(no subject)
Not having a great deal of success with instruments.
Last Wednesday during rehearsal, my renaissance fiddle started making a hideous scratchy sound. I looked at it, Ali looked at it, but we couldn't see anything wrong as such. Removed all rosin from strings; slackened strings; retightened them; adjusted bridge (which improved things a bit);did lots of heavy bowing right by the bridge (again improved things a bit); but nothing much worked. Did first concert with violin in this state then tried swapping bows - I always carry a spare bow after the nightmare of the exploding bow at the British Library, so had a baroque bow that I had bought on ebay for £65. Sound improved immediately so I played with it for the weekend gigs and Monday and Tuesday's concerts. But it's almost twice the weight of my normal bow and I haven't had time to adjust to it - much harder to control [which sounds like a case of a bad workman blaming their tools, I know!]. Will take my usual bow into Bridgewood & Neitzert to see if they can fix it, I guess that it just needs cleaning or rehairing, but need to get something sorted out. Am annoyed though. I've not had this problem before in my 35 years of fiddle playing and the bow causing the trouble cost £800 last year which is more than I'd ever spent on a bow before. Would expect it to behave. Will keep fingers crossed that they can fix it as it's a really nice weight for playing.
As if that wasn't enough, Kit managed to tread on my tenor viol bow during Monday's concert [I've no idea how!] and cracked the frog. And last night (again during concert) I managed to knock over the stool I was sitting on with my farthingale and it fell backwards onto the fiddle. Fortunately there didn't seem to be any damage, apart from needing to retune, but will get them to look at it at B&N just in case.
Hopefully three instrumental disasters is enough?
Making almond and orange cakes for New Year as a distraction so the house smells of baking.
Last Wednesday during rehearsal, my renaissance fiddle started making a hideous scratchy sound. I looked at it, Ali looked at it, but we couldn't see anything wrong as such. Removed all rosin from strings; slackened strings; retightened them; adjusted bridge (which improved things a bit);did lots of heavy bowing right by the bridge (again improved things a bit); but nothing much worked. Did first concert with violin in this state then tried swapping bows - I always carry a spare bow after the nightmare of the exploding bow at the British Library, so had a baroque bow that I had bought on ebay for £65. Sound improved immediately so I played with it for the weekend gigs and Monday and Tuesday's concerts. But it's almost twice the weight of my normal bow and I haven't had time to adjust to it - much harder to control [which sounds like a case of a bad workman blaming their tools, I know!]. Will take my usual bow into Bridgewood & Neitzert to see if they can fix it, I guess that it just needs cleaning or rehairing, but need to get something sorted out. Am annoyed though. I've not had this problem before in my 35 years of fiddle playing and the bow causing the trouble cost £800 last year which is more than I'd ever spent on a bow before. Would expect it to behave. Will keep fingers crossed that they can fix it as it's a really nice weight for playing.
As if that wasn't enough, Kit managed to tread on my tenor viol bow during Monday's concert [I've no idea how!] and cracked the frog. And last night (again during concert) I managed to knock over the stool I was sitting on with my farthingale and it fell backwards onto the fiddle. Fortunately there didn't seem to be any damage, apart from needing to retune, but will get them to look at it at B&N just in case.
Hopefully three instrumental disasters is enough?
Making almond and orange cakes for New Year as a distraction so the house smells of baking.