DIY - My home-made franken-violin named Margarite

Seeing as my DIY on my homemade amp was so popular on Steemit, I decided to do a small write-up on my franken-violin who I have named Margarite.

Bli-me, I even found a picture of Camille and vlog post, check it out here.

First off, I was inspired by another street musician (Camille) who had an amazing instrumental act involving a loop pedal, a guitar and a clarinet. It was music that just made me happy. After six years of street music, I'm a bit over the whole one man and his guitar thing. I also wanted to do something besides singing because my days of screaming jazzy blues on the street are numbered! I got my old loop pedal from a friend in Perth and put my mind to the new unbending intent.

So the story goes, I was working at a friend's restaurant called Gypsy Tapas in Fremantle, and I saw a 3/4 sized violin on the wall. It was their daughter's first violin, now used as a prop in the restaurant. I asked if it could buy it and the price named was 40AUD. So I took it.

This is a Cretan Lyra

Inspired by other three string violin-like instruments used in Bulgaria, Turkey and Greece - I was committed to make something that sounded good, looked good and wasn't too hard to learn. So since January of this year (now being early June) I have been developing an act with a loop pedal and experimenting different ways of using this violin. I've attached a knee stand and a strap to keep her steady, also making it easy to switch between instruments when using the loop pedal because she's already attached to my knee.

So here she is, with a bit of a demo at the end on a video. I hope you enjoy and I'll see you in Auckland (July) and France (August) this year (other places too, I've just no idea how to plan these things as it generally all goes organically). I'll be playing traditional bulgarian/turkish style improvisation for a sufi whirling dervish sema workshop near the south of France from the 17th of August as well.

Here is the head, although a bit battered, you can see that I carved out the previous nut and included a new one for three stings I made out of the previous bridge:

I still use markings to give me some reference for the notes as I've only been playing since January, I'm not too concerned with appearing skilled or not, I just want a good sound:

Here's the new bridge I bought and carved to accomodate three strings as well. The bridge is well below what a standard violin normally is, so I can get the best spacing for the notes in the neck (small violin and big fingers) and with the sound post inside moved down it makes a similar sound to a traditional instrument:

Here is how the strap fits on my knee. I found the strap on the side of the road just when I was looking for one, how convenient, and that block below that mountain of glue gun glue is a piece of wood I found in the garden and carved out a bit to carry the shape of the bottom of the violin:

Here is the hole I put in the back to put the lapel microphone I use, which you can see in the video. You're probably concerned about the sound by now, seeing as I've gutted it. See the video at the bottom for a demo:

Here it is in the customized case with extra padding added and the bottom of the case cut out a bit to accomodate the foot:

With all the added foam inside it fits snug as a bug:

Margarite's spiral skin:

And here's a short demo video to give you an idea of the sound:

Something worth mentioning is that the strings are worth more than the violin.

Thanks for checking my post out and be sure to check out my DIY Amp post as well.

Monty

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