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^^;)

The annual orchestra!

Currently I have a violin lesson at private music school. And at this music school, there is a orchestra concert once a year. Almost all of students who learn playing music instrument gather up and consist a temporary orchestra. This is great. Because I’m just a amateur player, and people like me can not have so many opportunity to attend a orchestra event unless they try to join a bigger orchestra. Usually bigger orchestras (even if they are also amateur and charity )have audition to join them. So, it’s a pretty great opportunity for me!
Two years ago they had a orchestra concert, and I attended it. Last year they didn’t organize it, but this year they’re going to have it again! This year the concert will be taken place in July. Yeah, we don’t have much time for practice. And since we are just students, we can’t gather so often … I wonder is it really ok for the concert?! ^^;)

And last Saturday we had a second practice.(first practice was already done in the end of April ) This time we had almost all of the member except for few tube instruments. This year we are going to play…
Figaro’s marriage(Mozart), Suite No.2 L’arlesienne(Bizet), a few more little pieces, Pirates of Caribbean, STAR WARS!
Classic tunes are kind of ok to play…but STAR WARS…it’s pretty difficult. I wonder why they chose such a extraordinary difficult tune! I’m in 2nd violin part. It’s still better than 1st violin, one teacher told me. 1st people have to play unbelievably high position, and most of their sounds are erased by tubes and percussions. Fiouu, am I still lucky!? At first I really didn
’t like to play this tune, but the more I practice it, the more I like it! Of course I cannot play perfectly, (my teacher said
“even professional people can’t play correctly”) but little by little I think I‘m improving myself and it’s pretty funny!! And behind my seat, there are percussions, so my sound is sometimes erased by them but thanks to them I can feel free to play!!! Hehehehe!! ^^)
We don’t have much time for the concert, so I’m practicing those tunes almost every day. I’ll do my best!!

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.

Playing the cheap electric violin.

After I received electric violin, I became crazy about playing this. But, of course the sound was no so great! ^^;)
At first I bought really easy text book for a beginner.


It saids "This book will create your first sound of violin."
The book looked little bit ridicurous, because you know, beginner beginner stuff is always little bit too silly. But for playing violin, we can't ignore this kind of basic thing. Like how to hold your bow(this is pretty difficult for a beginner), how to hold your violin without putting much power...these kind of things.

The book was including many photos and drawings, so it really helped me. (Of course this is written in Japanese though.)

At first I started practice just playing on A string, and after I got used to this I started playing on E string. It was just two strings, but it was not very easy for a beginner. Plus, I had no teacher! Using A and E strings, I became able to play really easy tunes. Like "Butterfly", "Mary's sheep", etc.(You might not know them, sorry)

The electric violin was little bit heavy (compared to normal violins, it was much heavier, I think), it hurt my left sholder pretty often. But playing with amplifier was fun. I sometimes used distortor for electric guitar too. Then sound became like a hard rock!

But my apartment was not very comfprtable to play in the night, because especially my downstair neighbor was complainant middle age woman. (The othe day, when I got drunk and sang songs in the night, she came to complain next morning 7 o'clock!)
So, I was afraid of this happens again, I prefered to play at my company. Because I was living really near by the company just 30 seconds by walk. And I had sometimes night shift to take care of fermentation of Sake. At night shift time, there's nobody in the big factory. And the sake-factory has pretty good sound echoes. So, even though my playing was really cheap, the sound effect of the factory boosts up the sound and makes the player feel so comfortable! It was nice sound system!!

But the thing is, you know we make Japanese-sake in winter. And the factory is always pretty cold, it's about 5 degrees of celcius. So the limit is at most 5 minutes, because my finger got totaly frozen after that!!

I was crazy about playing this cheap electric violin for a while.

Beginning of the story

2004, a man who turned to 29 years old thought.
"I haven't done something special up to now... I think I should start something special. Like, something not everyone does. So, how about starting violin!"

At this time, I was living in north-east region of Japan, really rural area. I was working in a Japanese-sake making company. I used to make traditional Japanese-sake.
There was an episode which one sake-making company in Hokuriku(Japan-sea side region)
had classical music while they make sake. By letting yeasts(technically, it's not yeat, it's Saccaromyces cerevisie. Anyway it's micro-bacterias) listen the classical music, especially Mozart's tunes, the sake became incredibly mild and tasty.
So, I also tried to have this experiment. I put a CD player near by the fermentation tank, and put the many classical music endlessly.

The purpose was letting yeasts listen the music. But little by little,
the maker(I) inclind to the classical music more than yeasts...(^^;

I didn't know classical music so much before, but the more I listen it, the more I liked it! That was a magic of classical music.
Before that I really had no interests to classical music.
But I found there were so many reaally great tunes.
And especailly I was attracted by the beauty of the violin's sound.

"Waaoh, this violin thing sounds really beautiful. How could it be so beautiful. It's unbelievable. It must be so great, if I could play this instrument like this CD"
Well, why not start it!?

I decided it.
But I was living in really local area, and of course there was no instrument shop which sells violins! So I looked for a violin on internet auction. And I found this electric violin set.
It included e-violin, bow, pitch pipe, rosin, strings, mini amplifer, and headset.
I bought it about 170$. It was not expensive at all!(^^

Since I was living in pretty thin-wall apartment which you know, people can hear the neighbor's sound pretty often. I was little bit afraid of bothering other people at first.
That's why I chose electric violin, because in the nigh time, I just plug out then sound is really small.

2,3 days later, the man received the delivery of this violin with big excitement. 

He took it on his hands, and felt "Oh, it's pretty heavier than I imagined. Ok,let's try to play with this...Wao! Sound! This is the sound of violin?! Wooooh, greeeaaat.."
He got really excited and had much pleasure of getting a "violin",
without knowing what was waiting for him in the future...