Hiya,

When I was tuning my violin a few minutes ago, I noticed that when I played my 'G' open string, there was a very loud buzzing/rattling coming from the lower half of my instrument. It was around the area of the adjusters, but the sound seemed to be coming from the inside rather than the outside if that makes any sense. The thing is that I left it alone for a minute (to make a cup of tea), and when I started trying to find the source of the noise again it had disappeared. I am not sure what to do, as I'm not seeing my teacher until next week at an audition, so if there's a problem there would be no time to fix it. Obviously if there is nothing wrong, I don't want to go all the way to my not-so-local music shop to get it repaired

It's not just the noise though - when I was playing it before it started rattling, it didn't feel quite right. Usually, my violin has a nice rich, smooth tone, but today it sounded more like a stentor student I. Of course, it could just be my rubbish playing, but I thought it might be a good idea to ask.

What do you think?

Check the nut hasn't come lose. My teacher's violin was making a really horrible buzzing sound the other week and we couldn't figure out where it was coming from and then we noticed the nut at the end of the tailpiece was sticking out (it's now having a mini operation!)

Could be a seam coming unglued, or the saddle at the tailgut end that's loose....
In fact there are a multitude of reasons buzzes and rattles can develop.

Best advice I can give would be to take the violin to a luthier, or at least a specialist string instrument dealer for them to look at. They are well versed in finding annoying buzzes and sorting them out. A local high-street music shop wouldn't even know where to start, let alone put it right.

I can't give you any technical advice, but I can assure you that there's probably nothing major wrong with it. The same thing has happened to me and my violin is just fine, if it's any reassurance.