First the bad news. Buying a better violin, viola, or cello will not make you a better musician, because the instrument doesn’t actually do anything … it just sits there, and you have to do all the work of making music. A violin can be likened to a palette of colours, and the bow to the brush (or to be more accurate, the brushes). So buying a better violin does not actually make you a better violinist in the way that having another 50 paints would not make you a better painter. The left hand plays the notes, and is responsible for intonation, but it is the right hand, the bow arm (responsible for tone, rhythm and phrasing) that makes the music. So if the violin does not actually play the music then there is a very good argument for not playing too much music when you test them.
You can also see therefore how important it is to test violins with a good bow. If you aren’t buying a new bow make sure that you aren’t using a poor-quality bow, even if it’s the one you would normally use and you “know” it. If you play a Stradivari violin worth a million with a £30 bow, then what you are is a £30 violinist.
When most people try a selection of violins what we usually hear first is their musical personality, rather than the sound of the instruments. The musical personality of the player is of course very important (people spend years working hard at becoming the player they are) but the “musical personality” is really only important when performing – and it can often get in the way of hearing what the equipment wants to do. It is not surprising that instruments of widely differing ages, qualities, and nationalities can all sound much the same when it is the player we are listening to, rather than the instrument.
Anyone who can say after 30 minutes that they can’t tell the difference between half a dozen violins is listening to themselves playing, and not the equipment. If they “all sound the same” then stop making them sound the same.
Testing an instrument or bow is not like practicing or performing. Rather it’s a bit like test driving a car – you are revving the engine, exploring the possibilities of the vehicle rather than going on a journey. One of the best ways to test instruments is to accentuate the differences between them. Often the “less is more” principle applies. If the violin is properly set up you should be able to take it for granted that it will play the music – so don’t play the music.
What the player needs to do is find out how the instrument will play the music. Reduced to a ridiculous extreme, all the instrument has to do is play loud, soft, fast and slow. If it will do that on a couple of scales of the player’s choice then it should be able to handle the piece of unaccompanied Bach or the Irish jig you wish to play on it when you get it home. In any violin shop you only have a limited amount of time and you should be making a shortlist of possibilities rather than airing your repertoire.
Often, one of the least helpful things a player can do is to put a piece of music up on a stand, because then the concentration is on the notes 2 feet in front of them instead of on the instrument they are playing.
Sadly, few training systems encourage playing away from the notes. If you do feel the need to play a piece, then don’t work on your latest one (because you don’t know it yet!) – play something you know very well, and don’t play too long, or feel you must get to the end of it. When you move to another instrument, play the same piece. Listen in, not to the notes, but to the sound. Sometimes parents or teachers, if present, can be overly critical of posture or intonation. Remember, this is a short-listing experience, it is not a lesson, and it is important to make the choosing process as stress free as possible – even fun (!) – as well as educational.
What the player is learning, or rather realizing here, is something other than technique. Anyone who has played for even a few years has put a lot of hours into the instrument and our job is to help players make a decision by showing them that they already know far more than they think they know. It is a constant source of delight how many players of all ages come into the shop saying they can’t tell one instrument from another, and within an hour or so are making very subtle distinctions between different qualities of sound. If we can reduce the “what can I make it do?” question to loud, soft, fast and slow, then how are we going to approach the other question “what does it want to do?” This aspect of instrument playing seems to be almost entirely ignored by the western classical and folk traditions – the former in particular seeming to concentrate on dominating the instrument and projecting as big a sound as possible.
The best way for a player to hear the sound of the instrument is to rest the bow on the string, and then draw it over the string, using just enough weight from the bowing arm to focus the sound. “Float” the sound out and maybe doodle a little, just playing a few notes and listening to the quality of the sound. Doing this you are just focusing the sound, rather than projecting it. Feel how hard you have to work to keep the sound present without either forcing it or letting it get away. Pick up the next violin and do the same. If you are testing violins use the same bow, (and if you are testing bows use the same violin), so that of the three variables, player, bow and violin, only one will change.
Two things will become apparent. One is that the volume and quality of sound will be different from one instrument to another, and the next is that you will have to work the bow differently to focus the sound, depending on which violin you are trying. So…do you like the sound you are producing? Shifting the emphasis, how hard did you have to work the bow to create that sound? If you have to work harder on one instrument than another to produce the sound, is the extra effort worth it in terms of quality of sound produced? Liking the sound of your instrument is important. If you want a rich, warm sound then a harder, edgy violin will not give you that, and vice versa. By listening to the sound like this you are hearing what the equipment wants to do. Is the sound full or thin, warm, dry, edgy, muffled, focused, muddy – or any other subjective description/adjective/word you choose to use.
In our experience most people buy the instrument or bow they like the sound of when they are doing the least. That way, when you do play the instrument, you know you are working together.
The whole Harry Potter phenomenon has had a very interesting effect on people’s awareness of this. Just reminding the average Potter fan that “the wand chooses the wizard”, and making the point that the violin “chooses” the player, or the bow “chooses” the instrument has been known to transform the possibly frightening task of choosing an instrument into a fun and even, dare I say, “Magical” experience…(Ouch)…