A common mistake, Waddle says, is that shoppers set forth without a plan. Be organized. Know what you’re going to play and do it fairly quickly. “I don’t recommend practicing in the shop,” he says. “And don’t try to impress the other people in the shop with your playing. I can’t tell you how many people I’ve had pick up the violin, launch into the Tchaikovsky violin concerto, and about two bars into realize the violin is not in tune.”
Another problem, Waddle has observed, is that very shy, young players who come in with their partners are frequently afraid and don’t know what to do. “They need to say to themselves, ‘OK, I’m going to play a G-major scale, I’m going to start on the G string, I’m going to play all the way up to the E string, then I’m going to play a simple piece, maybe a slow piece, and then I’m going to play a fast piece.’ You need to pick a violin up, do that process, and put it down. It doesn’t need to take more than an hour to try six violins.”
“People can only keep a sound in their mind for a few seconds,” says Givens. “So don’t play long excerpts. That way, you can sense a contrast immediately. As you get more practice, you can retain the effect of sound and memory of sound longer, but at first, ten or fifteen seconds might be it. I line up four instruments at a time, max. And I put shoulder rests on every single one so they’re ready to just pick up, put under the chin, and play. I ask the shopper to narrow those four instruments down to two or one. Then I bring in some more. And I keep doing that until it’s impossible to be discriminating. And I try to get people to move ahead as much as possible, quickly, because for about 20 minutes you have your maximum concentration. After that, it’s really hard work to remember and discriminate and focus.”
Givens also tries to help people develop a vocabulary to use in evaluating instruments. You’re going to get your best help if you can develop the words to communicate what you’re experiencing. “This one’s too bright,” for instance. “This one’s too edgy.” “I don’t like the E string on this; it dies after second position.”
And while it’s common to take a used car to a mechanic or two for an opinion, Waddle says evaluating instruments from other shop makes many makers uncomfortable. “It really bothers me when somebody takes an instrument out on trial from my shop and brings it to another shop for their opinion – like they’re going to get an objective opinion from the other shop. And if people call me and they’ve got a violin from another shop, my feeling is, why are they asking me? If they don’t trust the other person, why they want to buy from them?”
