Can we buy the instrument we’re renting?
Yes, and you can do it whenever you like rather than waiting for the rental to end. Everything we rent is available to buy, at every label, and what you have already paid in rental fees comes off the price.…
Double Bass
Double bass questions, answered by our string team. Bass is the instrument families struggle most to source, and the practical questions come first: will it fit in the car, what does “full size” mean, and is my child big enough. Worth knowing at the outset that a 3/4 bass is the standard adult instrument — if a director says “full size,” that’s almost certainly what they mean.
Why did my instrument arrive out of tune?
Because it is a string instrument, and that is what they do. We tune every instrument before it leaves the shop, but strings stretch and settle, wood moves with temperature and humidity, and the instrument travels. By the time it…
Can we move up to a better instrument partway through the year?
Yes, and there is no penalty for it. There is a change of instrument form for exactly this. You pay the difference in the monthly rate for the months remaining in your rental, the insurance is recalculated for the new…
Is a laminated cello a worse cello?
It is a different cello, built for different conditions, and for a student in the first years it is often the better one to have. Laminated means several thin sheets of wood glued together rather than one solid piece carved…
My child’s teacher is skeptical of an instrument with no brand name on it.
That is a reasonable instinct, and we would rather a teacher raised it than said nothing. Instruments do turn up in school music rooms that arrived from an online seller and cannot be played properly, and a teacher who has…
Are the violins sold online for under a hundred dollars any good?
No, and the reason is worth understanding before you spend the money. We hold every instrument to four requirements before we will stock it: it has to sound like a violin, play like a violin, look like a violin, and…
What does “set up by a luthier” actually involve?
Setup is the hand work done to a string instrument after it is built and before anyone plays it. The bridge is carved and fitted to that individual instrument, the sound post is positioned inside the body, the string height…
Can we swap to a bigger size as our child grows?
Yes, at no charge, as many times as growing requires, and it is one of the main reasons to rent a string instrument rather than buy one. Most students move up a size every eighteen months to two years through…
Does winter really damage instruments?
Yes. Dry winter heat shrinks the wood, which means slipping pegs, constant tuning drift, open seams, and in the worst cases a cracked top. The fix is cheap: a humidifier in the room where your child practices from December through…
What is a luthier, and why does it matter for a rental?
A lot of people just call us the violin doctor, and that is exactly what a luthier is: someone trained to build, repair, and care for string instruments. The word is reserved for strings. You would not call a piano…