The instrument sounds pretty good, if I do say so myself. It sounds really really new, but balanced and clear. It's exciting stringing up an instrument for the first time, but also somewhat funny. You can kind of feel it freaking out under all that tension, like it's been hanging around in this relaxed state for all of its existence and all of a sudden ohmygodohmygodohMYGODwhatisHAPPENING. So new violins sound unsure and a bit startled the first day. Then you play them in and they settle down.
This violin is playing in quickly and well. It's comfortable, which is good, although I still may make the neck a little thinner. (After I have some other people play it and get some feedback I'll come to a decision about that.) The VSA competition isn't until November so I have months to play it a lot and tweak anything I need to tweak to make it better before judging, so that should help.
It's sister violin is about ready to set up, but the client I built it for wanted a very dark color, so it's still essentially wet. It's dry to the touch, but if you pressed something into it hard it would pick up an imprint, so that one needs to sit a little longer before I can hear it.
So I'm done! Done. Hm.
(Now what?)
