When it comes to purchase a violin. Most violin players go to a violin shop , listen to violins and select one. Question is: is listening to a violin for a few min enough to select an instrument.
I heard people who paid significant amount of money for a violin and after a few years they figured this was not the one they wanted.
Selecting a violin isn’t as simple as listening to it for few min. There are much more there to be seen and listened. A good hand made violin grow as the player grow and show more abilities as the players learn more skills.
There are a lot to observe visually before playing a violin, to verify if the luthier who made it had the required skills and knowledge in order to make a proper instrument. The details are so much, mentioning all of them can be as long as a 300 pages book if not more.
A fine hand made violin, should always have some more inside it to reveal. Stradivarius violins are known, being capable of producing wide range of different sounds color which also need high level of playing skills to play. Michael Darnton told me, one of his friends who afford to have a stard violin, could hear a new tone coming out of the box after a year having his Stard violin. Only this, can show how much unlikely it is for an amateur player to play, hear and buy a violin on his own.
In order to evaluate a hand made violin, you must consider it as physical object which was designed and built based on some standards. Knowing those standards are what make you be able to look accurately at a hand crafted violin, and verify if the one who made it, actually knew what he was doing or not.
