How long did you keep your first full size violin ?

June 3, 2015 at 01:58 PM · Why yes! I still have mine.

I don't play it...but I still have it! :D

June 3, 2015 at 02:05 PM · Yes. More than 20 years. :)

June 3, 2015 at 02:07 PM · I got my first full size violin when I was 11 and played it until I gave up the violin at 17. When I started lessons again, decades later, my teacher told me my violin was awful, so I bought a new one but I did not sell the old one because I don't think it's worth much and it's very pretty (it's birds-eye). A good luthier in Richmond described it as "a tank" and "full of wood that doesn't need to be there" and such. He regraded the top for a very low price but it did not help all that much. Dalton Potter took it in his hands for a few seconds and declared it to be "way too heavy." Also something I did not know when I was a kid is that it's 7/8 not even 4/4! My parents basically got bad advice from my teacher about what to buy. My plan for the 7/8 is to electrify it with a Realist pickup and maybe have some fun with it that way.

June 3, 2015 at 02:28 PM · The violin I learned on has been in the family since the 1930's - roughly 80 years. My grandfather took it in payment for a debt that a friend could not repay during the Depression. My mother played it, and I learned on it. It has been reworked by a luthier, but the strings are still too high in upper positions. But it sounds very good considering it is a Japanese factory violin from the 1900s.

I now play a better German violin, but I keep "the family" violin to pass down to family.

June 3, 2015 at 04:59 PM · Kept first 4/4-size instrument for 17 years.

After starting on size 1/2, then moving up a few years later to 3/4, I didn't move up to 4/4 till 14 y/o. Even though I soon upgraded to better instruments, I kept the first 4/4 as a backup. Then I handed it down to my second nephew.

June 3, 2015 at 05:10 PM · 17 years here too. I got my first full-size while I was 10 (in 1945). Actually I think it was a "lady's full size" (Tyrolean- about 200 years old, it had been my fathers from teen age) but it served me through high school as concert master of that orchestra for 3 years and the first semester of college. Then I got one of my current violins (that was 1952) and pretty much retired the Tyrolean, which unfortunately was lost on my move from Maryland to California in 1962. It was a sweet sounding fiddle, easy to play, with a sound that would echo back to me from the back of our 1,100 seat HS auditorium (when it was empty); don't know how it projected when the "house" was full.

Andy

June 3, 2015 at 05:15 PM · My 3g-grandfather in West Wales bought what is now my main violin from an Irish violinist in 1850, and it has been in my family ever since. Although it had been stored in its unopened case from 1939 (start of WW2) to 2001, when it was passed on to me from my mother, it is now back on form and is my principal violin for most of my playing.

The story about the Irish violinist was that he was fleeing from the Irish Famine to England and needed the money - an unsubstantiated account but believable. The violin seems to be late 18th century, possibly of German origin. An interesting feature is that the back has distinctive water marks on the right-hand side (when viewed from the rear).

June 3, 2015 at 06:02 PM · I kept it for ten minutes and then I stood on it.Best way to keep music pure ...

June 3, 2015 at 06:27 PM · It has been over 30 years now, and I still have it. Other violins came to pass, some were (are) better and different, but this one has emotional value and reminds me on my father. It came with an open crack which used to buzz, from a Gipsy player who used it in a pub and smelled on tobacco smoke. The repairs, done by an old Hungarian maker-restorer, were so extensive that I did not recognize it all clean and polished. No need to say that my dad was not glad to see the bill! Since then, no major issues, apart for a few open seams.

I sometimes pick it up and give it a few hours of undivided attention, only to get surprised how good it is within its own limits.

It always patiently receives used strings from other prima-donas in my harem, and recent upgrade to Kaplan vivo brought surprising clarity to its sound.

I will most likely not sell it, but pass on as a gift to another kid when the time comes.

June 4, 2015 at 04:31 AM · About 8 years. It became my backup violin after about 4, but I rarely played it so just used it as trade-in against my new viola. I was lucky that the same luthier sold me all 3 instruments and was willing to trade the violin 100% for a viola. But he got a good deal and was happy to finally sell his last "used" viola. (He makes violas on commission, though.)

June 7, 2015 at 12:20 AM · I had my first full-size violin for 30 years, from ~1978 to ~2008. I upgraded in 2008 after I had been playing again for a few years. I gave the old violin to my daughter as her first full-size violin. She is still playing it, with a different chin rest, but lately she's been wanting an upgrade herself. It has a sweet sound, but it also sounds timid and muted, especially in the lower register, which isn't something either of us needs to be struggling against. Still, it's a very pretty instrument visually and I'll be sad to see it go, so even if she does get an upgrade, we'll probably keep it around.

June 7, 2015 at 04:15 AM · My first violin was a 3/4 in 1937 when I was 7 years old. I grew into my father's full size violin several years later. It was a nasal old factory fiddle which I played for about a year. I got a much better very old instrument then and have been playing it since, something over 70 years. it is probably German according to several knowledgable people. Its actual provenance is unknown, but it was completely restored beforeI got it by John Note who was a Pittsburgh luthier in the mid Tewntieth Century.

It isn't particularly valuable but it sounds better to me than most other violins I have tried.

On theother hand I have had five different violas starting in about 1980. I have had my current viola, a Franz Sandner, for 6 or 7 years.

June 7, 2015 at 02:33 PM · I remember my first violin. I also remember playing cars over it. Using the strings as the bridge and would happily make some cars go careening into the water beneath it (body). That violin did not last long and neither did my cars.

June 8, 2015 at 04:51 AM · My first full-size violin (a nice contemporary) lasted me through my teens. Then I stopped playing.

When I started playing again in my late twenties, I used my previous violin for a couple of months, and then I upgraded (to a "modern" Italian). I bought a new bow at the time, too. About three years later, I stopped playing again.

When I started playing again in my late thirties, I used my previous violin for about two years -- until recently. Then I upgraded again. This time I hope I will keep playing, and won't feel the desire to upgrade again. :-)

All told, each of my previous full-sized violins lasted me about five years of playing. Each upgrade has essentially represented 3x over the present value of the previous instrument (so even more of a multiple over what I paid when I bought the previous instrument).