How would you pick a new instrument?

College Majors Music Major
1

<p>According to my daughter, it involves several weeks worth of spending hours in the car, driving to various places trying out a variety of instruments. She says it can take months even to find the right one. </p>

<p>As a result, she cannot get a new instrument. Her schedule is booked. We do not have room to carve out 1-2 days a week, to spend the days driving from place to place trying out instruments. It seems nuts to me that this is the process it takes. In addition, the cost is also a factor. Once we find that ONE instrument, it will cost $5000-6000 is what she has told me. The grandparents did offer at one point to buy her an instrument, but could not because she said it could not be just purchased, it had to be obtained through this long, costly, fashion. </p>

<p>I refuse to travel more than an hour or two to try out an instrument (unless we had reason to believe that the one we were going to was really going to be the one, and even in that case, it would have to be driving distance). </p>

<p>As it is, I spend $120 per lesson for her instrument lessons. I drive 45 minutes each way for that lesson. Then there are the 2 orchestras she is in which costs money too. And she is not an only child. </p>

<p>So, please, in a non attacking way, tell me what is really involved in purchasing a new instrument? ANd how much should be spent. This is for a viola. I think she pretty much has the lowest grade right now. Thank you.</p>

2

<p>Sorry, I cannot speak for strings, but we always had D’s teachers helping us in this regard. In fact, they both offered to go pick out instruments for her, for which I paid them the cost of one lesson. They “pre-screened” several instruments and she made the final decision. If you can get a teacher or other knowledgeable person to help you in this way, I would recommend it.</p>

3

<p>I don’t have string players in my family any more, but my daughter has always had assistance picking out a new instrument from her teacher. My daughter plays several instruments so we have done this a number of times. Two she bought new on advice from her teachers; I drove her out 1-3 hours away and she selected one. Of the others: She bought a used English horn from her teacher (with her own money). Her bassoon teacher went out and picked out a used bassoon himself and delivered it to us. My daughter selected her baritone and soprano saxophones by spending hours at sax symposiums trying out all the models (and bought them herself). After she had decided on a model, we took one day to go 4 hours each way to NYC where she spent 2 hours trying the different baritones and selected one. </p>

<p>You spend a lot of money on music lessons–but I understand that lessons for strings are a lot, considerably more than what woodwind players normally charge. For that price, I would think the teacher should take your daughter there himself/herself. </p>

<p>It is a time-consuming process, I’ll agree. Can your daughter wait until summer to buy a new instrument, or until she has a license and can drive around herself?</p>

<p>Perhaps it is easier living a large metropolitan area as instrument shops, orchestra rehearsals and lessons are not so far away.</p>

4

<p>Another one here who used the teacher, tho not for strings. The teacher arranged with the store that was about 45 minutes away to have the selections ready that he approved. S1 made his selection from among those. Took one Saturday for us.</p>

5

<p>Painful, isn’t it? I am just starting this process (again!) with my daughter (oboe). There are a relatively small number of double reed specialists, and it is difficult to find a dealer who has a large number of instruments in their inventory, so you can pop into their store and try out a try out a few. (Made even harder because the ones that they do have are constantly being shipped out for trial periods with other perspective customers.)</p>

<p>Her oboe professor will give us a lot of guidance. One of two things will likely happen. Either we will shop online (from the list of approved double-reed dealers) and have a few oboes shipped to her as loaners so she can try them (with her professor) for a period of time or we will wait until “double reed day” (in three months) so she can play a handful of oboes, vendors will bring at professor’s request for her to try, and then still have to deal with a “trail period” and then shipping the not wanted oboe(s) back. Starting the process now will probably result in her having the instrument sooner, but might end up costing more out of pocket in shipping multiple instruments back and forth.</p>

<p>The closest double reed specialist is about 2.5 hours away and the next closest is around 4.5 hours…ugh!</p>

<p>After all that, we will deal with selling her current oboe.</p>

6

<p>It took several months and some false starts to find a classical guitar for my daughter. She had started with a $100 model that was remarkably good, but at a certain point (4 years I think!), her teacher really insisted that she get a better one. He had some ideas and contacts, and gave a lot of advice. I would say he was most helpful at nixing possibilities that we would dig up, to be honest.</p>

<p>We were about to travel 5 hours each way, to NYC, to a private seller, after driving to stores, looking online, meeting luthiers, reading ads, and so on. At the last minute, the teacher’s luthier contact called the teacher with a really wonderful guitar that he was refurbishing, and offered it for $2k. So it really was the teacher who found it.</p>

<p>The transition to this new guitar was heavenly, and it really made a huge difference in terms of nuances for her playing. I wish we had been able to get it sooner, but the wait was worth it.</p>

<p>It took patience and faith, not always in a lot of supply when raising 3 kids, driving and paying for lessons and so on. My sympathies!</p>

7

<p>Unfortunately, travel and expense seem to go hand in hand with procuring a new instrument for college level playing or above. He has reached the point where his instrument is hindering his playing and not producing the tone and sound he wants. Son has been looking for 3 years for the perfect fit both musically and financially. His current plan is to travel to NYC over his winter break with the assistance of his private teacher from his high school years. Fortunately, they will drive together and he does have money that he has set aside for the “one”. At one point he was going to drive about 500 miles and meet up with the seller who was also driving 500 miles to meet up so he could test the instrument. Fortunately (or fortunately), they couldn’t agree on an attractive enough price for son so that trip didn’t happen. Of course after this, he will also need the perfect bow!</p>

8

<p>It took my D3 years to find her instruments (violins), and we traveled more than 500 miles. What I disliked about the process is that when she brought the trial instruments to lessons, the instrument evaluation took up a lot of the valuable lesson time-- but, it is a necessary expense of time in this quest.</p>

<p>[edit] Oh, yes, and there is the bow! One of my daughter’s bows came through absolute serendipity-- a donor gave it to her while she was at a summer music program. Her other bows came through many trials, although we were able to find one, by a modern maker, through a dealer in our own city.</p>

9

<p>If it makes you feel any better, D3 is now on year 2.5 of the search for the viola that will take her from undergrad to grad school…probably will need a better one at that point. It’s not even the cost now, it’s the issue of finding something, anything, that works for her. The situation is not helped by her petite size and the fact that she’s been playing her teacher’s student instrument which turns out to be miles better than anything in our price range. We thought we had found a potential one last month, ended up spending a couple hundred dollars to ship it halfway across the country, but it was a dead end.</p>

<p>Meanwhile, we’ve got the violin that she was “supposed” to use through grad school sitting in the living room gathering dust.</p>

<p>And there’s no point thinking about bows until she finds “the” instrument. Ugh!</p>

10

<p>It is not an easy process. My D’s first three violas were from a shop that was 400 miles away. The latest purchase, at the end of her undergrad, was months in the making. She eventually purchased from a shop in Chicago, after trying instruments in a bunch of cities. The process will be much more manageable if you recalibrate your expectations. Just know going in that it’s going to be expensive and time consuming. </p>

<p>Also, unless you’re buying a “package” (which I would not recommend) you are only buying the instrument. No bow. No case. </p>

<p>The good news: </p>

<p>There’s very little risk involved in the process. She was able to take instruments for trial periods that were weeks in length. Most shops will also give you full price credit when it’s time to upgrade again. Since she didn’t purchase the new viola from the same place as the instrument she was replacing, she was able to trade it for a very nice bow at the other shop. </p>

<p>If I read your post correctly, it sounds as if your D’s viola is not great. The difference between what she’s playing now and what she can get for $5k to $6k will be tremendous. Even though it’s all crazy expensive, I enjoyed the search.</p>

<p>As to your other question about price, there’s no cut and dried answer. There really is no upper limit on what could be spent, but you should be able to find a nice instrument in your price range. </p>

<p>As another string parent mentioned, the search for a bow can be just as challenging and almost as expensive!</p>

<p>Another option is to trial instruments through the mail. We tried that this summer when we were trying to buy a rotary trumpet in C for my son. For us, this was less successful. He tried three instruments and didn’t find one that he liked. Shipping expensive instruments adds up really fast. That search is ongoing. (Trumpets are a lot less expensive, but you need so many of them! The arsenal currently includes Bb, C, Eb/D, piccolo… Still needs rotary trumpets in Bb and C, flugelhorn and cornet… It never ends!)</p>

11

<p>Also worth noting: since she was relatively young, D3 had a special feeling when she found “the” instrument or bow. Wait for that; it’s worth it.</p>

12

<p>

Also, with string instruments, if you ship them you generally take down the sound post, and even if not, the instrument will certainly need an adjustment before it’s playable after shipping. So add to that the hassle (and expense) of taking it to a shop in town to get it adjusted before you try it. And then packing it back up for shipment. Difficult and expensive.</p>

13

<p>lmkh70 - As tomdug mentioned, the trial instrument by mail approach works reasonably well. Several shops sent violas for my D to try c/o her professor. She kept testing violas until she and her professor agreed they’d found the right one. Like stradmom’s D, my D is also petite, so finding the right instrument was challenging. If you are interested, PM me, and I’ll give you the name of a shop that was very helpful and sold her the viola she’s now playing.</p>

14

<p>We have found that our Luthiers that we use for our son’s current Bass to be very helpful when it comes to information about upgrading our son’s instrument. Our son currently plays a hybrid and at some point will want to get a nice carved bass. Also a Luthier can keep an eye out for somebody who might want to trade in their instrument.</p>

<p>Be careful. I know that in the double Bass market there is a lot of shady deals and people trying to take advantage of people who don’t know a lot by selling them instruments for more than they are worth. I have seen what look like amazing deals online that I know from talking with our luthier are too good to be true.</p>

15

<p>lmkh, is it your daughter’s intent to study music/performance in college?
You didn’t mention her age/grade/intent, etc.</p>

<p>My son only plays viola (term used loosely :wink: ) as a hobby (Trumpet is his main instrument; composing and production are his vocational pursuits at college). He claims it’s an instrument that you really really have to play to choose due to the wide variance in tone.</p>

<p>Before I purchased him one (blindly, and on a whim, but it worked out for his purposes in the end) he regularly tried out everything at his local band and orchestra instrument provider. At one point, he considered renting one he liked until he was certain.</p>

<p>I don’t know if this is unique to our area, but the music store that almost uniformly services (supplies, repairs, services) all the local HS band and orchestras has a rental program with progressively advanced instruments available on a rent-to-own basis with generous trade-ins available.</p>

<p>If you’re uncertain about your daughter’s intent (eg. professional intent…or not) and are hard-pressed to drop $6k on what might be a passing fancy, perhaps you could find a suitable interim option with the help of this kind of music store. I know, for example, when he demonstrated the intent to stay with trumpet, our store gave him a range of semi-professional options that saw him through his junior and senior years more than adequately. </p>

<p>But yes, there will still be the constant trial…regardless of the pricepoint, and sometimes because of it.</p>

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<p>On top of everything else, it’s not just the viola, violin, cello or bass, but the bow as well.</p>

17

<p>If you’re used to wind instruments, this can be a big change–you aren’t just buying a model, you’re buying a specific instrument. It’s more like buying a piano.</p>

18

<p>A couple of points on finding a string instrument, having gone through it several times already and having to go through it again. It is a pain, we are fortunate we live in the NYC area where there are a lot of luthiers and violin dealers to choose from. String instruments sadly are some of the most expensive instruments (compared at least to my experience with wind instruments) and the other factor is that price does not necessarily mean the instrument has great sound and/or will work for the person buying it, which is why most string dealers allow students a trial period, it is necessary to see if it really works, an hour in a store is simply not enough…</p>

<p>It is a hassle, a pain in the neck, and there are other issues with it, some of which represent the darker sides of things, but it also is a necessity. Despite the crap you hear that it is all about the players skill, it isn’t true, Itzak Perlman playing a cheap factory violin would sound better then a music student, but it wouldn’t sound like him playing a decent concert quality violin that costs 20k-30k and certainly wouldn’t sound like a Vuillaume, either. Violins have limits that come out as the student advances, and that is where a student needs to upgrade, because a violin (or other instrument) that fights doing certain things is no longer useful. Here are my thoughts on the process, some of which others have covered:</p>

<p>1)Teachers are valuable resources, and ultimately when students buy instruments they usually are the last line of checkout with getting an instrument. I think if a teacher can help with the process that is great, and yes, they should be paid for their time, it should be upfront.</p>

<p>That said, I also am going to issue a caveat about teachers and new instruments, be very, very careful with that. Not all teachers are that ethical, and the stories of teachers steering students to specific music stores because they have a kickback deal with them is true and is not all that uncommon, I know the owners of several stores that don’t do that, and they have confirmed it (and have had teachers come in after student purchased an instrument and demand a percentage of the price). It is sleazy, but many teachers say it is only fair (why, I don’t know, since they didn’t do anything…). Stores with these deals jack up the price to pay the kickback…if a teacher truly helps in the process, it is only fair they be compensated, but it should be up front.</p>

<p>Warning signs are when the teacher says “you have to go to this store to get it, all the rest are ripoffs” or tells you 'this is the store and this is the instrument you should buy". First of all, the student needs to find an instrument they feel comfortable with and work with the teacher, no teacher should say “buy this instrument”. Also be wary of a teacher that tells you to go to this store, and make sure to buy a ‘10k instrument’… if a teacher suggests some stores they have dealt with, that is fine, but you should search stores on your own as well, find instruments and take them to the teacher to see what they think. </p>

<p>Note I am not saying all teachers or all stores are like this, just saying it is not uncommon (my S’s teacher has said outright it goes on, and when my S has looked for instruments she did mention possible places, but also told us to look anywhere we wanted, and if he had instruments on trial, she didn’t want to know where they were gotten from, to keep it as unbiased as possible). I have seen things that were basically outright fraud,one teacher in my area told a student to go to a luthier in another state pretty far away, to buy an instrument, the luthier in question claimed it was a ‘hand built instrument’, when it was basically a ‘white’ factory violin from China that the luthier varnished and put pegs and a bridge and strings on…and charged them 3 times what you could get a comparable factory violin for from another shop…</p>

<p>2)When testing instruments test instruments in a range of prices, because guess what, price doesn’t necessarily mean quality. My S’s last violin cost roughly in range of what you are looking for in a new viola, and played better than violins selling for 2-3 times as much…likewise, a modern instrument by an unknown maker can be relatively modest in price, but be fantastic, because they haven’t been ‘discovered’…it is why it is worth the time and effort, because you can find gems in your price range that by sound should be worth a lot more. Don’t be afraid to try out instruments from let’s say 3k-7k in your range, </p>

<p>3)Mail order can work, places will let you try them out by mail, with the caveats others have said above. Robertson and Sons in Alberquerque is one that definitely does that, problem is of course it is a matter of luck of the draw, because you can’t try them out first, so it becomes a round robin mail ordering, and as others have said, you would need to get the instrument set up properly after mailing.</p>

<p>I suspect any parents of serious music students would sympathize and empathize with what you are going through, being a parent of music students requires a level of support I think most people, other then perhaps students of classical ballet or some activities like gymnastics, can understand, the lessons, the ensembles, the summer music programs , buying music, instrument repair, strings, reed making supplies for our double reed friends…and the time spent driving them all over, waiting in cars, it is all part of it.</p>

<p>Unfortunately, having a good instrument is critical if someone is seriously moving forward with music, and it isn’t like an off the shelf product. It isn’t like a car, where you know what you are getting for a price, can compare things like performance, gas mileage, read reviews, a 15k violin can sound worse then a 1500 buck no name sitting in a music store someplace, and because every one has its own quirks and characteristics, even 2 violins by the same maker can be very, very different, one works great, the other one not so much, so reading what others write about a maker may not mean much. IMO woodwinds and brass are a lot more standardized and make it a bit easier then strings to find something decent, but as others have written even there it isn’t easy. </p>

<p>My first thought to make it as easy as possible is to scour the local music stores, the ones easiest to get to, and see what they have before going further afield. You didn’t mention how old your D is, if she is going to be going to conservatory/college next year it is different then if she is 14. </p>

<p>To be brutally honest, using ‘objective’ factors, music has to be one of the looniest things around, the amount of time,money and effort it takes to support a serious music student is just absolutely staggering, and the effort and cost of going to college level music programs is high, and it is going into a profession with some of the most dismal job prospects around if you look at it that way. It is why you will see most people on here trying to be honest about the reality of going into music, about what it takes to make it, about what making it looks like, because it is so crazy in many ways…unfortunately it is what it is, and while there are things you can potentially avoid or skimp on, but having a good instrument is a must IME. And string instruments are especially expensive, what is considered a top level professional wind instrument like a clarinet is generally the price of a decent student instrument on violin or viola…</p>

<p>Renting is a possibility, the only thing I can say is that my experience with rental instruments is that most of them are not that great, they likely may be less quality then what your D already has. There are higher end rentals available, but they tend to be instruments for a professional to use while their main instrument is in the shop and aren’t cheap…the student rentals on strings I have seen aren’t very high level and also often aren’t in great shape, but it may be worth checking into (the rent to own ones I have seen are generally student instrument you get through a school, and I am very dubious they are worth much, they usually are factory instruments of so-so quality).</p>

19

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<p>This has not been our experience. We have sent and received instruments with strings slightly loosened, bridge packed with foam and soundpost in place, and only once has the instrument needed adjustment upon arrival. Different strokes…but wanted to mention it in case it put anyone off trying an instrument from a distant shop. Of course, going to the shop is the ideal method…and the most fun.</p>

20

<p>I’m going to respectfully disagree with my pal Stradmom-- as someone who has purchased literally dozens of instruments (4 kids playing strings for years and years), including numerous out of state purchases, and who has deliberately sought out professional advice on shipping. It’s my understanding that i f you get a decent violin by mail, you should take it to your local luthier for an adjustment so that you can really hear the sound of the instrument. Otherwise you could be rejecting an instrument without a fair trial. During the shipping process, the sound post will have moved, and even a slight motion is going to change the sound of the instrument. </p>

<p>Anecdote: when we were looking for D3’s first full size violin we had an instrument shipped to us from a famous living maker. As soon as it arrived, she eagerly tore open the box, tuned, and played it, and it sounded pretty terrible. We called the maker who told us to take it to a local shop for adjustment before making a decision. We called the shop, left a message about the instrument, and before returning our call, the luthier was on the phone to the maker in Michigan, and learned about the instrument. (There is a great deal of respect for living makers, and adjusters are reluctant to do much to instruments without permission.) We brought the instrument in and it was transformed in the adjustment. </p>

<p>But. While there, my daughter tried another dozen instruments and found one she loved more, for half the price of the famous maker’s instrument. The other violin, by an unknown maker and selected through a blind trial (with many repeated tests while out on trial) turned out to be made by the very same violin mechanic who made the famous maker’s violin sing. This is currently my daughter’s second violin-- over the years, she has had numerous comments from teachers and professionals that it is one of the best sounding contemporary fiddles they’ve heard (it cost $10K-- a hard price to beat.) </p>

<p>Anyway, I’ve had to ship instruments from time to time, and have always gone to a luthier on my end to have them prepared for shipping. My understanding is that the instruments are shipped in cargo, and the soundpost can expand as the air pressure changes and drive through the top of the violin. This was told to me at Vintage Instruments in Philadelphia, a highly reputable dealer whom you may have seen on Antiques Roadshow. (Not the same dealer we bought the aforementioned violin from.) When my daughter needed her viola sent to her at Aspen, I had Vintage prepare the instrument. My daughter took the instrument to a luthier in Aspen who set it up for her (takes ten minutes) and and did the adjustment. Then the process was reversed when she shipped it home.</p>