block, block and ribs were pulled by the tension of strings, so they were kind of distorted.

Anyway, I tried to play on this violin. I put new strings on it, and made new bridge, new pegs...etc...
Well, it's time to play!
(I was little bit anxious about the tension of strings though ^^;)
I tried to play the violin...
...
...
Waao. the sound is pretty good. (I thought)
And probably it sounds better than the other Masakichi violin.
This one doesn't sound like cheap kind of steel sound...

"OK, let's bring this to next lesson! "(Hey, you're not supposed fix it before?! )

I showed it to my teacher...she said,
"It looks pretty old this time."
Hihihi! I know!
But there were not much comment about the sound of this violin. I know, the player's technique is still not enough though...

Anyway it really looks like needs fixing. So I decided to fix it. But I didn't have any good idea about it...
I needed to think about it, for a while....
(I liked to play this violin a lot! Hihihi, these animals are my cocktails, they like to stay on my head when I play violin^^)

Getting 2nd Masakichi violin

After fixing Masakichi No.A, I was again looking internet auction.
It was February 2006
…
I didn’t have much desire to buy another violin, since I had already two violins then(made in California2004 and Masakichi No.A ). I got a information from auction, about new items which were started that day. In that information, I found a violin which looked pretty old. It was also Masakichi Suzuki violin.
This time it had a label which says “M.Suzuki 3010”.
This M.Suzuki label violin was made in a really early time of Suzuki violin, and also this No.3010 is really rare item.. the seller was explaining like this.

I thought
…
“Waaaaa, it really looks old… about 100years old?? Waaa , maybe sound is also good. And this varnish, it’s cracked but it also gives good out looking to this violin…
Hmmmm…I want it… but… I just bought Masakichi violin few weeks ago!! Hmmm, hesitation …”
With thinking this, my hand was already typing a desired price of the seller!!! Unbelievable!! I bought it!
“Aaalalala… I bought it!! What will I do with such a many violins?? It ’s third one!! Silly…”
My girlfriend of that time(now she’s my wife) also said exactly same thing to me later!! Hehehe!! ^^;)
“Well, anyway it’s my own money. I don’t bother anybody, it’s all right, right? ”
I told myself… and I was feeling I really can not resist the power of old violin’s looking…

Old violins have kind of mysterious power which we can’t resist sometimes!
Even if it was just a photo on the inter-net
….

Fixing the Masakichi violin

After I received the Masakichi No.A, I played a lot even though it had big split between back and ribs. Since my violin teacher recommended to close this big split, I was considering how to fix it. But At that time, I had almost no tools, even any clamps. So I had no idea how to fix this kind of thing.

I looked for an information about making and fixing violin. I found that fixers use kind of special glue for stringed instruments. The glue is not chemical product, but made from skin and bones of rabbit( it sounds bad, but this is really groval standard glue for luthiers). So I bought this special glue(it ’s called "NIKAWA" in Japanese).

And one more necessary thing was clamps. I didn’t know what kind of clamp is best for this, but I found a picture of special clamp to close sound box of violin on inter-net. This is actually sold at one internet shop. But it ’s kind of expensive!

So I decided to make this by myself. It seemed pretty simple and easy to make.
I bought cheap board and cut it into nice curved plates to fit the curve of violins lower and upper bouts. I couldn’t find nice hand screw like we can see in the picture, so I used 45mm long screws and butterfly type nut which I can screw by hand. But these screws were too heavy, because they had 10mm of diameter! Hihihi! It was silly to choose such thing for this. Mine was not sofisticated at all!!

Anyway I made my first fixing tool by myself. Unfortunately I already threw away it long ago, so I don’t have a picture of it.
C’est dommage… by using this pretty ugly tool, I could close the sound box successfully^^)
But the glue was kind of too thick! Hehehe! After drying it became thick white film on ribs.

Anyway, how was the sound after that? The player was feeling it’s little bit better than before, but actually he couldn’t feel much difference of it! Hehehe!

Buying a second violin

It was January,2006
I was looking at internet auction cite, I didn't have any specific desire then. I was just looking vilin section. Then I found an old violin which is made in Japan. It had no strings, no pegs. And its backside was little bit splitted from rib. Yeah, it was a junk
violin.
I felt "Maybe I can fix it."even though I had never done such a thing!
I had a feeling.
And according to the seller this violin was made by Masakichi Suzuki around WW2. It means it's already about 60y.o.
Hmmm... I want it!!
Masakichi Suzuki is a founder of Suzuki Violin co.ltd. And he made many many good violins when he started his business in
(about)1890s. (I'm not sure the exact time, but I mean it started about 100years ago.) That violin was reaaaally cheap! It was just 100$. I was wondering "Violins are such a cheap items?" Hehehe.


Anyway I was happy to get this violin. Because my first violin was made in 2004, it's still really new. And I wanted to try an "old" violin. (actually it's not even old. 60y.o. is still modern) These two violins are pretty different. As soon as I got the second violin, I set up pegs and strings. I was really impatient to play this violin so much!

I put DOMINANTE on this violin, and played...
...
oooooohhh, it sounds interestiiing.
I felt like the sound was really different from my 1st violin. But actually I think at that time i didn't have enough sence of hearing real good sound. Since I was still just a beginner then. But I was pretty happy to play this violin. Even though it was
lowest rank violin of Masakichi Suzuki.(It had a name of Masakichi Suzuki No.A. This No.A is sopposed to be out of rank 60 years ago.)

(There's no flame on its back nor on neck!)

I brought this violin to the lesson and showed to my teacher.
She said "Actually if you fix this splitted part, it might be better."
Yeh, that's right. Because I hadn't fixed that part. I was playing with one side of back(belly) opened. So much vibration and
sound were escaping from the big space.

The next work should be fixing this split...

Accident

After meeting the 1st violin, I was really crazy about this violin. Even though the sound was solid and immatured. One day, when I was practicing the violin.
I was practicing pretty long hours, so I wanted  to take a break. I put the violin in the violin case. And then suddenly I felt like to change the dispositions of TV and music player. I started to move the TV, and pushed the CD player little bit. Then the one of speakers fell on the floor where I put the violin case! Shit!!
The cover of the case was... unfortunately open. And speaker crushed on the violin's tail piece! No!! Unbelievable!
(It was me who was unbelievable, hehehe)

Usually, because of this kind of accident, violin would break down into millions of pieces... But, it was lucky. It didn't get broken. It got just E string adjuster's scratch. But anyway, I was pretty careless ^^;
Let's not put our precious violins in front of BIG SPEAKER, and let's close the cover of violin case often!(Maybe it's just me who does such a stupid thing??)

Taking the lesson

March and April 2005
It has past 2or 3 months after I got the first violin.When I joined a party, I was often asked to play a violin by my friends.

"Hey, show us your violin, and play something!"
"Hehehe, OK, don't regret."
...
...
"Ooouf, pretty bad."
"I told you!!"

I knew my playing was still not good at all.I was having fun just playing what I want to play, not practice so much.But I started to feel maybe I should take proper lesson.
Otherwise my skill will not advance so much...Because you know, practicing something just by ourselves is pretty boring and we get lazy little by little. And we can't brush up techniques so much.But taking lesson means we have to show our playing to a teacher and we should show some progress after every lesson, right?

I decided to take a lesson, but as I mentioned few times, my place sucked. Of course there's nobody playing violin around me, and of course there's no teacher for violin!!
So I looked for an information of somebody teaches violin. And I found just 1 possibility. It was a private school managed by "Kawai Music". Kawai Music is famous as a maker of piano and violin. And it had a campaign which offers a violin course for adults! Yes! This is perfect!

But the thing is this lesson was taken place in capital city of prefecture where was muuuuuch away from my town. It was 120km(75miles) away, it takes about 2 hours by car. Going and coming back take more than 4 hours!

But I had no choice. That was an only one possibility. Why not?! I applied to join that school right away. As a lucky thing, I used to go to that city pretty often by business. So I decided "From now on, every Monday is a business trip day to the capital city!" Hehehe^^;)
Since the company was pretty small and I could decide all my schedule by myself. That was lucky for me.

After receiving the 1st violin

After receiving the 1st violin, I started to buy a few stuffs which were necessary for playing violin.
Because... the first shoulder rest was made of plastic! (It got broken after few days I started playing)
The tuner was plastic whistle type! (It's impossible to tune by using such a cheap whistle for a beginner)
The bow which came with the electric violin set was also plastic!(just...unbelievable)
The rosin which came with the electric violin was reeaally cheap like 1$ stuff.

So, because of those unbelievable cheap stuff , I had to buy new stuffs.


I bought "viva la musica " made in Slovenia as a new shoulder rest. This shoulder rest was pretty good looking, classy, and it fit to my shoulder pretty well.



I also bought "Mach one"

This shoulder rest, many people was telling it's really great,but for me unfortunately it didn't match to my shoulder at all. It was always slippy on my shoulder.




I bought a new bow, on the inter net auction. It was made in China, but it was pretty cheap, 100$. It was just usable though ^^;
I don't use shoulder rest anymore now, but I just introduced them as a information. My present teacher recommended me to play without shoulder rest, so I'm not using them for more than 2years.

Receiving 1st Violin

Febrary2005
I got the first violin which is made of wood. My first impressin was
"Waaa, this is really beautiful. This tiger flame, this varnish, it's really great."
As a first violin, actuary it was beautiful.

But at that time I had no knowledge about violin. So I knew that violin was made in USA 2004. Its label said
"Saphire violin Import model Domini anno 2004 California...(phone number)"
My impression was,
"Hmmm, California... I've never heard that there's violin maker there. How about the feed-back of this kind of american maker?
Is it great? I have no idea, but I don't mind."
Of course I didn't mind. Because I had no idea! ^^;)

Anyway I tried to play the violin.
"Oh, the volume of sound is pretty big! It might piss off that crasy middle age woman."
So I decided not play after 10 o'clock, and putting a mute on it as much as possible. It worked, I had never been complained by that woman again. ^^)

Since this violin was made less than 1 year ago, the sound was still not matured(of course), young and peaky. (Especially it had steel strings, not nilon nor gut.) But I was so happy having this violin, and I didn't recognise its sound is that solid and peaky.

So, I was getting desire to have new text book. I wanted to learn more things not only using A and E strings. So I looked for proper book which teaches basic good method of playing. And I found this book on Amazon jp. This book was written by Brugarian author Geanne Marinow(I'm not sure the name though) And it was translated into Japanese. It was recommended with 5 stars. So, why not?

I bought it.
And it included lots of basic things which is important to start violin. With many drawings, it was easy to understand. Maybe you can also find this book in your country.

This book's good point is also it has lots of daily practice(really basic). Sometimes we get bored of playing same basic scores.
But I didn't get so bored, thanks to this book.

Meeting the real violin

January 2005
1 or 2 months after I got electric violin, I was getting impatient to have "real" violin which is made of wood. Because thinking about the system of making sound between electric and wooden violin is completely different. And to get good proper skill of playing needs absolutely wooden violin, I thought like this.
(Actuary, the difficulty of playing wooden violin can not be compared to one of electric violin. Wooden violin requires much more care and proper bowing)

Anyway, I really wanted to have real wooden violin. But as I mentioned before, there was no instrument shop in "my town".
So again I had to look for a violin on the inter-net auction.


And I found this. When I found this violin, its price was really low, 100$. So I placed a bid, and kept watching. Because look, this violin's beautiful tiger flames in the back side. It's like a flame of fire or something really beautiful thing I can't explain well.


Anyway its beauty completely caught me(who is completely beginner). Since I had no knowledge about wooden violin, I thought "Waoh, this is the one which I was looking for...". This guy is So easy.

At the last day of the auction, I was sticking in front of computer looking the same page for a long while.
1 hour before the ending, its price went up to 250$.
I placed bid more, and it became 350$. Yes! I'm the highest bidder now! 10 minutes before ending, it went up to 450$.
Oh, no! Who is bidding so much! I won't lose this one.
How about 500$! Yes!
Oh, no! Again?! Merde!
...
...
Finaly, I got this violin. The final price was... 670$!!
I had decided my budget should be about 400$, but the result was... It went up much higher than my budget. But I was not regretting at all. I was satisfied with the result which I got the real wooden violin.

Thinking about this now, I'm pretty sure about that I was completely fished by the seller. Because my auction competitor was new ID guy who has no auction feed back yet. (At that time, in Japanese net-auction people could get new ID and place a
bid so easily. Now it's impossible though.)

Anyway, this is the first meeting with real violin for me. This violin gave me a huge turning point in my life. And she went to even France with me later, I took her so many places where I went. This is big memory of mine.