Books › The Violin: How to Master It, 1880 › scan 16
Scan 16
The Violin: How to Master It, 1880
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1in some cases, the muscles are soft, the joints loose and flexible, and the body unset. There need be no disguising of the tact—the left shoulder, arm, wrist and collar-bone have to be set to the instrument, and the right arm, shoulder, elbow and wrist have to be gradually adapted to the proper management of the bow, as surely and imperatively as the muscles of a professional acrobat have to be set in youth to the accomplishments of his feats. A pupil above eighteen or twenty before beginning, I never knew to make great attainments in the study. Even beginning at these ages I have seen a very fair success, but it is far too late to give the instrument a fair trial; and many difficulties are then greatly increased by the joints having become set and the muscles hard. Fifteen is quite late enough, as eight is just early enough; but a great deal depends upon the build of the pupil. In beginning early, however, care must be taken that the young pupils are not kept too closely at the instrument; the study ought to be gradual, so as not to dwarf the chest, with plenty of cricket or other out-door exercise to relieve it; just enough, indeed, to set the muscles and frame, and excite an interest and love of the instrument in the young breast. A smaller instrument and a shorter bow must be used so that the pupil may not describe a curve with his bow in attempting to draw it the full length across the string.
3CHAPTER III.
5The Choice of an Instrument—Genuine Cremonas.
7In no case do we find such extraordinary and artificial prices given for instruments as for violins, as much as $5,000 being freely offered, and in some cases refused, for instruments by the best of the Cremona makers, which were eagerly sold by their makers for the modest sum of three dollars. These are the best instruments in existence, both in regard to the wood of which they are made, the mellowness of age which they have acquired, the amber varnish with which they are coated, and the artistic excellence of their build and make: but he is a lucky musician, indeed, who
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