My Rental Violin

It’s time to turn my rental violin back into the shop.  I feel like I barely got to know it – I’ve been practicing on my new instrument for almost a month, so it was really only the first two months of coming back to the violin during which I played the rental.  I thought it would be far longer.

I chose this rental shop in part because they apply rental fees to the eventual purchase of an instrument.  I expected to rent for two years, then to buy an instrument from them.  Unexpectedly coming into my father-in-law’s violin late last year, superior in quality to any I would consider purchasing for myself anytime in the foreseeable future, changed my plan.

The repair person/luthier my teacher introduced me to and with whom I plan to continue working on my 87 year old instrument is not at the rental shop, so it’s possible this will be my last interaction there.  I found them to be very nice and accommodating, and I expected, over time, to give them far more than just one quarter’s violin rental fee –  it’s a tiny, locally owned place and I like supporting them.  But I’m sure they will be fine without me – they’ve been around since the early 80s.

My rental, pictured above, was made in 2005 in Reghin, Romania.  It’s called “Euro Basic Lacquered.”  It has a high polish orange lacquer and a two-piece back.  It has fine-tuners on all four strings, and it came with fingertapes marking first position on the fingerboard, and a case that I like a lot (I’m still working on getting a case for my new instrument).  It also came with a Glasser NY bow.

It was a fine instrument with which to start my journey, and I’ll remember it fondly.

Thanks for reading.

Ryan