New Violin Journal

Saturday, March 25, 2006

Violins at Winston Salem

We went down to Winston Salem to Brian Newman's Violin shop. He gave us four violins to choose from; three Italian Violins, and one Brian Newman made in 2004. I ruled out one of the Italian violins right away, but I couldn't decide on the other three. I brough the other two violins home to let Bendy look at them. After playing them through, Bendy said the "Newman" violin was the best one.

Monday, January 23, 2006

Taking The Violins Back

Well, we took both violins back to Dan Fosters this past Friday. My sister was really sad to see them go (she really got attached to Dan Fosters violin). We will probably get the Italian violin again to compare with others. We havn't decided where to get our next "shipment."

Friday, December 23, 2005

Bendy's Decision

In my violin lesson yesterday, I showed Bendy the two violins. Bendy said, "Its hard to tell in [his practice room], you have to try them out in a performance hall." When he played on them a little bit, his comment was, "I'm not crazy about either of them actually."

When I asked him which of the two was better, he said, "The Italian one definitely ."

Wednesday, December 21, 2005

Trip to Blacksburg

Yesterday, we went to Dan Fosters Violin shop in Blacksburg to try out some violins. Dan Foster gave me four to try out, I ruled out one right away. It was down to Dan Fosters violin he made in 1998, one he made in 2003, and an Italian Violin made by Guido Mambelli, in 1927. Of the two of Dan Fosters, they both had the same kind of sound, but the 2003 model had a better ring than the 1998 model. I liked the tone of the Italian violin better than Dan Fosters, but I thought the ring of Dan's 2003 model rang better than the Italian.

I did all the judging in Dan Fosters shop. To really make any more judgment, I'll get Bendy to look at them, and play them somewhere like Olin Hall, or some other performance hall.

What were going to do is, try out violins from a bunch of different suppliers, and then the best violins from the best suppliers will be tried out against each other. This way, we will find the "best of the best."