String Instruments
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Gewa Greek Bouzouki
by spiritwood If you are looking for something a bit different to the guitar or uke then a Bouzouki could be for you. These beautiful fretted stringed instruments sound less jangly and tinny than a mando and are easier to play due to their size. They are also stunning instruments in their own right. This is the only Bouzouki that I own ... although I do have several mandolins. Think of the Bouzouki as a bigger and deeper mando as it shares the same traditional bowl back and floating bridge arrangement ( making tuning and intonation interesting ). Like the bowl back mandolin, the Bouzouki is usually highly decorated in either mother of pearl or with curvy shaped pick guards. The Bouzouki is a traditional Greek instrument that belongs to the lute family and can be found in a few varieties from 6 string to 8 string. The Gewa has 8 strings giving it a rich tone. These instruments are usually played with a small plectrum which is known as a "penna" but they can also be plucked and strummed. Although 6 string Bouzoukis are available, the most common instrument found today is the 8 string which has 4 double sets of strings much like the mandolin. TUNING: The first set of double strings are tuned to D. The second to A. The third set (featuring one thick wound string and one thinner ) are tuned to F. The fourth set of double strings (also comprising one thick wound string and one thin wire) are tuned to C. This is the traditional tuning although you can of course find and use alternatives just like the guitar. The use of the octaves in tuning gives the Bouzouki and almost 12 string guitar sound which is very full and attractive. Unlike the 12 string guitar though, this will not wreck your fingers! GUITAR VS BOUZOUKI: I started out on guitars and then explored other stringed instruments which are easy to pick up if you have learnt to play on a guitar. Unlike the guitar, the body of a Bouzouki is convex and pear shaped, allowing for a distinctive sound. The neck of the bouzouki is much longer and thinner than that of a guitar which means that chord charges and plucking are fairly easy especially for those with smaller hands. If like me, you have a guitar playing background then the tuning of CFAD will be easy to adjust to and picking will become instinctive fairly fast. THE GEWA BOUZOUKI: The Gewa has geared machine heads which assist in keeping the tuning accurate, these are good quality and do not slip. Indeed your only tuning issues are likely to be in regards to intonation because the floating bridge arrangement can be challenging. Despite this, the intonation is easy enough to adjust with a floating bridge, you just move it slightly manually and test the intonation as you go until you get it correct. A bit of a faff but worth it for the lovely tone that this instrument possesses. The main body of the instrument is beautifully crafted with a tight grain spruce top and a striped bowl back in walnut. The finish is high shine gloss and there are two faux tortoiseshell inlays for decoration and protection. The sound of the Gewa is deep and resonant and once set up the tuning stays true up and down the frets. The action is easy and reasonably low meaning that minimal pressure is needed to play and hold down chords. This is a very playable instrument and feels lovely to hold, especially if a guitar feels "clunky". This doesn't, the neck is delicate and scalable with ease. The Gewa comes in an electro-acoustic version too although obviously this will cost more. Parts including machine heads, strings, bridges etc are easily available from the Gewa website and from other musical instrument stockists. FEATURES: Decorative inlaid perloid pickguard (tortoiseshell coloured) Spruce top 21 Part bowl back in walnut Mahogany neck 21 frets Floating hardwood bridge (adjustable) 670mm scale Chrome machine heads The Gewa Greek Bouzouki is priced at around the £280 mark. I love mine, it sounds great and is very easy to pick up and play. If you love the sound of a 12 string guitar but find it a pig to play, then you will enjoy this. Read the complete review |
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Stentor Conservatoire Violin
by spiritwood I work on (and make) violins so have seen lots of different types and makes. Stentors on the whole make my teeth itch.... Stentor are a company that generally make starter violins. Like "Skylark" were in the 1970's, their main customers are usually fraught parents of children who want to learn an instrument for 3 ... weeks before getting bored... You can easily identify the parents of these children who are learning on a Stentor violin. They are the ones with a generally jumpy demeanor and damaged eardrums. The Stentor violin does absolutely nothing for the cliche of "sounding like a strangled cat"....these are VSO's" or "Violin shaped objects" as known on established violin forums. Yes it may well LOOK like a violin but they are badly made, sound awful and are set up wrongly. A total waste of money. This violin is one of Stentor's posher fiddles. Posher due to it having a shellac spirit finish as opposed to a nasty pine resin varnish thick like a toffee apple. These thick varnishes kill the vibration of the wood which is counterproductive in an acoustic instrument as the sound waves cannot travel as well. Posher because it features " tonewood", an ambiguous term that could range from poor grade cheap chinese maple to air dried 20 year old flamed maple. Of course Stentor do not use the latter, they use a cheap maple with a small amount of flame and call it quality tonewood. It isn't. The violin comes in a nice case, well padded and lined. The sales waffle talks of a "high grade wood bow" but again this is meaningless. A decent bow can cost way more than the instrument itself, therefore this bow is cheap brazil wood. Every stentor bow I have seen is cheap and nasty and loses the horse hair. The hair is sparse, they often twist along the wood, the frog is poor quality and usually the mother of pearl dot is plastic. I would recommend that you upgrade the bow asap to a half decent pernambuco or carbon fibre if you have the misfortune to have one of these violin outfits. The Stentor Conservatoire violin outfit is marketed towards "the advanced student" but really, no violinist having played for a few years would want this if they really loved their instrument. Stentor make a big deal out of the fact that this is a "hand made" violin. It isn't. A hand made violin would cost anything upwards of £4000 plus. What Stentor mean is that parts of this violin are hand finished ( ie the gluing and setting up etc), the rest of it is machine cut and carved. Mass produced then. The violin outfit features a solid spruce top which is standard in nearly all violins. A quality violin would have a nice even tight grain and no knots or imperfections to affect sound. The "flamed maple" back is not very marked or flamed and is cheap grade maple that will not have been air dried but kiln dried. This will affect the sound. This violin has an ebony fingerboard and pegs which the cheaper Stentors do not, they are usually dyed rosewoods or cheap grade hardwoods stained and "ebonised". The pegs are poorly fitted and the bridge angle is wrong. The strings are junk, I would recommend replacing them immediately with some decent Dominant strings to get this violin to sound better. Also when you get it check the bridge placement and sound post. Many Stentors have poorly positioned sound posts and bridge angles are often out. There is plenty of info on the net on correct angles and soundpost placements. Also regarding the soundpost, I would replace it with a good quality post and ensure upon fitting it that the post grain runs in the correct direction to the top grain of the violin. Again there is info out there on this. Most people want something to play out of the box. If you want a violin that is not "as bad" as a cheaper VSO and are a beginner then by all means get one. But really for £200 you could do so much better. £200 would buy you a lovely 1920's german violin or a brand new luthier crafted one from China. Yes, you heard that right, CHINA. As much as there is a lot of dross coming out of china (and other countries) in terms of violins, there are some incredibly talented luthier trainees making top quality instruments that would cost four times the price or more here. Even master folk fiddler Dave Swarbrick has a few. Shop around, talk to other players. You will get recommendations. I really do not recommend this violin. It is a masterpiece of mass production and soulless machine cut monotony. The sale pitch is clever and aimed towards those who are beginners or who know little about violins. The words used are misleading and untrue. Save your money for something decent. £195 on Amazon. Way too much money. Read the complete review |
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Stentor Conservatoire Violin
by Coffeetiere I used to teach violin as a peripatetic teacher in one of the London boroughs. As I didn't want to take my own violin, which is expensive and of sentimental value into schools I purchased a violin just for teaching. I am aware of an enormous amount of new and modern violin makes having seen hundreds of my student's violins and from ... experience picked the Stentor Conservatoire violin outfit as this fair's better than most others in the price range. The Violin Outfit The violin comes in a rectangular light-weight modern style case with a bow. The case is made on the outside of a strong black waterproof material, which usually covers a hard polystyrene case mould and is strong enough for me to sit on, without exerting to much force. The case zips open to a fake-velvety grey coloured fabric inside which is soft for the violin. The inside of the case is modelled into a shape which holds the violin and has a strap which goes over the neck of the violin to help keep it in place. There is room on the upper inside of the case for two bows which are kept in place by the stand device which turns to keep the bow in place or get it out. The bow is made from wood, which is better than other violin bow's in this price range which sometimes come in fibreglass. There is an ebony frog and the screw to tighten and loosen the hair is easy to wind up and down. The hair is as usual horsehair which is white - sometimes cheaper bow hair is black or even cheaper bow hair is synthetic. I think the outfit also came with some rosin. The violin is looks nice (not that this means anything sound-wise) and the neck, back and ribs are made from solid, carved maple which is nicely varnished in a smooth shiny mid-tone colour. The pegs and fingerboard are made from ebony and the fingerboard is smooth and a good curved shape. I have never had any problems with the pegs slipping or being too tight and fine tuning can be done with the adjusters which come on the tailpiece. I bought my violin from a local music shop and had it set-up there for me, so the bridge was slightly filed down and the strings were changed to Dominant, a better quality. Often if you buy a string instrument online it won't have been properly set up and therefore you won't get the best out of the instrument. Sound Quality Obviously the sound quality of this new violin is nowhere near as good as my 110 year old French handmade violin, however for £220 including the set-up and strings one can't grumble for what I needed it for. The violin does make quite a big mellow sound, this will vary from violin to violin even of the same make as two violins can never be the same, which is another reason for trying the violins before you buy, you may prefer one to another. The violin feels quite easy to play the spacing of the notes high up on the fingerboard is fairly even to what I would expect. It does get a little screechy towards the very high notes, but one would expect that of an inexpensive violin. The harmonics all fall in the right places on the strings. Durability Well, as long as you don't drop it or knock it the violin will stay in perfect condition. I have a few small scratches on mine, to be expected when teaching but I would say the varnish is pretty hardy and doesn't easily chip or scratch. The case is also in good condition despite being taken on many buses and being knocked around quite a bit. The case sometimes needs dusting and if it does look a bit grubby I wipe it with a damp cloth. So far I haven't had to have the bow rehaired, although it is getting a little thin and will need doing at some stage in the future, but most amateurs won't loose hair off their bow unless they catch it. Sizes I have only ever seen the Stentor Conservatoire in full and ¾ size, both are of the same quality although I believe they make ¼ and ½ sizes too. I have seen smaller versions of the cheaper Stentor 1 and 2 down to a size 1/8, the smaller you get the scratchier it sounds but this is inevitable. The Stentor 2 is a huge improvement on the Stentor 1 which is cheap and nasty in my opinion. Cost I have seen the Stentor Conservatoire violins on sale for between £190 and £250, which I think is a good deal. This could be used as a beginner violin, however if you have a young child I would start them off on a cheaper violin and then buy a ¾ or full size when they are big enough and around grade 4. You could do grade 8 on this violin, at a push, but up to grade 7 would be my advice and then a better violin needs to be sort. You can also pick these violins up second hand either online or in music shops, or sometimes from other kids in school. Conclusion If you have a promising child who needs a ¾ or full size violin this is a very good option, likewise it is a good option for adult beginners. It represents excellent value for money for what you get. Read the complete review |
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3 reviews Manufacturer: Stentor / String Instrument / Type: Violin |
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1 review Manufacturer: Stagg / String Instrument / Type: Mandolin |
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