Well I have finally made a decision after trying a few fiddles and my new violin made her debut at my lesson tonight.

Her name is Claudia! She's a 7/8 size Gliga Gama and she has a lovely sweet sound and is a pleasure to play!!! I'm just thrilled with her and just want to keep playing - my fingertips are getting quite sore but they're toughening up.

She's been to fiddle orchestra and did really well, especially in the Slow Airs .

I can't believe how much more comfortable it is for me to play the 7/8 size and the difference between the Gama and my Zeller is quite dramatic. He's going as a trade-in but I've told him he's going on a cruise.

Roll on tomorrow so I can do some more practice......

Congratulations on your new violin Claudia! May you both have a long 'joyful', 'playful' time together

How exciting! Glad you are so pleased with your choice!

Oh dear...he'll be so disappointed, unless of course he is bought by a sailor!

If I dare ask -

what makes one violin male and the other female??

Liz

the 'vibes' you get from it? maybe? it must be as my violin told me his name is Figaro

I agree entirely with that. My fiddle is an old French one and I was determined that he was going to be called something sophisticated such as Baptiste, Thibault or Pierric... sadly after much playing and discussion, turns out he's a bearded old scots drunk with a disturbingly broad sense of humour and wants to be called Hamish McFight...

Not what I expected, but quite representative I feel of his nature (having tried some scales to the end of the fingerboard, he wasn't impressed being a fiddle who likes to stay in first position for the scots stuff - he will grudgingly move up to fifth if you buy him a half a pint of whisky, but he's having none of that classical hoo-haa unless you get him well and truly sozzled.)

Allan
(I swear that an attempt to play Czardas last night turned into a reel called 'breeches Mary'... I'm almost certain I heard a cackle too...)

Well my Zeller was call Jim. My neighbour and I used to giggle ourselves silly (and yes, I'm a grown woman) that I was going to 'fiddle with Jim' in public! Jim's now been fiddled with in various locations!!! He's packed up to go on a cruise and is hoping to meet a lady violin somewhere for sweet duets - I hadn't the heart to tell him he's being 'posted'

Then the full size Gama arrived and he was immediately 'Lokie' from Lok, the swedish for onion. Don't ask. But he was quite a grumpy fellow and didn't speak English.

Claudia is a beautiful, if green and naive, young fiddle. She has a tiny flaw in her varnish which makes her beauty real so she's no china-doll! She's got a wild streak to her which makes her reels and jigs fly with daring abandon and she's already shaking down my Grade 2 pieces, albeit with a Romanian accent!! We're going to be great companions learning to play together.

You're nutters, the pair of you

Well, that might make two of us needing our heads examined. I'm now considering a degree in archaeology, specifically Egyptology, but I might branch out into some Roman archaeology too.

awwww


Naturally it's all the fiddle's fault and nowt to do with Allan and Guinness





^ some more nutters here by the sounds of it

So where did you do your BSc, Amanda, and where are you planning to do archaeology?

Liz

University College London for the BSc. I'll probably do the achaeology with them as well - they're well equipped for Egyptian studies with the Petrie Museum on-site and the British Museum only around the corner.

First stop is a one week summer school in July, with the UCL Bloomsbury Academy. A course for beginners in reading hieroglyphs.

Well that certainly sounds interesting!

You've all got me thinking - I was half-way through a PhD when my painting just took over... I wonder if I could finish it part-time??....

nahhhhh - too much like hard work

.. but I do fancy a second MA in Art History..... but a quick question - where do you get the money for the course fees etc for all your studies?? Grants in Scotland are like hens teeth (as my mother would say)!

Hope you have some good times with Claudia Don't do anything I wouldn't do.....i.e do everything lol!

From the husband

I've never known anyone give their violins names...it's a great idea!!! love it!