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robrohr — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 02:53:39 GMT

The saga so far:

Had violin growing up. Decent quality. Crack in top plate under tailpiece, glued but not well. Serviceable tone, but low volume.
Started playing again about two years ago, and about a year after I picked up the fiddle again, the repaired cracked stopped being repaired and any note on the A-string would buzz mercilessly. Cost to repair this acoustic instrument? Much more than a replacement instrument of similar value and known tone/volume with no guarantee as to sound quality once the repair is complete.
Solution? Get another instrument. Bought an electric fiddle from Bridge Instruments in the UK, which had good tone, but again, low volume when not amplified, and a bit tinny in the top end (also when playing acoustically).
Went to jam sessions and music camps and had problems hearing myself when playing in groups. Major bummer.

So here I am, one year after spending a medium-sized pile of cash on an electric fiddle to replace the instrument I grew up playing. It's a very nice instrument, but there are times when it's just not right to pull out an amplified instrument. So I had my eye out for an acoustic fiddle with decent tone that wouldn't break the bank.

This past September, I wandered into the local folk instrument shop (Vermont Folk Instruments, Burlington, VT) to see what they had in consignment fiddles. It turns out that they had three new and one consignment instrument hanging on the wall. I tried the two new models (one was a duplicate), both factory-made student models fresh out of the shipping container. The "expensive" model came with case and bow for $225. I didn't have high expectations, and found that I had overestimated the quality of the sound that I was able to produce. I don't usually use the word "dreadful" as that makes me sound like I'm 90 years old and talking about various body-modification techniques in vogue with the youngsters today, but I felt it was fairly applicable to the tone produced by these beasts.

Then I took the consignment fiddle off the wall. I tuned it, and started noodling. The sound was surprisingly full and rich, considering the price tag. The price had already been dropped by $100 from the seller's original request. There was a 2-inch long gouge in the top, running in an arc from the fine-tuners towards the bow hand side. Strictly cosmetic. The ribs in the lower bout of this instrument (see Wikipedia - Violin construction and mechanics for terminology) was made of two pieces of wood, joined where tailpiece enters. In inspecting the join between the two pieces, I noticed about a millimeter gap. Since I had already had issues with a bad repair on an instrument giving way on me, I was not ready to part with the asking price if I weren't sure of the structural stability of a replacement fiddle. The last thing I need is a third instrument that I can't use.

I expressed my concerns to the shopkeeper (lovely plumage, but it's stone dead), he shrugged his shoulders, couldn't tell me anything about the viability of the join. So I put it back on the shelf and walked out.

Margot has told me, and I agree, that pricey purchases should be set back on the shelf, and you go home and think about it for a week (or a month) and if it still seems like a good idea after subjecting the purchase to cold calculating reason, then you go back and buy it.

So I let it sit for a month, then two. Just before Thanksgiving, I was meeting Margot downtown for our daily carpool, and I thought I'd stop by the folk shop to see if the fiddle was still there, and if not, if any other consignment instruments were there. The telltale gouge in the top face greeted me cheerfully from the row of fiddles on the wall. I checked the price. Still no movement from September, but the instrument was still there. I played it a little more, then talked with an instrument tech about my concerns about the lower bout. Once assured that that join isn't structural (there's a block behind the join that connect the upper and lower plates and acts as the seat for the endpin), I made an offer on the instrument that was about 20% lower than the listed price.

After Thanksgiving, not having heard back about my offer, I visited the store, the seller of the instrument was called, a tiny bit of haggling ensued, and I left with a new (to me) fiddle. It ain't the prettiest, but I think it's gorgeous. I brought it to my Gram's for Christmas, and I'll bring it to my folk's for New Year's.

Pictures/audio samples to follow.

robrohr.org : incontinence

Shopping for lumber...