Violins

On Saturday I went over to the Baroque Violin Shop (get it? Baroque?) to fix up a few things on my violin, since we're in the off-season for the orchestra. Just for the heck of it, I asked what an upgrade would look like for my violin. They owner, who's a former member of the orchestra I played in, basically said anything would be an upgrade over what I was playing... said it was a "student violin." Which made sense, since I got it back in HS.

Well before I know it he's pulled out 6-7 new violins, and it felt like when I went to pick out Bucky the beagle... All of a sudden there were all these Beagle puppies running around creating chaos in the room and I had to choose one. Playing them was like going car shopping, where you got to test drive nice new cars. These violins were fully polished and shiny and barely used.

Next thing I knew I was walking out with 4 violins to test out. He sent me home with a special case that holds 4 violins, and with nothing but filling out a form I put $15,000 worth of violins in my car. I was actually heading down to Newport to see Indiana Jones with some friends, so I was a little nervous to have these in the trunk. I left them in my friend's house and had him lock the door, but they all made it back to my place safe and sound. Plus it made be feel better that if his house had been robbed, the thieves probably would not have known to take the violins.


So today I spent a good hour testing out the violins. And of course, I couldn't tell the difference between them. They all sounded great. I only wish I had my violin with me (I had left it at the shop because they had a couple of follow up things they needed to do on it) to compare to. Needless to say, I probably will be putting an investment down and trading up. After all, I am still playing and it's probably long overdue.

As an aside, this reminds me of a funny line... My dad took me to an American Chemical Society meeting once when I was in HS, and the topic was the chemistry behind violins (people have started to learn that the polish of the violin plays a significant role in the sound). They randomly found a professional player to play a few of the sample violins they had there, and asked him what he thought of them. He said, "It's a little hard... it's like comparing your wife to a one night stand."