Started playing the fiddle for the first time about a month ago.
Just realised this rash on my neck Iv’e been to the quacks might be related.
It started with just a few spots were I stick my chin rest, but then its done a circumference and looks like sunburn. Its really itchy and painfull and flairs up esp.at night.
Is it the rest/rosin?, please help before I pack up playing the bloody thing.
Got a grey beard as well . . had it about 20 years though !!
Are you allergic to nickel? The metal bit of chin rests is made of nickel and can cause this.
Nickel ? don’t know . Have you had the same thing?
Had a look on the internet about nickel allergy . . didn’t realise it was a problem and quite common.Don’t want to stop playing if it is that . .
Why stop? Must be easy enough to find a chin rest without nickel or else find someone to make one for you.
No, haven’t had it as I play pipes. But I know of people who have had this problem.
Hi JustinT- is your chin rest plastic? If it is you may want to switch to an ebony, or other wood variety. i started with a cheap plastic one but when I switched it made a big difference comfort-wise. You can also get those comfy cover things too which might help your problem. Like these: http://www.sharmusic.com/search.asp?catID=30&SKW=ACCCHINCOMKEY§ionID=5
Not allergic… just a “sensitive” fella 😉
BTW, I know a fiddle player who has foam attached to the fiddle with a rubber band. Could be a cheap solution.
Wittner make an all plastic chinrest that I use and like a lot. It’s marketed as “hypoallergenic” so either there’s an issue for some people, or it’s ingenious marketing.
A piece of chamois leather over the chinrest and end of the fiddle may help, but someone I know has ended up playing without a chinrest as the only solution. Anything rather than give up!
If there is a nickel allergy there it’s worth checking out the bow (some have nickel-plated parts), and some strings, which may have nickel in there somewhere.
Playing without a chinrest - perfectly feasible, certainly for ITM. The chinrest wasn’t invented until the 1820s (by the violinist-composer Spohr), so until then everyone did without. The trick is to have your chin on the E-string side of the tailpiece. This stabilises the fiddle and stops it from sliding down towards your right, and you need hardly any pressure (or even none at all) applied by the chin to the belly of the instrument. It’s a very relaxed support and you should be able to move your head around easily. If you go down this route you may find you don’t even need a shoulder rest - perhaps a cloth pad, and that’s all. Imho, the instrument also sounds better without the chinrest.
Aha, this may explain the allergy I seem to have to the metal winding on my bow. My index finger did what Justintime’s neck did. So a luthier friend just wrapped that winding in a thin leather tape of some sort. Resolved the problem almost completely. Never had a problem w/ the chinrest - but then I almost always wear high collars and bandanas. Hmmm. Enlightening thread for me. Thanks.
I have the same problem (no beard here) and I don’t use
a chinrest. Clean your chin/neck thoroughly w/ soap and
then swab w/ rubbing alcohol. Hope this helps.
Interesting, lazyhound. I play without a chin rest (I got that from my mom, who played that way), but I put my chin on the bass side exactly where it would be with a chin rest.
I never thought to put my chin anywhere else, but after reading your post I gave it a shot. I found that with my chin on the treble side I was completely disoriented; everything is out of whack and it would take a long time to get used to that.
Also, if you look at a lot of old violins you can see that a lot of them have wear in the varnish from the chin on the bass side. It seems a lot of violins were played without a chin rest that way.
Another chinrest material to consider: Rosewood. Many people are allergic to resins in rosewood. In fact when I bought my rosewood chinrest (to match the fingerboard) the luthier who sold it to me mentioned that and offered to exchange it should there be a problem.
I’ve got a couple of old chin-rests that make me itch - they’re old plastic, perhaps bakelite, and I stopped using them. No problem with ebony, but I also bought a Wittner plastic “allergenic” chinrest which was pretty cheap and that one’s fine - in fact it’s very comfortable.
Screetch, there’s a technical reason (in addition to providing better stability) for not using the bass side, and it’s that the bass side vibrates more freely than the treble side. If you press your chin hard on the bass side, which you naturally tend to do to stabilise the instrument and which is why many do it, it will slightly deaden the tone. This is also why a chinrest should be carefully positioned so as not to intrude too much onto the vibrating wood.
In the 17/18th centuries some players would lightly rest their chin on the tailpiece for stability when coming down from the higher positions. There were also fingering techniques, still in use today by some baroque specialists (the fiddle player in the band Red Priest is one), whereby the hand is “walked” back down the fingerboard from the higher positions by alternate movement of the thumb and fingers.
Baroque violin technique tended to avoid too much position shifting, especially downwards, by using open strings a lot (which today some classical musicians avoid), and by playing across the strings in the high positions so as to avoid some position shifts. All of which contributes to the baroque sound and style.
Position shifting is almost never needed in playing ITM (probably no more than a couple of dozen tunes require it), so all the above chat about shifting is mostly irrelevant. However, I think there are a couple of good reasons why it is useful to do a bit of work on position shifts (up to the 4th position, say). The first, and more important, is that it frees up the left hand - you can’t do position shifts (or a decent vibrato when needed) if you’ve got the dreaded “death grip” - and therefore the ease of movement of the fingers. The second is, of course, is that it’s useful to have the technique in your tool kit in case it’s ever needed unexpectedly.
I appreciate that having the chin on the treble side of the tailpiece seems strange at first, but one day is hardly sufficient to learn this technique. Give it a few days’ practice and it will soon feel natural, both for the left hand and the bowing. I know, I’ve done it.
Speculation: Perhaps the rash is merely psychosomatic.
His body is suffering because his sub-conscious mind is rebelling at the prospect of playing the fiddle. He is simply in denial about what he truly wants to do, which is a common condition.
When he comes to grips with the truth, the rash should disappear.
In the deepest wells of his soul, he truly wants to play the uilleanns.
I suspect that is true of most ITM musicians, although many become quite accomplished on the other surrogates for bagpipery.
Cheers, all.
“I suspect that is true of most ITM musicians, although many become quite accomplished on the other surrogates for bagpipery.”
Tosh! Flim flam! 🙂
Seriously, this is some interesting stuff. I had been aware of certain metal and wood allergies but had not related them to discomfort with the fiddle.
On a slightly related note, have any of you ever heard of the following affliction: my wife took some violin lessons when she was young, but said that the vibrations passing through her jaw from the instrument actually made her nauseous. She was physically unable to continue playing for long. That discussion first came up when we were watching the movie “The Red Violin” and I stated my desire to take up the violin/fiddle.
I’d never heard of that before, but then she’s also come close to getting sick in small airplanes and small sailboats. The bit about one’s chin or jaw damping vibrations on the bass side of the belly (from lazyhound) made me think of that story.
Sounds like a wicked case of “Fiddler’s Neck”:
A common skin condition experienced by violinists and violists at both the amateur and professional level is “fiddler’s neck,” an area of hyperpigmentation and lichenification on the left side of the neck, below the angle of the jaw. Erythema, scaling, cyst formation, scarring, and inflammatory papules or pustules also occur.[18,19] Focal neck edema can lead to concerns about the cosmetic appearance or even malignancy.[19] These skin changes have been attributed to a number of factors, including poor technique leading to increased pressure of the instrument on the skin of the neck, increased friction between the instrument and the skin caused by a poorly fitting chin rest or an inadequate shoulder rest, poor hygiene, and even the size of the instrument. Viola players may be more prone to have fiddler’s neck than violinists because the instrument is larger and heavier.[18] Holding the violin or viola in a more horizontal, less “drooping” position can often correct the edema of fiddler’s neck.[19]
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/439438_2
If it is a small area of metal that is causing the irritation you could try carefully applying a light covering of clear nail varnish to the metal (not to the skin!) to form a barrier between the metal and the skin. You would have to be careful not to drip it onto your fiddle though.
Perspiration wants to collect under a fiddler’s chin. That could encourage a fungal infection. It also encourages glue to soften.
Bob, yer right, of course. I got tired of always having to glue my chin back on, so I finally had my jaw welded shut….
😀
That’s why you’ll often see soloists under hot lights on a concert platform have a strip of cloth between their chin and the instrument.
Hey, your not the only one I’ve heard of who has that. I do too, what my directors did was get this plastic/ rubber thing I don’t know what it actually is but it works perfectly it needs sticky tack and velcrow to keep it on your instrument. I used to have this huge rash on my neck and it came from my violin. Nobody suspected it and neither did I. But after a few months of what I went through to get it, it was all worth it at the end. Or you can get a cushion shoulder rest that you can get at a music store use that and for more protection get a old rag or shirt and sow or tie it onto your instrument. It works just as well as the other thing does too. And I’m the only one in my orchestra who has this & I’m getting allergic to the strings but I have hypo allergenic strings so I’m getting gloves in a few days before me & my orchestra leaves for a trip that were gonna perform too ( yay !!). But heres my advice that all I’ve used besides a chin rest that is invented for cases like yours & ( not really mine) it has a little cloth that covers a little piece of metal it’s suppost to help musicians who are allergic to metal, sadly not me ( its kindve funny though if you think of it).
There are three potential contact allergens here. People have already mentioned nickel and rosewood. The third one is latex - it’s common for chinrests to have latex-covered doodads that grip the fiddle.
I’d suspect rosewood as the most likely, or maybe just sensitivity to sweat. But latex allergy is by far the worst of these, and once you’ve got it, it can rapidly progress to a life-threatening risk. So it’s worth making sure it’s not implicated.