My Viola

This is on of my two violas. It has had an interesting life.  I bought a few years ago (less then a decade I'm sure) when I sold my Roman Teller 16.5" Viola because I wanted to still have one to practice on. The Roman Teller was a shop made Viola I bought in Salt Lake City at Paul Prier's, and it was excellent.In fact it was a better viola then I was a player by far, but the bouts were a bit wide and hard to play for extended periods of time. This Viola was a lot more modest in it's origins, it is only 16", it was made in China, it had this stuff called nitro varnish which is cheaper to apply but really deadened the sound, so it was a not a pleasant sounding instrument. But it was cheap, of fairly good construction, and I needed something (in fairness it was not awful sounding, just nowhere near my former one). I had bought a violin in the white and finished it myself, so I decided to remove all the varnish I could and revarnish it myself. After all, It couldn't make it any worse, and it was not of historic or intrinsic value (I bought it for about $250), so what did I have to lose?

I removed all of the varnish and put several coats of new varnish on it. As I had done it before with the violin, and it came out better then expected then, I had high hopes for this project as well. I got it all completed a few weeks later, and it actually looked a lot better then it did originally (in my opinion). It certainly had more character. But it still had some issues, It needed pegwork done, the fingerboard planed and a new Bridge cut. I got the bridge blank from Blaise and the guys at Electric Violin Shop, and the work was done in Durham at High Strung. A week or so later is was done. It did have Dominants on it at the time, but I wanted something a little better stringwise.

I went to John Montgomery's for the strings. Dominants are a fine string, but I wanted something a little warmer. I love strings by Pirastro,  and I tried the synthetic Obligato, and then Eudoxas, Before settling on Olives (I apparently have expensive taste in strings)

I also got them to order the case from Bobelock. They had it on hand in black, but one of my friends had a violin case in brown with the green lining, and I loved it, so I decided  I wanted one like it. Since it was a viola case, I did not feel it was really copying him. ("but John.....it's NOT like yours at all...it's a VIOLA case; completely different!").

I already had gotten from John my bow, years ago, so I was all set. It came from Brazil and the wood is amazing. I got a few Violin bows from the same people around the same time including a gold mounted one that is just gorgeous! Anyway, that is the story of my viola, It plays wonderfully now. Not like my old Roman Teller, but sweeter and warmer and certainly more open, but not quite as bright and focused. On the positive side, I am not sure it has much monetary value, so I am probably never going to be tempted to sell it.  I think I only put in about $125 into getting it in shape, not counting  the strings(which, being consumable,  I would eventually buy anyway) and the case, and I love it to death.  Right now it's jealous of my cameras and is mad at me (because I need to practice more), but I love it anyway, and probably always will!