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I’ve found a great supplier for strings and the like, Soundpost, it was reccommend to me by Duncan Riddell (leader, BSO) and has proved time and time again to be ever so reliable. 

Brian Cohen seems very reliable and always reccomends decent items for the price bracket I am after. Everything arrives very quickly and is fairly cheap.

http://www.soundpost.co.uk
01483 456422

Right its been bugging me that the D string wears through so fast, so I have decided to try out a new Silver covered Oliv D-string, which if it lasts may well be the solution to my problems, whilst I love the sound that the oliv’s are making and they just work with the violin so beautifully I really cant go on propping up the british economy by Spending so much on them!

We shall see where this takes us!

Its the afternoon of the University Concert and My A has been getting worse and worse over the last few days, what does one do? with a tiny notch in the string around the 2nd finger position I am being driven slightly crazy by the irritation of having my pads ripped to shreds by the ever widening hole. So a new Oliv A will have to go on before the concert.

This was in hindsight a rather poor move as performing Mendelssohn’s Elijah without being able to use the A string properly ass it slips down so much was quite some failure, however it did make the epic piece just a little more exciting as runs up firstly went up the d string before switching across to the E! Its a good job my hands are large enough to stretch or I would have had no chance!

Good fun However

New Oliv D string

New Oliv A

New oliv a-string

I think I will be using up my last oliv strings before changing back to something a little less expensive now that the concerto’s are over. Not quite sure what but I have been enjoying low tension strings so will most likely go for something similar, or maybe change is in the air?

new D-string

I keep on noticing that the A and D Oliv strings are fairly poor at withstanding any use, I know that my fingers to rot them very quickly but it is a little ridiculous.

Not sure what to do about it but guess we will see what happens

All of my bows have been in need of some attention for several months now, having been over 9 months since any of them were given any love I decided it was time to have them given a bit of a service.

The Voirin was the most in need dispite being the most recently seen, with the need for a new thumb grip and a bit of attention to the winding.

The viola bow hasnt been rehaired for around 2 years and the baroque bow not since it was loaned to me!

The luthiers to undertake the work were ealing strings they run the largest workshop in europe and were an ideal choice as it had to be done very rapidly. Their knowledge is second to none and the skills are out of this world. All three bows were taken care of within the hour. This meant that there was no chance to rosin the bows completely and took some time to play in, but after an hour they were playing beautifully, more often than not when rehairing bows the final result is that one side has far more hair than the other, however with these they seem to be much more evenly spread and it’s made control far easier.

Many apologies it’s been some time since I last wrote to you, in that time I’ve replaced a good set and a half, my new years resolution it to try and keep this diary as up to date as posible!

New Oliv D and A string

New oliv G string,

I’ve been impressed by the oliv G string so far, it has lasted such a long time and sounds really very powerful.

Arcus Number 2, its much softer and stickier than before and really makes the bow far smoother whilst increasing grip! very very nice stuff, a huge improvement on pirastro schwartz or gold (the gold was very hard and unpleasant for me, good rosin however)

Supplied by Soundpost after advice from owner Brian Cohen

New A string

New oliv D