Guide to Student Violins, Violas and Cellos

Brands

There are different levels of student instrument, the most common is the starter outfit generally aimed at the complete beginner who wants something that works, offers useable quality and the essential features.

The choice of budget starter instruments is enormous – at least in terms of brand names. Factories, mostly in China, build different grades of instrument which are then bought by dealers and large wholesalers who then in turn develop their own brand names to make sense to the retail customer. There is, and always has been, a lot of poor quality instruments on the market with many different brands to further confuse things. Some manufacturer and wholesale relationships are much more focussed on maintaining a reputation of quality and it is with these companies that the best buys are normally found.

Primavera, Cremona, Eastman, and Stentor are examples of well respected brands that have worked to maintain their  levels of quality and consistency.

Understanding Quality Levels

It is possible to find complete violin outfits (violin, bow, case, rosin) for around £40. This is exactly the instrument you don’t buy! As a teacher I’ve seen many of these and they are so badly made and set up so as to make lessons almost pointless. The strings won’t stay in tune, the bow is hopelessly warped with poor quality hair: combine this with wire strings that are far too high above the fingerboard and you’re now set to hear some of the worst screeching imaginable and waste so much lesson time wrestling with it.

So the basic expectations you should have for a beginner instrument are :

Pegs made from Rosewood, Ebony or Boxwood – these are very hard woods that are suited to being used for high tension moving parts. They have much less of a tendency to shrink or change shape which is essential for a tuning peg as it has to fit accurately at all times. It’s almost unbelieveable that someone would make violin pegs out of bendy black plastic – but they exist and are of course terrible! Most student instruments will benefit from having the pegs properly fitted rather than left as they come from the factory.

Ebony Fingerboard – It is preferable to have the fingerboard made with ebony for similar reasons, the fingerboard must have a smooth surface and no warping whatsoever. A common fault for student level fingerboards is that they have a ‘ski-jump’ bend in them making the middle area too low and the end too high resulting in difficult or impossible playing for a beginner. Even small deviations can interfere with the vibration of the strings again causing playing to be unhelpfully difficult. Ebony is the best material for violin repairers to work with and it stays the same colour when it is planed. If the fingerboard is ‘ebonised’ wood rather than real ebony the scope for sorting out problems is complicated as some treatments are simply black paint or a kind of sprayed on lacquer which doesn’t yield well to tools. Expect a higher cost if one of these fingerboards has to be worked on.

Properly set up bridge – The bridge is very important for the success of an instrument. The bridge should be made from good quality maple which will be strong enough to support the pressure from the tightened strings. Every bridge should be cut to fit the instrument exactly in order for the strings to be the right height above the fingerboard and at the correct tension. The playing qualities of any instrument can be vastly improved with a professionally fitted bridge, however a badly fitted one can practically render it unplayable.

Good quality strings – While it’s possible to get started with standard student factory strings that come with a new instrument it is highly recommended to change to a decent set of strings such as D’Addario Prelude or Warchal Ametyst or Karneol.