I am pleased to report that I have a new fiddle.
I am, however, sad to announce that I needed to go out and get a new fiddle.
The image shows the new wee sleekit beastie in repose. The new fiddle is a four-stringed Aquilla model by Bridge Instruments in the UK. Yes, it's black, and oddly shaped. The body is made of a carbon fiber composite with kevlar added to the front plate. Unlike most electric fiddles, this has a hollow body resonating cavity, so it is nearly as loud as a traditional acoustic wooden instrument. It has a pickup in the bridge as well as a jack on the back for routing the sound to an amplifier.
What happened to the old fiddle?
I've been playing violin since I was in 3rd grade, and when I got old (large) enough to need a full sized instrument, I found out that my grandparents had an old violin in their attic. The violin had been my Dad's grandfather's instrument, and had passed to my grandfather who didn't know how to play. It was old, grimy, had broken strings and a snapped bridge and a pressboard case that was coming apart. I had no idea how it would sound, but it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. My folks brought me and my "new" violin to Blodgett's in Springfield, MA, to have the violin rehabilitated and brought back to playing form. A few weeks later we returned to the shop and I got to squeak a few notes out on it. For the most part, it was in pretty good condition, but a crack beneath the tailpiece had been clumsily glued in a previous repair, and as such would never be able to sound as loud as an instrument with an unbroken top plate. The tone was pretty good, at least as good as this young violin student could produce, and worlds better than the 3/4 size rental student violin could produce. That instrument is the instrument I've played since that day.
Aren't you that guy that wouldn't practice if he could help it?
I had played classical violin pretty constantly up through college, taking a brief hiatus, then joining my Uncle Jim on Sunday afternoons at the Schenectedy Hibernian Club to play some Irish music. When I started working for a living, the fiddle started making fewer and fewer appearances. With my move to Vermont, I would be lucky to play the thing once a year. When Margot and I started dating, she introduced me to her favorite bands, Great Big Sea and La Bottine Souriante, as well as some other great groups who have phenomenal fiddling and danceability as a common bond. It didn't take me long to get thoroughly hooked on the contradance music, and we went to various contradance/folk festivals in the area (Falcon Ridge, the Dance Flurry, NEFFA) as well as local dances, and I got the itch back to start up my fiddling. After attending a couple of old-style kitchen parties where all are encouraged to bring instruments and join in the folk-style fun, I knew I was hooked and had to get back to playing. The fiddle was dusted off, and I started to play again. I went to (Contradance) Band Camp in Tunbridge, and started looking forward to opportunities to play and learn.
Back in January, about a month or so before the Dance Flurry, I pulled the fiddle out, hoping to get my chops into some sort of shape where I could play for a few days without hurting myself. It was then that I noticed a harsh buzzing when I played notes on the A-string. New strings didn't solve the problem, nor did adjusting the bridge or any other tricks I know. Looking under the tailpiece, it appeared that the glued crack had worked itself unglued. A trip to the fine folks at the Burlington Violin Shop brought to light a host of other issues that, when combined, brought the repair bill for this old fiddle to the level of the cost of a brand new (significantly better) instrument. Harrumph.
So why not another traditional wooden acoustic instrument?
Although it is not cost effective to repair my old instrument, I am not abandoning this violin forever. Someday, when I have purely disposable resources, I'll probably commission a repair of this violin. It means too much to me for it to become a sad old instrument that never gets played again. Four years ago, at my second Falcon Ridge folk festival, Bridge Instruments had a tent in the vendor village showing off their instruments. They had a couple of violins (4-string, 5-string), a cello, and some amplifiers that were perfectly matched to their instruments. I played around with with their 4-string model, off amp and on, and I got a serious case of the covets.
At that point, I was appreciating but not playing the folk music, so there was no real case for buying a fiddle when I had a perfectly good violin gathering dust at home, but I told myself, "self, someday, this beautiful instrument will be yours." Well, my violin, while not dead, had a serious case of the illin's, and after some Margot assisted soul searching, I placed the order. It didn't arrive in time for the Dance Flurry, so the old wooden instrument got one more chance in the limelight.