As some of you may know, I really want to buy a violin. After being warned off violins I saw on ebay, I went to my local music shop today. I really liked the Stentor Conservatoire, which is above what I was willing to pay (its about £140), but I couldn't really tell what the tone was like because I can only play a few notes!
I was wondering if anyone has this violin/knows anyone who has it and what grade it would take you up to? Whether they break easily or are strong and sturdy and have a good tone? It says "for the advanced player" but I would really appreciate any advive people could give me.

This is a picture and this is some more information about it.

Thanks,
Lil_miz_music xx

£140 is a pretty good price for it. I wouldn't call it a violin for an advanced player but I guess that's a matter of definition. It seems to be fairly popular with adult beginners. I guess I'd suggest it would be OK up to grade 6 or so, but again, opinions vary - I did Grade 8 on a Poller which is only marginally better.

No violins break easily as far as I know - I wouldn't worry about that as a factor.

Liz

Unless you regularly bash them over your teacher/piano/boyfriend/annoying sibling etc!

I broke my violin hitting my teacher with it

Ok....so I only broke the bow, but the principal was still the same.

My violin doent have a make. We found it in a garage up north somewhere, could have been Shetland. It's 9/8 and very comfortable to play!

I would never dream of hitting my teacher!!! I wanted to hit my flute teacher the other day when she made my spend 45 mins on two lines of boring slow music.

It depends on what you want to do with it, to be honest.

It's certainly not a violin for the advanced player - it's most definitely a student instrument. You don't get advanced violins for 140 UK! That said, it's a nice student violin, above the normal stentor 1, and 140 is a good price for it.

All in all, though, if you can only play a few notes and you can't discern the tone yet - why don't you rent for a bit and then buy something once you've made your mind up what sound quality you like?

If you're dead set on buying a fiddle, I'd suggest you buy one from Liz. A gems is a nice fiddle and, if you have it set up properly, will quite probably take you to grade 8 with no problems (a friend of mine plays one as her pub fiddle so she doesn't have to take her old French violin to boisterous sessions and she gets a great sound from it in both slow stuff and fast stuff)

Good luck choosing!

Allan

Mm, useful thread for me too. I'm currently renting a Paesold/Schroetter 060 (i.e not even as good as a Stentor Student 2) viola and am considering upgrading to Conservatoire when the rental is up for renewal then buying it. I was in my local shop the other day and saw both Student 2 and Conservatoire cellos on display and the Cons. even looked heaps better.

As a passing G5 gift, I'll get a Gliga Gama!!! Now that's thinking ahead - I haven't even been playing a full month yet!!!!

Well, it pays to think ahead, no?! Besides, it will give you something to work at G5 for (and tha gama violas are absolutely gorgeous, even better than the fiddles, I reckon).

Allan

Agreed.

Liz

gama violas... ... are absolutely gorgeous

If it is any help, I bought my 8 year old son a 4/4 Conservatoire nearly 3 years ago when he was grade 4 ish. I upgraded the strings to Dominants which made it sound a bit better but my son really didn't feel comfortable on it. I thought the tone would mellow out as time past but after 6 months we sold it and bought a 4/4 Gliga Gem 2 and haven't look back since. His violin has now matured and is sounding really good. Thanks Liz.

That's good

And that was all my fault. I led you down the path to temptation and ruin........

Yes, totally your fault!! Tsk tsk!

you would be better off buying an authentic instrument, but 2nd hand, because the stentor conservatoire isn't brilliant, and when i tried it, i thought the D string was far too zingy.

Or... why don't you try getting a better stentor: Stentor Arcadia and Stentor Elysia are the best from the range, followed by Stentor Messina, and the Conservatoire comes last...

try this website:
http://www.musical-instrumentsuk.co.uk/more/on/details/00150

Surely that's easily enough resolved by changing the string!

Well, the Stentor 2, Stentor 1 and Stentor Student come below the Conservatoire. Actually the Elysia, Arcadia and Messina are the same instrument, graded at import (almost certainly according to appearance, it would take far too long top grade them all by playing) - Stentor are quite open about this on their website.

Liz

Agree with that totally - bought one from Liz for our daughter last year and it has the most beautiful rich, resonant tone I've heard. She was a violin player (gd 4) until 12 months ago then swapped to viola and will take gd 6 in a few weeks on her Gama viola. Her teacher (who is head of strings for the county) always comments on what a nice tone she has.

Nobody should touch a Stentor 1 - it's a horrible, horrible, horrible instrument! Fit only for the dustbin I'm afraid. Well OK occasionally by complete fluke a slightly better one comes out of the factory but generally speaking they're nasty. A Stentor 2 can be OK for a year or so but if you're keen you should think about upgrading from one of those as soon as possible.

A pupil of mine has been playing on a Stentor Conservatoire 3/4 size for a couple of years now and she's very happy with it. The tone has a slight raspiness to it but it's been fine for her as long as she put good strings on it. But she's going to move up to a full-size now and is going to get something better, without the raspiness.

Violinia