JAVS Spring 2019

ears). Find a ‘neutral’ position where your chin, eyes, and ears will be more or less parallel with the floor. Keeping this position, bring the instrument up to your body, and rest the bottom lip of the viola on the collarbone.” 1 Begin by examining your current position. Notice the current position of your instrument and how it fits on your clavicle. The area between your now properly placed instrument and your jaw is the correct chin rest location. Note how much space there is between the instrument and your jaw. This space should almost be filled by the chin rest. Herndon suggests: “You will want enough room to ‘drop’ your head onto the chinrest by tilting the weight of the head forward off the back of the spine and onto the chin rest. This motion will be similar to a nod.” 2 This bit of space between the chin rest and jaw is important to prevent any future tension in the neck. When our equipment becomes uncomfortable, it is a sign that we need to adjust our setup. When selecting a chin rest, comfort should supersede all other priorities. Good posture and supporting the instrument correctly underneath the jaw with the chin rest provides a stable, comfortable foundation. Thus, once a healthy posture has been established, selecting an appropriate chin rest is easier and more intuitive than you might think. Luckily, there are significantly fewer models of chin rests available compared to shoulder rests. Chin Rests

positions for chin rests: the left side of the tail piece or straddling it. After determining which position works for you, you should then assess how tall the chin rest needs to be. For those like me with a long neck, you may want to choose a taller chin rest model. If we rely solely on the shoulder rest to fill all of the empty space, we run the risk of discomfort or sound dampening. This also changes the vertical height of the instrument, which causes the bow arm to be higher. To help fill some of the space or adjust the shape of the top, there are options to add items to your chin rest including cloth coverings and moldable chin rest toppers. One final consideration is the material. Most chin rests are commonly made from the same materials, wood (boxwood, ebony, rosewood) or plastic, and each material weighs differently. To make the chin rest decision even easier, there is an option to have a custom chin rest made. For me, this was the best (and most economical) option available. To begin this process, you will need to have access to a chin rest building kit. If you are able to visit the maker, attend a customization demonstration at any violin or viola festival or workshop, or if your teacher has purchased one, you can select the ideal position, height, shape, wood, and varnish of your chin rest.

Shoulder Rests

Now that you have a newly fitted chin rest and good posture, it’s time to fill most of the remaining space with a shoulder rest. One of the biggest mistakes I see other players make is over-compensating and over-itemizing

The first step to picking out the appropriate chin rest is positioning on the instrument. There are two possible

Figure 2. With his raised chin rest, Alan demonstrates the importance of relying on more than just the shoulder rest to supply adequate height. Photos by Leanna Oquendo

Journal of the American Viola Society / Vol. 35, No. 1, Spring 2019

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