What Does A $37 Viola Sound Like?

There are a ton of super cheap violins and violas on eBay. I’ve always been really curious about them: what you can expect for those kind of bargain basement prices? To find out, I ordered a couple of violas–one of them was just 37 bucks! Today we’re going to unbox them and hear what they sound like.

Here are the instruments I bought:

The cheaper one (the price has now increased to $49):

Slightly more expensive one.

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How to Hold Violin Bow

Today’s video is about how to begin to learn to hold a violin bow. While there is a correct way of holding the bow to your instrument, there will be natural variability in people’s desired grip due to their differing hand size and shape, from the beginner to the advanced professional.

The most important first-step in learning to use your bow is being comfortable with your grip on the stick. The violin bow is a tool, similar to a paint brush, that we have to be able to control!

The place in which we hold the violin bow consists of 2 different parts of the bow: the stick and the frog. Fundamentally, the grip of our hand is centered around the stick of the bow, and not the square frog (although we also use the frog in our grip!)

For absolute beginners, it is a good first-step to place the thumb underneath the frog, eventually to be transferred to the stick of the bow, with the middle two fingers (middle finger and ring finger) wrapped around the front of the frog’s eye as a support to the holding of the stick.

The most important thing to practice in holding the stick, is that you MUST all of the fingers round and relaxed, similar to the way you would grasp a soft ball. This is most difficult with the thumb. Practice first with a ball, and then with a pen or pencil as shown in this video.

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Make sure that as you practice holding your bow, your middle thumb joint is not flexed toward your hand, but bend in a “grip” position. This is to be sure we are not clamping the bow and creating tension and pain for our hand, but rather holding it with a rounded, strong and versatile grip.

Just the right amount of strength, but not to much tension in the hand and arm is necessary for learning this technique of holding the fiddle bow. Step by step, you will learn to hold your instrument comfortably.

Introduction to the Violin

If you’re a beginner who is curious about the violin and its family, we have answers for you! The violin is an ancient musical instrument that mystifies and lends itself to fantasy like no other. The violin produces a shimmery, brilliant and resonant sound when the strings of the instrument are pulled by the hair of a bow. The strings can either be played this way, arco (with the bow) or by pizzicato (plucking of the string).

The violin is the highest tuned instrument in the strings family, but shares nearly the same tuning as the other three instruments : the viola, the cello, and the double-bass.

All of these instruments are constructed from wood, and then finished with an oily substance known as varnish. The varnish gives the violin its shiny texture, and often accentuates the natural flame of the wood, giving the finished violin a beautiful and shiny appearance.

The violin was originally designed to emulate, and is often compared to, the human voice. Both the human voice and the vibrating strings of the violin are full of rich overtones and traditionally are played in combination with vibrato. Both are highly soloistic instruments. The violin is a lifelong companion to the player. While fundamentally it can be one of the hardest to begin learning, once you start to get the hang of playing, there is so much to be learned and fun to be had.