We have thousands of human-written stories, discussions, interviews and reviews from today through the past 20+ years. Find them here:
My Performa shoulder rest hack
TLDR: Performa shoulder rest + Korfler legs + rug gripping pad = chef's kiss
I am 5'1" and have short everything: a very short neck, short arms, short fingers, and narrow shoulders. To compensate for the arm length, my chinrest is center mounted. It's the Flesch with Hump model because the cup goes lower than the New Flesch, and I can place the violin more on top of the shoulder by placing my chin to the right of the tailpiece. This helps with both arms' reach.
The center mount chinrest setup (even though it's as low as possible), combined with my very short neck, means I have a very short distance for the shoulder rest to cover on the shoulder side. I tried going rest-less for several months, but eventually gave up (after working with my teacher), so let's not go there. I admit to having a Gear Acquisition Syndrome and tried perhaps close to 90% of every shoulder rest in the American market over the years, up to the Korfker price level (i.e., no Dolfino).
Among these, except for sponges which I didn't like for multiple reasons, the lowest was the Performa. Nothing, even Korfker with its short leg, beat it in terms of the shoulder-to-chin distance.
Another advantage of Performa is its large, flat plate. All the shoulder rests' bars end up on top of my left shoulder socket due to my very narrow shoulders. It put extra pressure on the shoulder socket, creating unnecessary tension, and got in the way of left arm movement. I tried pulling the bar toward my neck, but then it gets too high as well as pulls the violin toward the center of my body which makes left arm cramped on higher positions. With Performa, however, due to its unique plate design, it doesn't press on the shoulder socket as much and therefore doesn't cause as much tension.
Performa had two glaring shortcomings, though: the slippery legs and the slippery foam pad. This was literally the ONLY shoulder rest that kept falling off the violin when I took it off the shoulder after playing. The legs also ate away the varnish. At the same time, the foam pad had no grip at all. I had initially written off this shoulder rest due to these issues.
However, frustrated with finding no other shoulder rest with such a low height, one day I tried exchanging the legs with some other rests' in my stash. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the Korfker legs were a perfect fit; and they were one of the best legs I've seen, so double scores... except for being expensive. (lol) I put on the short leg on the shoulder side and the extra-high leg on the chest side, and the leg problem was solved.
For the slippery foam pad problem, I had tried kitchen shelf liner first and it still wasn't grippy enough. Then, I read one day that RV owners use rug grippers on kitchen shelves due to them being grippier, so I tried one and it solved the issue: no more sliding around on my body.
In the end, I spent probably as much money as the shoulder rest itself on customizing it, but the end result was worth it. For the first time in many years, I feel comfortable holding the violin. (*tears of joy*)
Replies (1)
