Viola shootout! - Episode 1 | Part Time Musician . com

Viola shootout! – Episode 1

Episode 1: The Need

With our oldest preparing to leave for university later this month, we’re trying to finish our purchasing and preparations for all of the “college stuff” that hadn’t yet been acquired. She is majoring in violin performance, and since all three of our progeny have shared books and sheet music over the years, some duplicate/replacement music purchases were now in order. Those were easily and quickly dispatched via SheetMusicPlus, a proud sponsor of PartTimeMusician.com – for good reason.

Who will win?

The purchase that we had been struggling with for some time was that of a nice viola. We have one, and I have played it (rather poorly, I’ll admit) over the years…but our departing daughter doubles on viola very nicely, and she has often enjoyed “bonus” opportunities to fill out a quartet or ensemble as a violist. Just as with the music mentioned above, we no longer had the luxury of sharing.

We looked around locally, but we couldn’t find the right combination of features to meet our requirements. Here were the terms of our viola quest:

Sound. It must have a full, rich sound and be a joy to hear.
Feel. It must be comfortable to play.
Price. Being a secondary instrument for my daughter, we didn’t want to invest a small fortune in a viola. It should be very nice, but it shouldn’t break the bank.
Looks. No one likes to admit it, but we all like to play an instrument that looks good. It doesn’t have to win beauty contests, and even for the most visual among us, looks falls far below sound. But we may as well admit it: looks do matter, to some extent.

I’ve tested and purchased instruments from Centsible Sounds before, and their service and prices put most local shops to shame. Vince and Marie Roberts own and operate Centsible Sounds, an instrument shop with a well-established online presence. You’d be hard-pressed to find nicer people who are more interested in getting you exactly what you need and want in a fine stringed instrument.

I described our desires in a viola to Marie. After some discussion, she recommended two violas for our evaluation: an Andreas Eastman 305 and the Scott Cao 750. Both are well-regarded, yet reasonably-priced. She agreed to ship both to us for evaluation with a reserve on a credit card…fair enough for all concerned. We were on our way!

In our follow-on article, we’ll get into the actual evaluation of both violas. I already know the outcome and I’m excited about it! Hope to see you all back here then.

Keep playing,
Mark