homemade wine label

#DIY homemade violin

The Allegro wine label

While living in Ottawa, Canada, we found a family owned business where you could make your own wine and bottle a case. It was a good price and I could make my own wine labels. At the time my daughter was playing for the Ottawa youth Orchestra, so we called our wine Allegro and put a photo with her impression of Itzhak Perlman on the wine label. As we made our own wine, my daughter made her own violin. We had moved to San Antonio, Texas and became familiar with the local wine. We also found out about the enormous amount of wineries and vineyards that exist within the state, see our page of Texas wine trails maps. These wineries are beautiful weekend destinations with food and live music. 

Moving to Texas introduced us to Texas Country Music. We searched for an instructor that would teach fiddle music instead of classical. In picking up these melodies by ear, the aim is to replicate the sound EXACTLY as one hears it. Changes in bow direction are important, as well as recurring ‘figures’ like bowing patterns & triplets & stuff like that, and getting rid of that classical vibrato for the most part. Classical players use a lot of bowing patterns that are not used in traditional fiddling. 

Frankie attended a public high school in Texas and one of the main projects in her physics class was to build your own musical instrument. We were familiar with the concept of the cigar box guitar, and she came up with the idea of a Perfume Box Violin. Because she was so familiar with the violin after taking lessons for 6 years, she decided to build a violin. A Versace Perfume Box Violin!

Make your own violin

Are you in high school psychics? You may have already started thinking about an instrument to build. Why not build your own violin? There are minimal parts needed and you can find them in your home. The use of a homemade violin is a good first step to violin lessons when starting out. It gets you familiar with holding the violin correctly. When you are ready to spend the money to buy a violin you will be more familiar how to hold the violin. Check out this diagram of all the pieces that make a violin in this very detailed image: Violin Diagram

The secret to the bow is to use sandpaper on the fishing line! This roughs up the smooth surface and gives it “tooth” that the rosin can adhere to. This creates the necessary friction resistance and the bow can make the strings sound. 

 

Homemade Violin, using a Versace Perfume Box, and it works!

Steps to make your own violin

  1. Does your mom wear expensive perfume? Does she have a fancy perfume box that she received as a gift last Christmas?  Then you’re in luck, the body is complete. If not, no worries, a shoe box will work too. I like the harder cardboard from the perfume box, it seems to hold up better and produce a deeper tone.
  2. Find a picture of the f holes online, print them out and trace onto the top of the box. Carefully use an exact-o knife, or ask your mom to help you cut the f-holes in the top of the box.
  3. On the inside of the box use Styrofoam pieces in the corners to create a faux violin shape. Use some fancy duct tape to seal the box.
  4. We had a heart magnet made out of 3 wooden hearts that had broken and was waiting to be fixed, they found their new home, its pieces were used as the tail and the base of the fingerboard. You can also use any small piece of wood that can hold screws for tuning. This was finished around Valentines day, so using the heart seemed appropriate.
  5. Eye screws were used as the pegs to hold the fishing line and flat head screws were used to tie the other end down on the tail. We use a piece of wood from my inbox on my desk for the fingerboard. 
  6. A foam core bridge was used, although later reinforced with heavy cardboard and viola, a working violin. I could see using balsa wood for the bridge too.
  7. The bow was a small dowel rod and more fishing line held together with duck tape. 

Tuning the violin was a challenge

Tuning was a challenge, but she got it close and it held up for one short song, take a listen to this short video. I’m sure you can make one too. What made it easier was having a digital tuner. Give it a try and share below. Also, please let me know if you have any questions, this was really a fun project for her!

Share with me

Don’t forget to come back and share how your project came together. I’d really love to hear about it, or share a video or picture of your finished violin.

Read what wine pairs well with Classical music with my take on some music genres.

 

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