Buying Advice - Violins

Violins General
Violin Accessories
Violinn Maintenance

---

Violins General

At Ritz Music we stock entry-level student violins by Stentor, the best-known and most respected brand on the market. These instruments are very reliable, made from good tone-woods and come as a complete 'package' including a lightweight shaped case and violin bow.

Violins are available in 8 different sizes: 4/4 (also called full size), 3/4, 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/10, 1/16. 4/4 size being the biggest and 1/16 size being the smallest. All adults, regardless of their size, use the 4/4 violin.

To measure what size violin best suits you, you need to know the length between your neck and the middle of your left-hand palm (when your hand is fully extended and raised perpendicular to your body, just like holding a violin). About 50% of the teachers prefer students to use the length from the neck to the wrist for measurement instead of the neck to mid-palm approach. The violin size determined by the neck/wrist approach would be the size that is more comfortable for students to hold. The violin size determined by the neck/mid-palm approach would be the biggest size students should use. Another (less accurate) option is to choose the size by the age of the child.

If you have a teacher, you should ask for his or her recommendation. If you don't have a teacher, we would recommend using the neck/wrist approach for students not using full size. For students who are deciding whether to used 3/4 or 4/4 size, use the neck/mid-palm approach. This is because it is always better that students feel comfortable holding and playing the violin.

The following chart lists the length of each violin size. Find your length using the your preferred approach and use that to determine the size of violin to get:

Violin Size	Arm Length (in inches)
4/4 (Full Size)	23
3/4	22
1/2	20
1/4	18 1/2
1/8	16 1/2
1/10	15
1/16	14

Another more general way of determining the size is by age, although this is a much less accurate way to determine size.

Violin Size	Age (in inches)
4/ (Full Size)	12 year and older
3/4	10-11
1/2	8-9
1/4	6-7
1/8	5-6
1/10	4-5
1/16	3 and below

Violin Accessories

We stock a range of violin accessories, including shoulder-rests by Kun and Wolf, strings by Astrea and Dominant replacement cases, bows, fine tuners, bridges and rosin.

Violin Maintenance

We are able to offer a range of services, including tuning, string replacement, fine-tuner fitting and some structural repairs. A very popular 'up-grade' is to replace metal strings (standard equipment on most new student violins) with high quality gut-type strings (e.g the Dominant brand) - this improves the quality of tone dramatically!