April 2008

Time for a little nip and tuck.......

April 15, 2008 19:05

Ok....for the past months I've been very unhappy with the sound of my E string. The A was a bit off too, but not nearly as bad as the E. I'd be playing along quite happily...running up the scale to the C....then D......then......ACK !!....open E *cringe*

It was in tune, but giving me some weird sort of harmonic or something....very weak and quite ugly....sooooo....I started using 4th finger alot more often and have been improving quite a bit there as that 4th finger got stronger from all the use it was getting. ANYTHING to keep from hitting that open E !!!

Along with THAT annoyance....was a buzzing I'd get from time to time...mostly coming from the G and D. I had NO idea what that could be and was afraid to find out.....

I finally brought the ole gent to a luthier. Turned out the nut had worn down so much that the E was practically sitting on the finger board. She did some work on the nut...the G and A needed some adjustment as well.....there were also some slight grooves worn in the finger board under the E so she addressed that as well. The fine tuners had loosened a bit and that turned out to be the buzzing I was getting.

I played a little bit there at her shop and was very pleased with what I was hearing...Rather...NOT hearing....but....I'm pretty self conscious about my playing and I don't do very well with someone standing there watching/listening to me play....lol....so when I got it home I pulled it out of the case and went to town ! Oh my, I'd forgotten how nice this violin really is ! I LOVE my luthier !! :D

I had brought along some extra chin rests I had laying around...2 of them brand new....and an old 1/2 size violin with the neck broken off...to see if she could use any of these things and perhaps give me some credit to help pay for the work. After all was said and done...she owed me $5 ! :)

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April 2008

Time for a little nip and tuck.......

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