Buying a Cheap Violin
Posted on January 11, 2019
Note: Looking back in retrospect, I must say that buying a cheap Ebay violin was not the best way to start out. Not only did I just end up putting additional money into trying to improve the quality by changing out components, but the lower quality violin hindered my ability to practice and learn.
I recognized the setbacks early on and ended up replacing it with a better quality violin by the third week. I’m leaving this series of posts on my cheap violin experience because it was an honest start to my journey, which I want to provide – both good and bad!
The first step on my musical journey was to actually buy a fiddle. I watched a number of videos about buying violins and what kind of quality to get, etc. etc. But in my case, I really didn’t want to put a ton of money into an instrument when I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to play it. It also sounds like musicians upgrade their violins for better quality instruments over time.
Interestingly, this was before the holidays, so Ebay had a blanket 10% off any order at the time. After a little looking, I decided on a Glarry 4/4 violin fiddle set. I did look it up, and the instrument got fairly okay ratings. Not the best, but considering I paid about $37 for the whole kit – instrument, bow, case, tuner, a set of strings, shoulder rest and rosin – I thought this was a decent deal.
I know the quality is not top notch, but for what I wanted – a beginner instrument – it does the trick! Thankfully, I found a video series that went into detail about how to set up a new violin… because little did I know the instrument would need some tweaks before it was ready to play! More on that next time!