What’s In a Price Tag?
What’s In a Price Tag?
A moment’s embarrassment leads to life-long reward or
How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love My Violin
I swallowed my pride a few days ago in Applebaum’s Violin Shop and learned a few things I would like to share with you especially if you, like me, are not an accomplished player.
We bought my current violin from Applebaum’s two years ago. It’s a very pretty Chinese violin with nice grain, nice flaming and a nice sound. Relevant to my story, it was around $1800. My husband plays a violin we bought from Southwest Strings for $200. I find his violin slightly easier to play than mine in that I don’t tend to play neighboring strings unintentionally, and it just somehow makes me feel and sound a little…surer of myself when I play. I started to feel a little miffed, but mostly confused by this discovery. I wanted to ask Applebaum’s why this would be, but I was not excited by this prospect! (Hello, why don’t I sound good on my violin? Well, ya’ don’t sound too good on your husband’s violin either!)
While exchanging my daughter’s violin for a bigger one, I finally screwed up my courage and asked Sally about this. She told me to bring my violin in and they would have a look at it. Who knows, she said, it might need some minor adjustments especially since I have had it for two years, and it was brand new when we bought it.
I brought it in the next day and Carl helped me (thus making it necessary for me to tell my story again – I am still self-conscious at that point). He took some measurements, looked it up and down, adjusted the bridge, and then played it, beautifully, for a few minutes and deemed it a nice violin that he remembered. I asked him to tell me how a $200, an $1800, and a $40,000 violin differ from each other. While Carl was a little vague about the craftsmanship aspects, he said it largely has to do with responsiveness. A high quality violin is extremely responsive due to the precision with which it is crafted and the quality of the materials used. With this responsiveness comes sensitivity. A master violin is sensitive to the subtle nuances achievable by a master player. An inexpensive violin is usually not very sensitive or responsive. This means two things. A beginning player, whose nuances, such as mine, can only be politely described as non-existent, will find that most inexpensive violins will “mask” her fumblings a bit and that a fine violin will pick up every little gaff and amplify it. It is a widely held misconception that a better violin will make anyone sound better. Carl said that it is common for moderate players to come in to trade up by hundreds or thousands of dollars and then ask, just for fun, to play one of the very high-end violins. Carl says invariably each person who does this is unimpressed. He said it is like he, who drives a Subaru, getting his hands on a Ferrari – he would over-steer, over-accelerate, lug the engine, etc. simply because the Ferrari is well beyond his driving skill – it exaggerates every action in a way that his Subaru cannot. Conversely, a Formula One driver would find Carl’s car slow and clumsy.
I asked him if I am playing a violin out of my league and he told me that the differences between a $200 violin and an $1800 are not significant enough to consider trading with my husband and that I should continue to rise to the challenge. Had I purchased a $40,000 violin he would have answered differently. Carl said he sometimes advises parents to spend more on their child’s violin if their child is excelling because the child will not be able to make her growing collection of nuances heard on a less responsive violin.
Carl also told me, in order to make any violin sound better, make sure the bridge is positioned correctly, at a right angle to the tail piece with both of its “feet” firmly planted on the body. Because of the tension of the strings, bridges move every time you tune. You can adjust the bridge yourself. Put the violin on a firm protected surface, lengthwise, in front of you. Place your thumbs so that they are directly across from each other, low, on each side of the bridge and brace your hands on the tailpiece and the end of the fingerboard. Use your thumbs to gently push the bridge until it is at that right angle. It will sound creaky and feel stiff. Don’t worry, Carl says. Adjust your bridge frequently as it improves the sound and it is possible for bridges to collapse without this maintenance. Carl also said that the strings should be cleaned with a little rubbing alcohol, but to avoid getting the alcohol on the body of the violin. He said the fingerboard will tolerate a little alcohol though. I did clean my strings like this and they sounded much brighter afterward.
I feel as though I now know my violin a little better, and violins in general. I think the talk I had will help me along my way to becoming a better player and will help me understand my daughter’s journey with the violin better. I am glad I asked!
Melissa Adams (Kate’s mom)