I’d like to hear some suggestions from some of the more experienced fiddlers on proper care of a fiddle. How to keep the shine on it, how to treat scratches or nicks, cleaning the strings and any other pertinent thoughts. I’m sure there is a lot of sound advice out there, so let’s hear it.
Nice one for starting this thread, i was thinking of asking the same thing, being new to the fiddle and all.
My music teacher said to not let rosin build up ont the finger board, strings or under the strings, and you just a dry cloth to wipe it off being carefull not to rub it in as it is corrosive apparently.
thats all i know, so i will also be checking this thread eagerly
Jake
don’t take it to the pub
Sloth’s advice is good, but I add a bit of rubbing alcohol to the cloth to remove rosin from the strings. Just don’t let the alcohol touch the varnish.
Guard your fiddle well! If you get up for a visit to the men’s, put the fiddle back in the case and never leave it on the table! Once, in a session, I saw THREE fiddles hit the floor in one evening.
I clean my fiddle with soft cloth every time I’m done playing.
I also clean the stick of the bow being careful not to touch the hair.
I have been told that if there is a huge build up of rosin on the fiddle it will effect the sound because it gets into the grain of the wood…….don’t know if that’s true. As for minor nicks and scratches I think they add character to the look of the instrument. (kind of like me and my wrinkles)
There are many violin “polishes” you can buy. I don’t use any so can’t offer an opinion on them.
I will admit that when my beautiful fiddle got her first scratch I felt like crying. It happens. Enjoy your instrument, it’s not made of egg shells and meant to be PLAYED.
Mary
Oh yes, you should always wipe your fiddle off and never let the rosin build up anywhere…like I do…because I’m lazy and I never clean the thing, until the strings are so clogged they sound awful, and then I carefully remove the build-up on the strings without touching any of the beautiful white caked up base of rosin I have saved on the fingerboard and fiddle itself. You never know when you may need some, if you’re a lazy and forgetful fiddler who sometimes misplaces his rosin. Have you ever rosined your bow from the build-up left over on your fiddle?
OK, my work here is done, carry on with the cleaning and whatnot.
I was told to wrap my fiddles in silk, so I do. Its nice to think of them cosy inside cucoons while in their cases if nothing else.
Yeah, I’ve read that rosin (the way it is made today) is acidic, so you need to keep it cleaned up. My luthier says to never clean it with anything other than soft dry cloth, let him clean it up for you every couple of years when you need an adjustment. I had 1766 violin for a while and the finish slowly started to show signs of “drying up” - probably because someone tried to clean it with something bad many years before I ever got a hold of it. It was starting to shrink and separate into 100s of tiny patches, not peel up like fish scales. The luthier rubbed some kind of resin into it to bring it back. He (actually it was his wife) had to spend several hours rubbing it in - I know because the charge was all labor and unusually high and she apologized profusely. (At least I think so, her German accent is so heavy I can hardly understand what she says.)
Notice I go to a Luthier. If you have a decent violin, forget the general repair shops co-located in instrument retail stores - most of those people are grossly incompetent and don’t even know it. You want someone that builds violins and has apprenticed for years. There is a guild (international?) of violin makers and you can get the names of reputable luthiers for about every major city from their book. When I moved out of state, my old luthier gave me his annual copy. I find that the better the luthier, the more reasonable the repair fees are. They want you in their shop to eventually drop to a wad of cash on an instrument - which is primarily how they earn their money, or want to anyway. They know that only experienced players will spend that much. Plus, most of them love working on old violins in first place. For example, I’ve never been charged for a sound post adjustment, and I’ll be in the shop for a good hour test driving each experimental tweak, and sometimes come back a week later if I don’t like it. Of course, the luthier just spends a minute here or there to make the adjustment and I do most of the work…
Managing humidity is pretty important. Don’t dry your fiddle out and don’t drench it either. Keep a gauge in your case and don’t let it go to extremes. How much you have to worry depends on where you live. I don’t run a humidifier. I keep a sponge in a plastic bag I’ve poked to death with a pin in my case. (Those rubber straws they sell dry up too fast and I don’t like hanging them in my f-holes, which are usually the first things to crack.) When the gauge shows a drop, I know to dampen it. You have to keep your violin in your case all the time for this to work, of course.
so is it a bad idea to keep your fiddle out of its case when its at home like i do? or should i always seal it up?
Also, i tend to keep my shoulder rest on it even when its not being played (obviously when i put it in its case it has to come off), should i always take it off?
and one more thing, where can i get a humidity gauge from, or do i not need one in the south of england?
cheers for any advice
Jake
Tradpiper you’ve said just what I was going to say about humidifiers, maybe they are a good idea if you live in a hot dry country but in Ireland the opposite problem is more likely! I also live in a damp old Irish farmhouse and keep packets of silica gel crystals in instrument cases to stop them getting too damp.
Hi tradpiper,
do you mean Bob Allan?(grows organic veg.when not playing the fiddle) If so I know him well, very nice guy and a good friend of mine.
I was told to give my fiddle a rub-down at least once a year wih some quality furniture oil….
is that good advice?
Morning star,best to use something thats meant to clean and polish fiddles, I use something called Hidersine, from specialist violin shops.
tradpiper, I’ll pass on your cuddle whenever I see him.
Don’t use furniture polish!! Violin varnish is designed to help the instrument resonate and you don’t want to do anything to mess with the sound. Just wipe it with a clean dry cloth every time you play. Keep it in the case if the weather is dry. Keep it in the case if it’s not under your chin. And bring it to a luthier at least once a year for maintenance---they’ll check the setup, check for cracks, etc. And play it a lot!!
If you have a 50 dollar fiddle, I guess it doesn’t matter what you do.
Yeah, you can get a specific instrument polish for string instruments at a decent music store. “Fiddlebright” has been around for years. Google it. My luthier from several years ago quit selling it one day. He said it was found to be carcinogenic and he sold me something else, but not without a lecture about how I shouldn’t be using it in the first place. I find that the stuff will remove rosin from the stick of your bow…
The weather where I live now (in Wisconsin) goes from absolutely dry in the Winter when everything stays frozen for weeks at a time to damn soupy in the Summer. If you’re enjoying constant humidity, you probably shouldn’t be too concerned. But you might want to get out a little more often.
Nearly all the old farmhouses out here still have cattle in them. They’re always game for snuggling 😉
I wipe down my fiddle/s and bow/s each time I am finished playing or practcing with a soft cloth. I wipe down the fingerboard too. Oil from fingertips can accumulate and do as mucdamage as rosin build-up. I wipe the strings to try and get rosin build-up off. Nonetheless rosin build-up does acummualte and strings must be cleaned. So here’s what I do.
I carefully clean my strings with rubbing alcohol and a cotton swab. I first place a piece of cardboard under the string to prevent drips on the varnish. I saturate the swab and squeze off any excess alcohol so nothing drips off. Then I carefully stroke the strings to get the rosin build-up off. I then dry the strings with a soft cloth.
I also keep my fiddles in their case when not in use. I really like the new case I bought (for my new olfd fiddle) A Travelite TL-35
http://www.sagamusic.com/catalog/details.asp?ProductID=TL-35
I live in Southern California so heat is an issue here. I never leave my fiddle/s in the car when it’s hot (it’s about 100F today). They are at home in an air-condtioned enviroment. On long practice days I have them hanging on my music stand on clip-on violin & bow holder/s. I watch for the cat as she has taken lying on my feet when I play (I guess that better than if she hid uder the bed!). and tends to rub up aganist the stand.
I used violin cleaner only once on one fiddle. If you use any sort of polish it should only be one that is specially formulated for a violin! If you can’t find it locally you can find it online.
Hope that helps!
Keep in case is a good rule for hot dry places. I keep a water feature going in the room too. The idea being that it might keep the air a little more hydrated while being nice to look at. I have still had problems with my fiddles probably due to where I am in Central Oz. Best clothes drying in Australia! My old fiddle has just come back from having the fingerboard reglued. So even with precautions it seems it might be a tad too dry here for the hide glue, especially on the old girl with her old European repair/dealer label. Many people round here experience problems keeping their stringed instruments in good shape and glued together. Comes with the territory unfortunately.
I fought it for a long while, but it eventually happened anyway.
🙁
I do nothing special; just wipe it with a soft cloth as needed. As to storage, it lives on the wall. I live in the Sacramento Valley, which has hot dry summers, but we use a swamp cooler, so the humidity indoors is not ferociously dry (sorry if our Irish friends never heard of such a device).
Terry
I find the best way of getting the rosin off the strings is with your finger nails and scratch it off. If your fiddle sounds a little bit scratchy then this can be an instant remedy.
I don’t know what a swamp cooler is tradpiper. Is it an evaporative cooler? In that case yes. I got a big one of those that makes a lot of noise and does a good job in the summer. Everybody has them. Is a swamp cooler better? Our issue is dry and hot/cold here in Central Oz surrounded by deserts.
The opposite of swampy - only above ground water in town is in the sewage ponds and in the town and peoples’ swimming pools. Our river is a river of sand. But other Aussies might experience swampy type heat - just not here.
“I find the best way of getting the rosin off the strings is with your finger nails and scratch it off. If your fiddle sounds a little bit scratchy then this can be an instant remedy.” Stevie E
I initially tried alcohol for this chore but after laying the fiddle down on the still saturated cloth, I found out the hard way that alcohol and fiddles don’t mix. It does sometimes improve the fiddler but that depends on who the fiddler is.My next attempt at cleaning the strings was the fingernail method which didn’t entirely satisfy me that the scratchy sound was entirely gone. My next method was with a soft cloth soaked in hot water which now again with a bit of spit helps. Next to replacing the strings more frequently has anyone else any ideas?
I’ve had no trouble with the alcohol wipe for the past thirty years or more. The cloth only needs to slightly moist to do the trick. If it’s wet enough to damage the varnish, then it’s too wet. And it’s *really* not that hard to be careful. Be sure to be of sound mind and body when you do it.
Yep, rubbing alcohol for strings.
Linseed oil for wood - improves the tone, but not immediately before a performance!.
Keep out of hot cars and cold Oirish cottages but warm Oirish & NZ pubs seem ok
Loosen your bow after each wipe down but not so that the hairs catch in your fiddle.
Make sure the bow holder in your case keeps it from dropping onto your fiddle so that interesting personally identifiable gouges aren’t rendered.
Keep it closed in your silica gel ensconced case.
Wrap the body in an OLD silk scarf, not new, for the oils to exude and polish it up after each play as well as the wood of the bow.
Put a tiny piece of something (plastic) under your E string to prevent it biting into your bridge.
A yearly luthier visit is probably a good idea too.
That’s what I have been telling my pupils for 30 years anyway.
Siamsa!
Lots of good advice for fiddle care! Does anyone have any suggestions for bow-care? For example, should I remove the resin with a cloth after each use or leave it on the bow? How much resin is best to use anyway (perhaps there’s already a thread going for that).
Sorry: Swamp cooler is in fact an alternate term for an evaporative cooler. It is a cheap and remarkably effective alternative to air conditioning in hot dry climates like the Western US or Ozz….makes the air inside comfortably non-dry.
Terry
As for leaving rosin on the instrument: some people like it for the image--very rustic and oft used-- but bad for the fininsh of the instrument. Over time it has a chemical reaction with the finish causing it to feel rough and eventually look like reptillian scales. Of several old fiddles left to me by my dad two were severely damaged due to rosin . They were in the case for a decade until I decided to take up the fiddle. Luckily, the best one had been kept clean, is a joy to play, and is somewhat valuable now according to luthiers.
It was not mentioned by anyone, unless I missed it , that it is important to expose every inch of the interior of the case to sunshine for a day every month or so to cut down on the mites which eat the bow hair causing it to weaken and sometimes break. Some people will put mothballs in the case for this, but the smell is unpleasant.
Yeah. Got a big swamp cooler then. Yep, couldn’t live without it in the summer (but its winter now so don’t need it. have a heater instead). Makes a lotta noise. but what good is having a rewardingly nice sounding fiddle if you cannot play it because of the climate? and now 30 years on, the old Chinese cheapy knock-a-bart one has developed problems as well.
… But how long should a fiddle survive before it needs attention? What is reasonable? Would things be any different somewhere else? Hard questions to answer. The old girl has already cost me more than twice what I paid for her in repair bills, whereas the Chinese cheapie hasn’t seen a repair shop in 30+ years - but needs one now - or do you decide to hoye it in the rubbish and buy another new Chinese cheapie in its place. Disposible. For satisfaction I know which one I would prefer to play. Is 30 years all you can expect out of a Chinese cheapie?. … walft walft regurgitate, ruminate, ponder the unponderables - or get down to it and do the best you can with what youve got. Sounds good to me.
The first fiddle I was given was a Chinese cheapy. But with the right set-up she plays pretty good. I hope 30+ years on she’d would be worth repairs after all the good tunes she’d have given me.
That ’s my piece of eight worth
Eye eye Piorite Fiddler and Hard to pin down, that. The Chinese cheapie has done me more than oilright. For 25 years it was me only fiddle. but well I remember someone saying at a session once “isn’t it time you got a better fiddle?” Took offence … liked the one I had. What’s wrong with it, thought I, sounds okay to me. And it did sound okay. It wasn’t until I got the old girl (200+ years) that I knew any different, and now I see the Chinese cheapie for what it is: not as responsive, mellow or rewarding to play. The Chinese cheapie still sounds alright, don’t get me wrong, and its great fer a spare, taking out camping in the bush, when travelling in the car, if its likely to get sprayed with beer, etc. Don’t have to worry too much about it. Its just that you see the likes of it not worth anything on eBay, and now it needs repairing and I wonder whether it would be worth it - spending a heap of money patching something kindda disposible. Like washing up paper plates. Repair the old girl, yes, worth it, hope she can play another 100 years, hang the cost … but repairing the Chinese cheapie would cost the same as the same sort of repairs on the old girl and still it wouldn’t be worth anything (except fer the sentimental value of the tunes it gave me, of course). Could buy another one new for less than the cost of repairs. That’s what I’m trying to say, not very eloquently.
Yep, I bid on one once but then the seller withdrew it. He said it had an accident. Whatever that means. Now those Chinese violins, while appearing to be very cheap, have not only exorbitant postage rates, but administration fees, handling fees, packing fees etc etc. So although the price seems ridiculously low, by the time you pay the fees they aint so cheap after all.
Hey Four, there’s no racism intended or unintended from this direction! A cheapy is a cheapy where ever it is made, which just happens, in my (and your) fiddles’ cases, to be China. The ones I was looking at in Aus had shipping, handling, labour, management and insurance costs, all up: $203 + $4.99 for the fiddle.
Have decided, instead, to invest in a packet of hide glue fer less than $10.00 Aus. Maybe learn something about repairing cracks meself. It won’t really matter if I make a bit of a mess of things on the Chinese cheapy now will it? … and I might learn a new thing or two in the process.