chinrests

[Owen]

Recently, during a Fiddlehed Office Hours Session one gentleman (I believe from Ireland) expressed difficulty in feeling comfortable with his violin. He had already purchased Bon Musica shoulder rest, to no avail; still uncomfortable. I, too, felt this way. I asked the people at the Fiddlershop if they had any ideas. They said sometimes a center mounter chin rest can do the trick. I purchased an extra tall one, which seems very good. I guess we all have different bodies! I wish I could post a picture of mine but I can’t figure how to copy the picture from my Mac computer.

[MoonShadows]

Hi Owen…I have a whole box of chinrests I have tried. I finally settled on a Berber. It is more center mounted with a flair to the side and low…for my short neck. Jim

[Nick Wilkins]

Hi Jim. I can’t get comfortable with my violins at all! I know this is a common problem, so I’m trying to be patient. The ‘left-sided’ rests just don’t work for me and I’m going to try a Berber [and if possible an ‘extra tall’ like Owen’s] which I think will be better. At the moment, my favourite is a ‘Paganini’ [which I think is called an ‘Old Flesch’ sometimes] but it’s still not great.

It’s all complicated by the shoulder rest, of course. I gave up an an Everest, and my Kun Collapsible was also uncomfortable and kept slipping off my shoulder. I’ve tried playing without a shoulder rest, but found that the sound of my violin really deteriorated. So I’ve just bought an extra long leg for my Kun. I’ll give that combination of tall Kun and Paganini a few days and report back.

Take care everyone, the end may be in sight!

[Nick Wilkins]

An update on my shoulder rest / chin rest post.

The long leg for my Kun shoulder rest arrived and I fitted it to the side of my rest furthest from my chin, and then moved the previous longest leg to the other side [ie, the shortest leg is now redundant].

Tried that with my Paganini … and better, but still no good.

So I then bought a Berber chinrest and tried that with my newly-elongated Kun, and I’m almost [but not quite] there.

So now I’m going to buy another Kun long leg so that the whole of my SR is taller [I can’t easily get a tall Berber from here in the UK], and I’ll let you know how that goes soon-ish.

[Tom]

Hi Moonshadows:

I see that you included a photo on your forum post. How do you do that?

Is it also possible to attach a file such as a pdf of sheet music for a song, for example?

[MoonShadows]

Hi Tom,

The only way I know to include images is to click on “img” in the menu above when you are writing or responding to a post. A dialogue box opens, and you need to put the URL to the image. In the case of my photo of the chin rest, I looked it up on the search engine “Swiss Cows”. I then copied the url and placed it in the dialogue box like so: https://cdn.swisscows.ch//https://www.paganino.com/out/pictures/generated/product/3/460_460_75/4a1689e610b6a0f93e3d30998bbbb1a9_kinnhalter-ebenholz-top.jpg and the image appeared in the post.

There are a number of forum software addons that a WordPress owner can use that allow images directly from your computer or have addon software so the images can be added right from your computer, but the forum version Jason is using does not presently have that feature. I don’t know if it is a matter of Jason just turning the feature on or finding an addon for this capability.

A work-around for you is if you have a place you store images on a website or the cloud…you can just imbed the url in the dialogue box when you click “img”.

[Nick Wilkins]

Hey, Jim. That’s an interesting fiddle – with fine tuners on the G and E. Is that a stock photo, or is it your violin?

[MoonShadows]

Stock photo just to show the chinrest. My two fiddles have fine tuners on each string.

[Owen]

Hi Jim. Yes, mine similar; also a Berber, but tall. this one works better than any other; but, I may try the normal Berber of the same style, like yours.I am working at the Irish Fiddle Course; which is quite the “work-out”, so I am glad to have some comfort with my fiddle right now. Happy and Prosperous New Year, Jim!

[MoonShadows]

And a Healthy and Prosperous New Year to you as well!

[Author]

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