Arkansas Traveler - Bluegrass Fiddle Lesson

Jacie Sites: Hi Jacie Sites here with Fiddleit.com and I’ve got my friend Kenya with me. How old are you Kenya? Kenya: Eight. Jacie Sites: She’s eight and we have a half size violin here. I'm going to show you how this fits on her and what you're looking for when you're sizing for a violin. So let’s hold your violin, and when you size for a violin you want your hands straight out. And then what you want to do is you want to come back and until your hand touches here and you'll see that her arm bent. And if you just have a slight bent in your arm that’s perfect size in violin. So just to show you the difference I'm going to grab the full size violin which is two sizes bigger and let you see what that looks like. So go ahead and let go of this one, I'm going to grab another one. Here’s a full size violin and I want you to reach as far as you can. Now she can almost reach to the edge of this one but you can see how her arm is totally straight. This violin is way too big for Kenya. Now if we had a three quarter it will be just a little big, and that’s the next size she’s going to go into. And so if your child is about eight and looks about this size then you know that they're going to be in a half size violin. Hi this is Jacie with Fiddleit.com and we’re continuing our search of the perfect violin size and I have Coby here today. And how old are you Coby? Coby: Ten. Jacie Sites: Ten. And so we’re going to show you a three quarter size on Coby. So let’s put this three quarter size up and go ahead and pull your arm straight out like your sister did, very good. Now you can see his hand comes a little bit pass but when we curl he has a little bit curve. Coby is almost ready to go to the next size because he can reach significantly pass this violin. So let’s check you out with a full size. My guess if you're just about ready for one because you got nice long arms. Go ahead and pull your hand all the way to the back. And you can see that it fits him but he doesn’t have a very big bend. If he had a bigger bend then this would be the perfect violin for him. Probably in a couple of months to a year he’ll be ready for a full size. Thanks Coby. Hi this is Jacie with Fiddleit.com and I'm here with Mercedes. And Mercedes is how old? Mercedes: I'm 12. Jacie Sites: She’s 12 and she’s putting a full size violin. And I'm going to show you how that fits. So let’s put that on, did you see how your brother and sister held their hands straight out? Very good. And what you'll notice is see how she has a nice big bend, how about pulling your arm as far as you can go. She can go significantly pass the edge of the violin. And one thing I see with a lot of kids is their violin is way too small, so I'm going to show you what a violin that’s way too small looks like on Mercedes. So we’re going to start with the three quarter which is just going to be a little bit small. Go ahead and hold your arm around the edge. Do you see how it’s a really big bend here? That’s too big of a bend. And go ahead and pull your arms straight out, she can reach way pass the edge of the violin. So this violin is definitely is definitely too small. The biggest thing I see, I see a lot of students that should be in a full size, they're in a half or a quarter size, and as you get a bigger violin the sound gets a lot better. So you want to play the biggest violin that you can fit. You don’t want to play a violin that is too big, but just the biggest one that fits you perfect. So we’re going to try this half size. And this is what a half size would look like. It’s a huge. I mean she is way pass the edge of the violin, so this violin is way too small for Mercedes as well. Thank you Mercedes. Mercedes: Thank you. Jacie Sites: Hi this is Jacie Sites again with Fiddleit.com, just kind of finishing talking about sizing student violins. The first rules is always have the student hold the violin, hold their arm out if they can hold the scroll and wrap their hand around it and they have a bend it’s the correct size. If your student is seven or eight they're probably going to be in a half size. A little bit older than that three quarter and then older than that in a full size. Now they do go down to eight size and 32nd size. The rule applies exactly the same. Most kids that are three are going to be in the 32nd maybe a 16th if they have long arms. And then as they get up being four and five they're definitely in the 16th to a quarter. And it just depends on the size of the child. So if you have a small child that’s going to be a smaller size, not all that are in the same age are going to be in the same size of violin it’s all the arm length. That’s most important. Now, if you're not sure and you're questionable just a little bit on the size go ahead and send me a picture. You can email me at Jacie@fiddleit.com and I’ll tell you what I think.