Well,

I have eventually got a violin, having been wanting one for ages. Her name is Chloe and she has been with me since Thursday. She is a very nice Yita T20 guarneri model (and the photos below don't really do her justice...). She is much, much prettier than in the photos.

I will be taking Chloe to a luthier sometime during the coming week to get her checked over, and I think she needs a new bridge. I am also going to get a recommendation for strings. The E string she has come with sounds absolutely beautiful but it isn't going to last very long, and I'm not so keen on the other strings. I wasn't able to play with the bow until yesterday, because the rosin which was supplied with Chloe was so rubbish that it wouldn't go onto the bow at all - even after a couple of hours of rubbing! The rosin I got yesterday isn't much better (we don't have a music shop at all, so I got it from the local market) but it did at least go onto the bow.

Particular thanks to Rosfrog and Lottie for the help they gave me with choosing a violin.

This is her front:


This is her back:


Apologies for the small pictures. I can't seem to get imageshack to do them any larger, and I can't work out how to upload anything to photobucket. If someone can tell me how to do it then I will post some larger pictures...

I like her stripey back
wish you many hours of joy with her

Thanks.

Her back is actually much more stripey than it looks in the photo (and the varnish is more even), and the colours and stripes change according to how the light hits it.

wow that sounds amazing almost like a magician's trick seriously though, a nice characteristic to have

She's very, very pretty And what a lovely name. I was going to call my new violin something pretty like Chloe or Emily, but ended up with princess Talulabelle

I'm glad you didn't call your's Chloe - although it would have kind of been funny in a way if we'd ended up choosing the same name.

Chloe is a workshop violin (albeit a particularly pretty one - and yes, I'm probably biased ) and I wanted a name which was both pretty and commonly used. Somehow Chloe just seemed to fit her colouring and character. Princess Talulabelle is much more dignified, and needed a name more befitting of her heritage - which is what you've given her.

Okay. I've got photobucket working now.

Here is Chloe's front (this is the most accurate in terms of colour - the other photos here are too dark):



This is her tailpiece, which didn't show up very well above (her pegs have the same paris eye):


Here is her back (photo taken at a funny angle to avoid the light reflecting in a big white splodge). Her back is actually the same colour as her front - the photo is rather dark due to the problems with the light:

now we are really getting into this aren't we flossie? (the photo thing)
but yes, these pictures are MUCH better and show off Chloe's beauty even more

She is lovely and Pan and Martha say welcome to the UK!!!

She does look lovely - Pan is a t20 too and his back stripes move in the light like Chloe's. It's very pretty isn't it! Pan is off to the Luthier just now to have his bridge done and a few other tweaks.

You could buy some rosin online Flossie. This is an excellent online shop for violin thing. I ordered something from them one afternoon and it arrived the next day!!! http://www.thestringzone.co.uk/

Have fun with her! (pretty case too)

Chloe has a very striking appearance and she's a lovely colour! I look forward to meeting her one day

Sorry if this is a silly question, but are violins all made of the same wood? What wood is Chloe made from?

Not it's not a silly question. There is some variation, and cheap violins tend to use less good woods.

Chloe's top (front) is made of 'Selected and aged spruce' and her back, ribs and scroll are made from 'Flamed and aged maple'. Her fingerboard and fittings (pegs, tailpiece and chinrest) are ebony and the pegs and tailpiece have paris eyes. I had a bit of debate about whether I wanted Rosewood fittings, but I think the ebony suits her better than rosewood would have done.

Ah, thanks - wood clarinets are predominantly (but not exclusively) made of grenadilla so I wondered if it was the same for violins but obviously not. I agree about the ebony - I think the rosewood would have clashed whereas the ebony just sets her off

Thanks for the welcome and the link, Lottie.

I'm planning on ordering some of the nice Hildersine rosin when I get my strings - but I want to discuss suitable strings with a luthier first. I'm not sure that dominants would be right for her because she has a lovely voice and I want to be able to let that sing - and although dominants are perfectly decent I found with my cello that there was just something missing with them.

The rosin I got from the market is actually a lot better than I thought, and my bow seems to be liking it - so I'm not in a huge rush to get rosin anymore.

Most fiddles these days, irrespective of quality, are made from spruce for the front, ebony for the fittings and maple for the back.

Better quality woods get used in better fiddles and this is sometimes shown in the amount of flaming on the back and ribs.

It's rare to find ebonised fittings these days and even very basic violins are still made from spruce and maple. The time the wood is left to dry and the quality of wood used make a difference in price and therefore, longer aged and dried wood of a higher quality will generally only be used on good quality fiddles.

This isn't always the case on Chinese produced fiddles though where aged maple can mean young maple that's been oven dried or even just not very dry maple and often the flaming and paris eyes and all the rest are put even on sub-standard fiddles in these productions where it's often more about how the instrument looks rather than how it's made.

This isn't the case with the Yita fiddles though, and Chloe looks lovely, Flossie !

ooo, she's beautiful Flossie I hope you get many many hours of fun with her

Hi,

She is a beauty, isn't she? I'm sure you'll have great fun together. Glad I'm not the only one who names my instruments - I'd been beginning to think it was just me!