Rusted Violin after Vacation
I'm back from a wonderful week in Western Newfoundland. And like after every vacation, despite my eagerness to take the violin back in my hands and play some tunes, the violin started sounding really awful (and I'm not talking about a bad tuning here). I don't know, it's like every time I leave the 4 stringed instrument for a week or more, I need few days before I gain back the full sound of the instrument or even get a round nice sound from this monster. If the violin would be a cat or a dog, I would say there's an affection dependency here! Hum... If I stop blaming the violin, does it mean I'm the "rusted" one here?Let me go back to basics and see how it goes! Am I the only one that goes through this or do you guys experience the same thing?
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Kasey Wong on -
I go through this too. It's like..during the summer....I tend to stop practicing as much and I relax and swim and hang out with my family and friends. But, when I do practice, the violin doesn't sound as well. It's crazy. I don't know. It's in tune and I make sure no one touches it to make it out of tune. It's weird. Not only that....but my wrist hurts after playing it. Is that weird at all? Why does my wrist hurt after playing it? It's crazy. But, it happens to me too. So, you aren't alone.
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Permalink Reply by Sarah Freiberg on -
I play both baroque and modern cello--but don't always play both every day. While my modern cello doesn't seem any different when I don't play it, my baroque cello NEVER likes its enforced vacations, and always protests after only a few days of "neglect". I always try to coax out resonant sounds with long bowed slow scales to reawaken it. And when I go on vacation as well--we just slowly reacquaint ourselves with lots of scales, stretching exercises and basic studies.
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Permalink Reply by David Rumpf on -
Unfortunately, playing skills are no respector of performance genre. Basketball players don't play well if they are off very any extended period of time. Similarly with musicians. The muscles become trained to respond with skill under repetition and conditioning. With the lack of targeted use, those muscles will gradually lose their ability to respond in the most skilled and directed way.
Keep up a reasonable practice schedule, and that affectionate dog will come back, wagging tail and all. :-)
DAR
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Permalink Reply by Dennis Tielmann on -
Interesting topic! I've experienced similar things with other instruments, even electrical ones. I've long come to the conclusion that almost all inanimate objects can have personalities on their own (cars, computers etc) and instruments are on the top of that list. So always try to adopt a loving, grateful attitude.
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Permalink Reply by Boltzero on -
I'm so rusty at the moment that I can barely get out, "Oil can,... Oil can". ;)
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Permalink Reply by Bunny Hill on -
I'm experiencing the same after traveling to Mexico then returning to Idaho. While both climates are relatively dry one is salty sea level and the other is 6000' mountain air. I was told to loosen the strings before flying with violin but forgot. Maybe that's part of the problem, warped violin. I'm going to have my instructor look at it, I'll let you know if he sees anything wrong with the violin, but I sound terrible to. I thought it might be the different acoustics of each room too.
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Permalink Reply by sharon h on
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Ha Ha, I'm the same. I spent a week in bed and my violin now sounds sick too.
My chn's school told us that for every day you miss practice, you regress two days.
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Permalink Reply by Dave Light on -
Ditto. I've just come off six weeks of playing valve trombone in a pit band for the run of a local stage production. Got back to the violin this week. Whoa! Rusty or what! It doesn't manifest itself so much in an inability to play at all (I can still rattle off fiddle tunes at high speed), but rather in a lack of reliability (i.e.: my improv "chops" just aren't there all the time) I played at one of my regular sessions Tuesday night and all the chops were pretty much intact. Since then, my improv has been pathetic: unimaginative with crappy intonation in all positions!
The situation may not right itself for a while yet: I start next week on rehearsals for another "pit band" show. It'll be early May before I'm "free to fiddle" without some other instrument battling for time and muscle memory!
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