zbd1960

In the sax world, they sell own branded entry level instruments. Issue is that where they are made depends on who's giving them the best deal at the moment. This leads to variation in quality: some are really good and some decidedly less so, but a lot of people like them (but accept the constraints of the price point).

My mum was an Elvis fan, and classic musicals. I never really knew what my dad liked (I discovered later it was jazz, but we never had that discussion when he was alive). If the radio was on, it would be the Light Programme, until that was split into Radios 1 & 2, and it was Radio 2. Radio 2 used to have the odd classical music programme, which is how my interest started and by age 10 I started listening to Radio 3 at times.

As someone who sings bass in choirs, and plays various instruments as well as bass (sax, cello, piano, viol...) it is very important to avoid bad habits setting in and at the very outset a decent teacher will save you a lot of grief later on (including issues like tendinitis and RSI). Bass/guitar teachers are a lot less expensive than orchestral instrument teacher in my experience - you might only want one or two, or you may wish to have them regularly. Perhaps I'm weird, but I strongly advocate getting to grips with reading notation. The basics are not difficult. Yes, fluency takes time, but once there it makes playing unknown stuff much easier to get to grips with.

Until recently I had a bass and tenor viola da gamba, but someone was looking for a bass, so I sold it with its bow, so now just the tenor. Selling options usually reduce to advertising through your regional early music forum, the Viola da Gamba Society, or the Early Music Shop. It can help if there is a viol teacher in the area.

I've used Marc Soubeyran for rehairing my viol bows, but I was able to visit him in Ludlow when I lived in Shropshire. I've also used Julian Batey in Shrewsbury for cello bow several times (I realise not convenient for OP). Cello bow rehair jobs seem to vary between about £40 to £80

With any specialist hobby there are always newcomers. I'm in various online groups for various hobbies/interests including music, bass, photography, astronomy, hill walking, and bookbinding... If you're new to something and you've not been through the gamut of standard/common questions and queries, you're inevitably going to repeat what others hae asked before. FB is particularly bad since its search functions are limited and poor. Of all the hobby/interest related ones, the ones that I get most exasperated with are the photography ones. This arises from a lot of people getting a snazzy camera and not appreciating that it's not a 'point and shoot' device if you want to get the best out of it. The irritating ones for me are the local ones with the "when does Sainsbury's open" which can be more quickly answered by an online search for Sainsbury's... It's not worth getting overly excited over - I just scroll past the ones that don't interest me.

Most specialist violin shops/luthiers will sell for you on commission basis - will be a hefty slug e.g. 25% - but might take a while. They might buy off you.

Well, I live on my own, don't have a partner... so the main option is to talk to myself... I don't usually get into an argument. I do have friends that are interested in music (even my eclectic interests) and one who is a serious (major venue) sound engineer who used to be a bass session player.

My guess is someone didn't properly test the change...

My cello is around the £8k mark.

My cello teacher is not a fan of the Tortelier spike. I think Tortelier was very tall? I think some of the argument for them was the weighting of the bow as a result of the angle, but it must have played havoc with your left hand. Definitely a fad.

Sorry to hear that. I have Larsons on the A & D and Spirocore Tungsten on the G & C.

Cello is back from luthier. New 'A' string fitted - a standard Larson at £36.50. He managed to make the scratches 'go away' (more or less) so the back looks a lot better (back got scratched badly when I was at one of the summer schools). He's lowered the action, re-haired and cleaned my bow, made and fitted a new bridge and sound post. Unfortunately, I've hurt my left hand and I can't really play, but it plays and playing up in the treble clef is more comfortable. I've not played it enough yet to have a view on any change to the sound. Initial impression is brighter, but that's probably the new A string.

In September 1985 I'd just switched career paths to IT, left home, was about to buy my first house. I had a new Mini Metro (yeah, I know....) which I had a better cassette player put in. I seem to remember it was chrome C90s? I seem to remember Mahler 2 was a regular then.... My Linn Sondek was 3 years old then (it'll be 40 soon). My main cassette deck was a Nagamichi - wish I'd kept it.

Agreed and I think the issue here is doesn't match his view of 'right', which is different to previous luthier's 'right'. I'll be cross of the sound isn't right as the issue I had with the cello originally is that the sound was very boxed in, which the previous luthier improved a lot. Cello won't be back for another week or so.

The previous luthier moved the bridge significantly south of the notches in the f holes. His view was that he f holes were in the wrong place... This guy measured the stop length etc and said it had moved too far... The bridge is warped though. I watched a YT video on bridges and the luthier talked about a very similar issue with the bridge curving - they can get a sort of 's' bend. You have to keep an eye on it sitting square on the body using a straight edge. Straighten the bridge if it's leaning back. You need ot use a straight-edge / square to do that. I've never done it and the bridge has been on for 6 years.

I think that is very much a part of the issue: he's only 20 miles away. It's either him or a double round trip to somewhere like Liverpool. I think he's also playing on the fact that he trained at WE Hill (must have been decades ago as he's not a youngster). When it's ready, I am going to be critical as his argument for moving the bridge and hence needing a new one, which also means a new sound post as it will be in a different place, is it was int he wrong place. If I don't think it's an improvement I'm going to have a lot to say about it.

Yeah last one I had made was about half that... I rather suspect my local luthier is at the more expensive end of the spectrum

The cello is German and dates to around 1900. It's overdue a check-up by a luthier - last done about 6 years ago. Apart from a general check-up I had a couple of issues to look at. The back got scratched a couple of weeks ago, and there looks to be a small crack on the belly under the fingerboard near the neck joint... It wasn't a good news day. He will try to disguise the scratch, but the only way to properly get rid of it is to have it re-varnished and re-polished - way too expensive. He's not worried about the crack - he thinks it's an old one and as it's not causing nay issues, leave it alone. The action seems to be on the high side and needs lowering, which at the least means re-cutting the bridge. However, the bridge has a bit of a bow in it towards the tailpiece. That means a new bridge. £500. That also means a new sound post as he's going to move the bridge a bit north of where it is. £130. Bow needs re-hairing. £80. A string has got a sort of kink in it, so new one - about £40. I wanted the bow re-hairing and I was aware of the A string being near due for replacement. I wasn't expecting major set-up changes like a new bridge, sound post, and lowering of the action. It'll be ready in about 3 weeks and about £800. 😭 Photo is me playing last week

To add to it all, I've been to two music summer schools one last week and one three weeks ago. Last week was fully residential, the first one I commuted in most days (it was near Ambleside). The Ambleside one was a sight-reading fest - there's no end of week concert, just playing a lot of repertoire. Last week I was in six different sessions each day which included chamber music, string orchestra, and orchestra, all on cello, plus wind band and big band playing both tenor and baritone sax. This group does involve recitals/performances. Photo is me playing cello for a Boccherini quartet in the chamber music recital. To say that I'm knackered would be an understatement. Here's the repertoire I played in the first week... Beethoven - overture - Leonora #3 Haydn - Symphony 100 Chabrier - Espana Rossini - ballet suite from William Tell Dvorak - Symphony #8 Vaughan Williams - Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis (that's strings only) Saint-Saëns - Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso Handel - orchestration of something I didn't recognise! Weber - overture - Die Freischutz Weber - overture - Oberon Brahms - Academic Festival Overture Hérold - overture - Zampa Bucalossi - The Grasshopper Dance Brahms - symphony 3 Mendelssohn - Symphony 4 (Italian) Mendelssohn - Symphony 3 (Scottish) Nicolai - overture 'The Merry Wives of Windsor' Auber - overture 'La Muette' Schubert - overture 'Alfonso' (never want to play that again!) Bach - concerto for two violins in D minor Mozart - Symphony 41 Puerner (?) "The Thistle" - Scottish folk songs

As a new resident of Penrith I can say I'm in for this as it looks to be an easy drive.

I'm a bit behind on reading as I've been dealing with the minor matter of moving house (by 150 miles...). So glad to hear the positive news after the traumas of last year. Great to hear the good news on the job front. I was fortunate to only ever work 'office hours' albeit the occasional overnighter when I was an on-call programmer and for the odd implementation, but they were fairly rare. I can confirm that removal costs are horrendous - mine has just cost ££££. It didn't help that it took them two days to pack my house contents and it involved an overnighter due to the distance/time.

It's been a right busy few weeks. First completion of my degree, then a series of exhibitions, then I graduated, and this week? Let's move house... The removal men arrived Monday to start packing, which continued Tuesday. Wednesday it was move day. Long chain and money didn't drop until 4pm: most of the van unload was on Thursday. Various rooms look like some sort of giant game of Tetris. It took 41 boxes to pack the books in my study and that's probably just over half - that didn't include all the music in the music room... (I live in my own so rooms get assigned labels like 'music room' instead of dining room).

I remained an amateur astronomer, but have been involved in admin of that up to national level... My degree is in digital imaging and photography.

Way back in 1978, I was supposed to go to uni and was being pushed to do a degree in chemistry. I really wanted to do astronomy... but at the time, I wasn't good enough at maths (and an astronomy/astrophysics degree is a lot of maths and some physics). So, I became a bank clerk... I worked on the international side so I was dealing with import/export documents and payments. Nowadays if you were unsure about what you wanted to you would take a gap year, or defer a year or two, but they weren't options back then. Fortunately in the bank a few years later I had a decent boss who recognised I was more 'techie' and didn't really fit in and he pushed me to apply for a role in IT and handed me a leaflet showing internal applicants sought. So, I sat the IBM computer programmer's aptitude test, passed it, and a couple of months later was on the graduate intake course as a trainee programmer. That was 1985 and the start of a 36 year career in IT. At 60 I initially took a sabbatical year for travel, which Covid wrecked, so I retired and became a full-time student. Yesterday, I attended my graduation ceremony where I was awarded a BA (Hons) 1st class.