Violin

*puts violin on bed, takes off safety glasses*

*dances around like a loon, giving voice to assorted whoops and similar*

It's amazing what you can do if you just barge in and give it a shot...

For those who don't know, I bought a violin a month or two ago. All well and good (and a fantastic deal), but I carelessly broke the G string when I was tuning the instrument for the first time. Note: When increasing the tension on a string, it's a good idea to do so slowly. Really. Otherwise the tension of the string between the nut and the peg may temporarily be a lot higher than you realise. This can cause the string to snap between nut and peg, which is precisely what happened to my poor G string.

Eljen brought down a replacement string when she visited shortly thereafter, but we discovered that the bridge had shifted. This is a bad thing, and more or less intimidated both of us into setting the violin aside (plus we weren't exactly sitting around bored to begin with).

I'd been planning to get it fixed by a professional, and I'm about to have enough money. Since I'm home today, I decided to give Allan's Music a call and find out how much it was likely to cost me. I got my violin out in case they wanted me to check something on it (I have no clue, really). When I got it out, it suddenly occurred to me to have a shot myself at the restringing - after all, what damage would I be likely to cause which would increase the repair bill? I had a shot, and here's what happened...

Details:
1. I poked the string through the peg and then wound it, catching the ball in the slot on the appropriate fine-tuner when I'd taken in enough slack (my violin has fine-tuners on all four strings).
2. The G string had some tension but not much, and I used the pegs to loosen the other strings to match. The strings did sound definite pitches when plucked and weren't slack, but they were pretty relaxed.
3. With the strings loosened, the bridge was pretty free to slide (and even tilt <.<). Using a ruler and the f-holes, I placed the bridge as near to centre as I could. 4. I tightened the strings little by little, making sure to keep the tension more or less balanced at all times. I stopped when all strings were within about a quarter-tone of their intended pitches, mostly a fraction sharp (since their pitch is dropping slowly right now). Incidentally, I used my mobile phone as my pitch reference. Nokia 3215, with the solid-gold "Composer" tool which gives me any reference pitch, anywhere, anytime. Right now I've not even touched the bow, and I'm not planning to do so yet. I'll come back to the instrument later (today?) and tune it accurately, and then I'll play it. And there will be much rejoicing, assuming I haven't unknowingly buggered something up. We shall see.

*dances some more, signs off*

EDIT: Violin is now tuned and playable. On a side note, I've decided I prefer playing without a shoulder rest. Now to learn how to actually play the thing...

Heh, guess I should do some actual blogging...

OK, so the purpose of this blog is to do the stereotypical blog thing - chronicle the minutiae of my daily life. I doubt the interest to most, but I trust that Ele will be interested. Man, that girl's got it bad... ;-)

Nothing much exciting this morning - got up, got ready, went to work. Worked all day - fascinating...

Had some Storm drama to handle when I got home - as an admin, I do occasionally have to deal with wilful and persistent stupidity from a member. Hopefully the 24-hour ban with a threat of a 1-month ban next time will preclude the 'next time' entirely. Hopefully...

My brothers (R. and A., K. being interstate) showed up this evening. We shuffled Mum's sewing room around a little, re-assembled the final set of shelves, and finally mounted the new TV on the wall. Coax cable obviously wasn't going to reach anymore (since we were moving the TV a fair bit further from the antenna wall socket), so I hunted up some spare speaker wire in my room and spliced it into the cable. Occasional skipping, but the connection mostly seems good enough - we'll get a proper cable when we get a chance, but it's not urgent.
For the non-geeks:
With an analog TV signal, poor reception gives you fuzziness and static. With a digital signal, it gives skipping or occasionally visual artefacts. For the most part, quality is either perfect or non-existent. My speaker wires didn't degrade the signal significantly, but every join does so (and I've just introduced two new joins). Oh well, it works.

Oh, and my brothers actually give my new car some respect. Honestly, this thing's a couple of years off being a 'classic car'...

Working again tomorrow, so I'll have to get sleep. I had an idea today that I want to try out first, though - how to do a proper spiral in equart, which is something I've been trying off and on for years. I shall pause this writing and give it a shot...

*pauses*

Nope, that went nowhere. Oh, well...

Peace and love,
Pat

Inaugural post: Camping plans and the Straight Banana

Jotting down some small fraction of the ideas sleeting past my mind, as I discuss with my love the possibilities inherent in my recent acquisition of a car with a 5-metre wheelbase (and hence room for a mattress in the back). For those playing along at home, it's a 1985 Ford Falcon XF Station Wagon GL (3-speed manual). Long and yellow, hence "The Straight Banana" (courtesy of Ele).

• Mattress in the back, permanent.
• Drive anywhere, the two of us, and use the car as campsite when we need to sleep. Hence, do bushwalks and such anywhere in the state.
• Roughly every second weekend next year (2009), pick a place and go there.
• Ele's Hexie for cooking
• Anchor the jerry-can properly
• Curtains on the windows - put them up for camping, take them down again afterwards.
• Ele can share the driving
• Definitely a good idea to keep a supply of high-energy food in the glove box at all times - muesli bars, lollies.
• Food taken with us for camping will start with a loaf of bread, obviously include lots of water...
• Remind Ele to check her Duke of Ed. logs.
• Porridge with honey sounds like a good breakfast.
• Damper? I hardly know 'er! (actually, I know her rather well. Nevermind).
• Mapreading, the bushw/Eleking way
• Cameras, sketchbooks
• Exercise to keep us fit and healthy (the walking, that is).
• Odd weekends when we're home, local walking for same purpose.
• No computer. Phones are good for safety and occasional timepieces, though.
• Definitely carry plenty of spare oil etc. at all times.
• Let Ele get to bed now

Here endeth the lesson.