Instrument Care:

Make sure that you tighten up your bow before you play. The way that you can achieve this is by turning your instrument's tension screw. You are going to want to avoid allowing the hairs of the bow to become too taut, as the separation between the hair and the bow stick should only always be approximately the width of a pencil.

You should be placing a small amount of rosin on the bow before you play. You can hold the rosin in the left hand and place the hairs of the bow flat against the rosin before slowly running the bow forward and back along the rosin for an even application.

• After you play the violin, you are going to want to clean it gently using a soft cloth so that you can remove the rosin build up that the strings have accumulated.

Polish is rarely ever going to be needed. When it is necessary, however, you are only ever going to want to use a commercial grade violin specific polish. Cleaning your violin using water or a furniture polish product could easily damage not only the visual quality of the violin by harming its varnish, but also the tonal quality as well by damaging the acoustics. Using water on a violin may also cause the seams of the violin to open up.

• Loosen up the hairs on the bow before you put the bow back in your violin case.
• Never store your violin in any place where there is extreme hot, extreme cold or drastic changes in temperature.

If you happen to live in a climate that is particularly dry, then it may be wise to purchase a humidifier that is specifically intended for violins. An excessive level of dryness can actually cause the seams of the violin to crack, allowing the seams to open up.

Humidity and temperature fluctuations can cause stickiness or turning problems in the wood pegs of the violin. If this is experienced, then you may want to buy peg compound, an inexpensive product that will lubricate these pegs while still providing enough friction that they will not slip or turn unnecessarily. When you use this peg compound or peg dope product, make sure that you are using it in a sparing manner because it can build up an unnecessary level of residue over a period of time. For this reason, some violinists avoid using this and other products that can cause unnecessarily build up or residue.

Applying peg compound involves removing a string from the peg, sliding the peg away from the peg box. A small amount of the peg compound should be applied to the peg where it makes contact with the peg box before reinserting the peg again. Any excess compound should be wiped off before you allow the peg to be restrung.

Photo Credits: phos365

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Categories:

Instrument Care, Violin

Tags:

acoustics, drastic changes, even application, excessive level, friction, hairs, humidifier, Instrument Care, left hand, peg, rosin, seams, soft cloth, stickiness, temperature fluctuations, tonal quality, varnish, violin case, violins, visual quality