It’s back to the old-school music technology today. As it turns out, a friend of a friend is a German violin maker. And he was in town with instruments! He’s already sold instruments in New York and Chicago, and was looking to make some connections here in the Bay Area. He left one instrument with a local shop on consignment but really wanted to get his instruments into the hands of teachers to more directly get to the advancing students looking for this step up. I will have one of his violins for the next 6 months to play with and show off.
Oddly enough, this instrument is actually younger than my TC1100 tablet. It was made in 2006 in Hamburg. It hasn’t been played in a while and has some old strings on it. Klaus recommended Evah Pirazzis for it, and while I don’t like them on my viola at all, I can see how this violin could benefit from that set. I’ll probably switch out the strings and give it a good few weeks of playing in to really form opinions, but I’ve enjoyed the few hours I’ve already had with it.
It’s a real treat to get an instrument directly from the maker. For one thing, it’s nice to know the fine art of violin making is still alive and well. For another, even luthiers working full time on producing new instruments only complete about half a dozen every year. Klaus has spent a lot of his time recently restoring instruments and making a double bass, which is a much longer term project than a violin, so his current stock of personal instruments is small. It’s a real privilege to have one entrusted to me for the next 6 months, and quite a treat to get to sit down with Klaus to chat and get to know the violin.
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