Last week, my sixteen year old son was hanging around while I was fiddling around on the cello. He let me know that he thought he would like to play the fiddle. He’s taken piano for several years, but said he feels chained to that bench sometimes. He’s a pretty kinetic fellow and I could imagine him fiddling on the roof, or in the woods, or in a tree. He tried fiddling a bit on the cello and liked the feel of bowing, so we decided to buy a real fiddle.
We ordered a Knilling Perfection violin online from the Woodwind & Brasswind. It’s special attraction is that it includes “Perfection Pegs” which are the same as PegHeds. I love the machine heads on my cello, but the violin’s pegbox is pretty confined to install guitar heads, so I thought the geared pegs would be great. The violin with pegs was only $150.
The fiddle arrived a few days ago and I enjoyed a unique experience. I don’t believe I’ve ever touched a violin in my life, yet I was able to pick out a few tunes right away since it’s so much like playing the cello. I bought Peter the violin version of the Mel Bay American Fiddle Method, which has the same set of songs as my cello fiddling book, so we can play them together sometimes. He’s getting the hang of fiddling pretty quickly and he’s excited about it. This thing is contagious…