Setting Up A Violin
Posted on January 21, 2019
The one thing I wouldn’t have know about, if I hadn’t watched the videos on it, was the fact that a brand new violin often requires setup before you can start to play it. And I’m not talking just professional, though it seems a lot of violins do require professional setup for it to sound well… even a higher-priced kit.
When my violin came, it had the strings already on the pegs, but wrapped under the fingerboard. The bridge was not on the instrument, but rather wrapped up, and required fitting.
Thankfully, a video in the same series as I was watching before informed me of all this, and what I had to do to put the fiddle together. It also does a nice job of introducing all the parts of the instrument.
I was a bit shaky trying to get the bridge on, especially after he warned me that you don’t want to do anything to knock over the internal sound post. Part of me is glad to have had an inexpensive VSO (Violin Shaped Object – as the violinists call them) to experiment on. If something happens to it, I’d be a little sad since it’s so new, but it wouldn’t be as devastating as messing up a more expensive instrument.
Anyhow, I managed to set it up and get it ready for tuning, which was an interesting experience I’ll discuss next time.