Are you frustrated with practicing?

Many players suffer needless frustration while practicing. They are not progressing in tone production, expressing emotions or phrasing. Spending more time practicing seems to not make any difference, and may even start hurting their hands, arms or back. The ability to produce a fine sound is gone or diminishing, and even the risk of injury starts to present itself. A player might start to wonder why they are suddenly struggling or unable to progress or achieve the sound they once had. 

Sound familiar to you? Any of this could be an indication that there is an issue with the instrument’s setup.

When you bring your instrument to the shop, we’ll listen for the overall balance and tone that the instrument should be producing. If there are problems, it sounds sick to us; like a singer with a cold or a blurry photograph. To a player, problems with a setup could sound sluggish, whiney, hollow or fuzzy and feel flabby, slow, or stiff like concrete.

While the instrument’s voice is set at its creation by its maker; over time, changes happen to the bridge, post, tailpiece, tailgut and neck which makes an instrument lose some tone production and playability. 

You might be surprised by how many seemingly small factors make a big impact on your instrument that have nothing to do with you as a player! 

For example, let’s take a situation where three of the four strings sound well, but either the upper or the lower fourth string sounds out of character. Sometimes we try to change strings or move the bridge to correct this problem, but that won’t work if the bridge is too wide or too narrow, or if the post is in the wrong position or wrong length. In this case, a new bridge or post is needed. By correcting the source of the problem, we can restore the instrument to a fully balanced sound.

If you are struggling or frustrated, the best thing to do is bring your instrument in to be analyzed. There can be multiple factors contributing to a single problem, and you don’t have to try and figure them out by yourself! We can ensure that your instrument is playing and sounding its absolute best. Any improvement will certainly help with your enjoyment of practicing which will advance your skills to produce the wonderful music our world needs!