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Adventures in violin shopping, part 2

December 30, 2005 at 12:02 AM

I suppose I should title this "Adventures in bow shopping" now, since I'm pretty much decided I'm not going to buy a new instrument at this point. There are very few things I enjoy shopping for, and violin bows are definitely not among them. I don't like spending large sums of money on purchases I'm supposed to be satisfied with for a long time. Bow shopping is ranking down there with furniture and car shopping, but without the advantage of being able to turn to my non-violinist husband and say, "Hey, you pick it out." Fortunately, I hope a decision is forthcoming soon.

This afternoon I drove down to Kamimoto Strings in San Jose, where I met fellow V.com member Clare Chu. It's always fun to turn online relationships into real-life ones. Err...strike that, I once had a bad experience with a romantic relationship that started online, way before the 'net was everywhere...but I digress. Anyway, Clare is an experienced violin and bow shopper, and the people in the shop know her well, so it was nice having her there to show me around, especially since the store seemed understaffed today.

I found it quite a bit more difficult to evaluate anything in the crowded, noisy shop, though; it was quite a different experience from Ifshin, where they put me in a quiet room where I could close the door and concentrate. I tried several wooden bows in and above my price range, but didn't find anything I like better than the wooden bow I've got on trial from Ifshin. I did, however, try a Spiccato Arpege CF bow, and liked its handling and appearance better than the Arcus Veloce. Clare pointed out---and I agree---that the CF bows have a "fuzzier" sound than the wooden bows, which articulate much more clearly. But I'm still interested enough in CF bows to return to Ifshin tomorrow and try out the Coda Classic and Arcus Sonata. Then I'll have my lesson in the evening, and maybe I'll be able to come to a decision soon.

So I'm guessing you were on a mud or irc... ?
Very good. It was a MUD.
Ahh, another pioneer from the good old frontier days. Which one did you play? I still idle on one every day heh. Same one I started playing 15 years ago.
Overdrive, also for about 15 years. I think it's now at overdrive.cris.com, port 5195, but I couldn't get on the last time I tried. My ex-boyfriend is some super-wizard on it. Which one did you play?
Say what?