The Violin & The Bow

Have I mentioned yet that I play violin?  I can't remember if I brought that up in this blog or not yet.  I know I have shared it through other outlets, but this blog has been so much about writing and what I have written that I am not sure I have mentioned that I play violin yet.  So tonight I am going to talk about playing the violin.

I first picked up the violin in 1979 (I won't say how old I was at the time - those who know, know).  My parents found a used violin at a reasonable rate and I started lessons.  Then I moved, was in class in school for a short time, and we moved again, and I didn't have an instructor and I had only barely started.  So for years I didn't have an instructor and the violin was stored away.

Fast forward to 2007 and my parents still have that violin and they brought it to me where I lived at the time.  I found an instructor and took lessons through online video chat sessions.  I won't say that is the ideal way to do lessons because there were so many mistakes I was making that she was not able to see.  Still, I wouldn't trade those lessons for the world.  My instructor was just wonderful and really got me back to enjoying learning to play the violin.  I even invested in a new violin (better quality).  I kept the original one, because it is my fist and I am going to hold onto it until I see my life coming to a close (hoping that's about 60 or so years away).

Tragedy hit though and I set the violin down for about a year and a half.

I moved to a new place, and decided (with the blessing of my online instructor) to take lessons at a local music school.  I have been doing that for 3 years now.

I had 2 violins.  I had 2 bows.  The funny thing is that each violin liked one of the bows and not the other, and they didn't like the same bow.  When I say didn't like, what that means is that if I played the violin with the wrong bow it would make weird noises and just not sound good at all.  He said I need to rehair my bow.  The cost to rehair the bow is as much or more than I paid for the bow in the first place.  I wasn't going to do that.

So I did a little research on violin bows and decided I really did not want to go back to an uber cheap bow.

I stopped at my now favorite violin store and worked with the staff and picked out a new Brazilwood bow.  It was close.  I almost got the Carbon Fiber bow, but the Brazilwood just had a nice sound on my violin.

I've played it.  It's wonderfully smooth and gives my violin a brand new sound.  Who knew?  I mean besides violinists who have been playing long enough to have learned what I just learned this week - that the bow really does make  a difference.

The photo above.  That is my violin with it's new bow and it's old bow.  I think they look good together.