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Well, I have a Heinrich E. Heberlein job labeled 1922, and no matter what its lowly pedigree may be it has very nice tone for the fiddling I do. On the other hand, my '20s "Jacobus Stainer" factory job is a real canoe paddle....

My instruments are not costly ones. My main fiddle (which I love and which has a terrific tone for old-time fiddling) is labeled 1921 Heinrich E. Heberlein Jr. My "beater" fiddle is your typical Stainer factory job from about the same time. So these are not what you'd call fine instruments, MANFIO. I've been playing for many years, but I recently started wondering this about cross-tunings. Oh, and I use Prim steel strings on my good fiddle and Pirastro Chromcors on my "second fiddle".

Hi, I am a fiddler who plays old-time, and thus I use odd tunings. My question: I often tune AEAE or ADAE (please don't poke fun), and so I leave one of my fiddles tuned to one of those tunings. Question: Knowing how sensitive these instruments are, am I causing stress on my fiddles when I store them tuned "up" like that? Should I tune them back to standard when I put them away after playing? thanks...mike

After saying all that, I certainly hope you enjoy the 10 hours of being detained that would follow.... :-)

I'm happy to say that the screener did no apparent damage to my fiddle (not sure of the value...1922 H. E. Heberlein, half-decent box for fiddling but hardly a valuable instrument, execpt to me). However, what if he knocked the soundpost down or something while doing this? People who don't play violin or fiddle have no idea how fragile these things are.

You asked what I played for the screeners. I'm a fiddler, so I played "Soldier's Joy," which is like the Esperanto of fiddle tunes.

I fly with my fiddle every couple months from New York to Vancouver. The only bad things that have happened with my fiddle are: 1. One ham-handed TSA fellow insisted on sticking a dental mirror into the f-holes to look for, well, whatever. 2. At a small airport, the security crew playfully did not let me pass till I played them a tune, which after 12 hours of traveling I was not in the mood to do. But I did it anyway.

UPDATE: Saw the luthier today. He says he thinks I wasn't cautious in "pulling back" the bridge before each tuning; he says my current setup is the most sensitive I've had and that I need to be more careful with it. (Imagine...telling a fiddler who plays old-time music to "be careful...") Denouement: He offered to replace the bridge free of charge, since he was the one who installed it six weeks or so ago. I was not going to ask him to do this. I think this is a very nice gesture and will continue to speak highly of his shop.

I will call the guy tomorrow and report back...thanks, all!

I don't have the best eyesight, but it didn't look to be leaning....

Six weeks ago, I had a new "winter" bridge put on my fiddle by a highly respected local violin shop. I am a fiddler who tends to play pretty hard. I'd played it for a couple weeks and it sounded just great. The other night (luckily at home rather than at a gig) I noticed the fiddle kept going out of tune, which is unusual for my instrument. Then, suddenly, the damned bridge snapped clean in half lengthwise. Stupid question, perhaps, but any idea how this could happen? And for those of you who do repairs: Would I be within my rights to ask the repairman, who has a good reputation in town, to replace the bridge for free?

The bowing is indeed the thing, especially in old-time playing. I can't read, but I don't think there is a way to write it. You gotta hear it and learn it by ear.

And happy violining to you!

Right, La.... No war at all here. I have no interest whatever in playing classical music. In fact, I have been playing for nearly 30 years and can't read. Just wanted to point out that to a fiddler, chances are "hand position" is totally irrelevant. And yes, call it rustic or whatever, fiddlers generally want a different sound than do classical players.

Oh, and TropMom, a question: I don't understand your "thing of horror" comment about hand positions. A lot of fiddlers don't think about things like hand positions because it's not relevant to traditional music. It reminds me of a comment someone made a while back on this board about how posture is important and that they were horrified at the posture some fiddler had. This made me laugh, since I could not at all understand why posture was relevant. Someone posted a good point: that if I went to see the Philadelphians and half of them had their legs crossed or were hunched down, I'd be horrified. True. Because it's relevant in classical music. In fiddling it's not relevant. Fiddlers don't worry about hand positions. That's just the way it is. These are two different musical worlds with two different sets of rules.