Featured Violin - the Szasz Friderich line exclusive to Golden Music; we have been visiting Romania and buying the "fritzy's" since 2007. At an affordable price for a single maker master instrument, the Fritzy's are hand crafted in Reghin, Mures, in the heart of Transalvania, population 33,000.  The industry of Reghin is closely related to the traditions of the medieval trades, starting with the resources in the close vicinity, rich in wood and farm produces, the goods of the private producers from Reghin are in the market all over Romania and abroad.   Reghin is well known for the industry of the musical instruments, especially of violins. There are many companies that produces instruments using the famous resonance wood from Calimani and Gurghiu forests. The violins made in Reghin are used abroad.

Szasz (nickname "Fritzy") began his work in a violin factory in 1977.  He left the large factory for a small workshop in 1990, where he was an apprentice to Ciurba Nicolae.  He perfected his technique alongside a master with his guidance and experience.  In 2003, Szasz opened his own workshop.  Hemakes instruments for people all around the world.  

Here is an example of one of the Golden Music "Fritzy's (click here)"    Right now we have several in stock including product number 4579 and 4580.

This picture is from our first trip to Reghin in 2006.  It is the owner, Mary and Fritzy.

We carry a full line of bowed instruments strings.  From Helicore to Dominant, from Pirastro to Obligato, Vision to Evah Pirrazi.  We have all of them in stock in Lakewood ready for you.  Our prices are competitive also, to internet pricing.  

The Kirschnek Violins - This company was established in 1880 in Erlangen/Bubenreuth, West Germany.  It is still run by the family.  The owners of Golden Music have had many lovely visits with this family, including a tea party in their heavily treed back yard of their house which is next to their workshop.  We carry a full spread of different models that you can see here and on our web page. 

The company was established by Joseph Muller, born 1850 in Schonbach.  He was the great grandfather of the owner today, Ilse Fischer.  Since the beginning, he was well known for his fine workmanship and best tone quality.  He won many awards and even exhibited his instruments at the world exhibition in Paris in 1900.  In 1922, his grandson-in-law, Franz Kirschnek, established his own company under his name and the label, Franz Kirschnek.  He began exporting his instruments to other European countries and to the US.  They moved after World War II to the present location.  The family states "We feel obliged to continue making violins, violas and cellos of fine quality.  We are proud to say that we still do not import any parts from other countries.  Each one of our instruments is entirely made in Germany."   

We have several models in stock from the Kirschneks and plan to have more in the future. 

Kirschnek Arnoldus master

Kirschnek Conradus master

Kirchnek Knoblach master

Kirschnek Gesang master

The violin emerged in its present form in Italy, France and Germany in the mid 1500s. The richness and true knowledge base of the art of violin building is embedded in Europe and the makers trained in the schools in those countries. From traveling worldwide, Golden Music has befriended many of the journeymen in this craft and hosts these violin dignitaries in our Golden shop year round. This influence not only assists our Luthiers in learning the depth of the European tradition, it steeps our Music Product Specialists and owners in this knowledge.  Moreover, every instrument provided for you at Golden Music gives you this tradition as much as possible fused in it at many different price points and styles of instruments.  Hence, for every instrument, we want to create the highest value of the European tradition and stylings in your price range.  On the left below is Ferenc Borosi from Hungary and on the right is Carlos Roberts from Italy.  Both recently spent part of the year at Golden Music in our shop, teaching our Luthiers, as well as time with our Music Product Specialists and the owners.  The third picture, is the Owner, Mary, her friend, Nancy, and Thomas Hummel, a Master Luthier from Stuttgart Germany who has been to Golden Music every year for the last 5 years.

From Violinist.com

Over the years it has seemed to me that there are,  in the case of many players,  three basic, uncomplicated things they can do to become seriously better players.  Here they are:

1)  Learn the even numbered positions.  If I could have a dollar for every player even up to and beyond intermediate level who is not comfortable in the even positions I would be able to buy up the applecorp.  What an earth is going on dudes (especially teachers!)?  Why are you not learning /teaching this fundamental thing?  If you don`t know these you don`t know the fingerboard. Yes,  you don`t actually know where certain notes are on that long black thing in front of your nose.   Do you realize how much better an orchestral player you would be with this simple knowledge?   How much better your sight reading would be? You could stop posting about sight reading....;)  How many more musical and expressive possibilities would become available?  Material:  Kreutzer no2 in 2nd/4th and 6th position everyday for a year;  the relevant sevcik;  Schradieck;  Paginini Barucaba Variation in 4th position etc.  

2)  Learn to play at the heel.

Admittedly this may be a little different (but not really) for the Russian bowing school, but most people use Franco Belgian type these days and it`s never been an excuse anyway.  My main teacher`s teacher,  Albert Sammons said `Master the heel and you`ve mastered to bow.` He may have had a point.   Don`t compromise!  Move under the thumb.  You are using six inches too short a bow. It`s just not good enough. 

BTW the heel does not automatically equate with `loud.` Some of the most delicate ,  refined and musical touces can only be done at the heel or in the lower third of the bow,  not faffing around at the point because that is supposed to be `the quiet part of the bow.`

Materials:  Kreutzer no2 and the f major separate bows and various combinations. Sevcik bowing exercises.  Casorti etc.  Scales!

3)  Handle your instrument like your loved one.

The way people handle instruments often makes me sick.  A month back a semi professional player asked to try my violin and took it from me by the bouts leaving sticky fingers on the violin.  I make a very harsh judgement about players based on this simple thing.  If you can`t  respect the beauty and elegance of your violin to the extent you are happy to smear oil on it you probably don`t have that last 0.1 percent of dedication necessary to be a pro.  Respecting,  indeed loving your instrunment is fundamental and it should be the first things teachers teach.  In the same way I have amateur students who put expensive instruments on the floor,  hang bows down so the point touches the ground while at the same time fumbling in their case for this weeks scores and my pay packet.  The same players leave instruments unattended almost anywhere during rehearsal breaks.  The big differnce between a pro and an amateur (in the judgmental sense rather than the regular employment distinction):  an amateur behaves in an amateur way towards their instrument irrespective of how good they are.

Materials: half a brain,  commonsense,  respect  and a teacher who insists on this from the beginning.

Coming in August, we'll have the international scales on our Professional Folders.

The notes used in Western music—or, more accurately, the relationships between the notes used in Western music—have a strange power. Bobby McFerrin demonstrated this dramatically by showing that an audience somehow knows what notes to sing when he jumps around the stage. He remarked that “what’s interesting to me about that is, regardless of where I am, anywhere, every audience gets that.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeW0UcuQKps

He’s suggesting that something about the relationships between pitches is culturally universal. All people seem to experience them the same way, regardless of where they're from or whether they have musical training. The question of universals in music perception is important because it can help us determine how much of our perception is shaped by culture and how much by biology. A paper in this week’s Nature reports on the surprising finding that a form of musical perception long thought to be common across all humans might not be so universal after all.

In music, relationships between notes can be used in two different ways. If pitches are played in sequence, the relationships between them are melodic, like the difference between each successive note in "Mary had a Little Lamb." When notes are played simultaneously, like a single strum of all the strings on a guitar or a choir singing, the relationships are harmonic. Different musical traditions have different rules about which melodic and harmonic relationships are permissible.

In Western music, certain harmonic combinations sound pleasant, or “consonant,” while “dissonant” combinations are unpleasant. Composers sometimes use dissonance (for example, in jazz or the Jawstheme tune) to create emotional, textural, or other artistic effects. The perception of consonance as pleasant and dissonance as unpleasant seems to hold true regardless of whether someone has musical training.

from arstechnica.com

http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/07/the-jaws-theme-might-not-be-scary-for-tsimane-people/

The Golden Location of Golden Music will be closing on July 29th.  We have lost our lease there.  All items there are on clearance and are being sold a rock bottom prices.  The hours are 10-7 M-F, 10-5 on Sat and closed Sunday through that day.  

Several drumsets have just been put for sale there for only $150 each!  They are brand new.  

We will all welcome the luthiers from the Golden location that are preparing their work space now at the Lakewood facility.  We are putting the flooring now and beautiful new benches are on their way.  We can't wait to have the wonderful smells of the oil finishes and fresh wood smells wafting through the store, and your company again, not to mention having all the string luthier services at ours and our customers' fingertips.  

The Triolin is an acoustic bowed metal instrument designed and built by Hal Rammel in 1991. He has described it as a nail violin gone awry. Thin metal rods sit perpendicular in a circular arrangement on the top surface of a triangular wooden resonator and the instrument is held in the other hand by an ornately carved chair leg attached to the bottom of the resonator. Thus, the rods can be bowed as the entire instrument twists and spins underneath. Several years later, when he began to experiment with amplification inspired by the live electronics of cellist Russell Thorne and the amplified table top arrays of Hugh Davies, he attached wooden rods to a flat wooden artist's palette. His amplified palette can be heard on the 1994 CD Elsewheres(Penumbra Music) and, more recently, on "Like Water, Tightly Wound" (a Crouton Records 10"). In 2013 the triolin and four amplified palettes by Hal Rammel were added to the permanent collection of the National Music Museum in Vermillion, South Dakota along with many other acoustic instruments he performed with in the 1990s in Chicago.

Recordings of Rammel's music created with the triolin has been published by Penumbra Records, a Wisconsin-based label dedicated solely to experimental music. The instrument is featured in CDs with John Corbett, Van's Peppy Syncopators (his trio with John Corbett and Terri Kapsalis), and Steve Nelson-Raney. There are a total of thirteen compact discs from this label, some of which feature Hal Rammel. His CDs on other labels can be found through the site as well.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triolin

http://makezine.com/2013/03/17/the-triolin-mutant-violin-requires-three-players/