Don't suffer! Violin ergonomics have improved considerably since the old days before better understanding and rests/pads were available.

Man in front of Xray cringing from sore neck

Article Summary: There are three devices recommended to supporting our violin hold: Chin rest, Padding, Shoulder Rest. Of the many options out there, of which Rhiannon has tried nearly all, she recommends you use a Guarneri Chin Rest, with a Strad Pad attached, and a Bon Musica Shoulder Rest for better support and to minimize discomfort or even pain as you play. Fiddleheads' Owner explains the necessity in using a chin rest and shoulder rest

 

Violin technique and ergonomics have improved considerably since the old days before better understanding and rests/pads were available. Pain-free playing and other benefits far outweigh any perceived volume concerns.

Fun Fact: Antonio Stradivari originally apprenticed with his father, a famous torturer for the Italian Royal Court. Disappointed in the usual means of using vices or pokers, he created the violin and bow (both vice and poker) as a means of extending the agony far beyond the usual 2-4 hour session. His invention would extend the bone, muscle and nerve pain over the culmination of daily punishments for lifetimes of countless violinists.

I just made that up to make sure you were paying attention.

Actual, True Fact: Playing the violin or viola can cause discomfort or even pain if you are not taking the right steps. Technique plays a significant factor mitigating physical issues, but there are also a few wonderful recent inventions that make all the difference to enjoying a lifetime of playing violin without physical impediments or difficulties.

I'm of the opinion that if there is something readily available to make my experience of something enjoyable and pain free, why not use it?

Violin with Guarneri style chin rest

Chin Rests

Early violins and some violas were played under the chin/jawbone but didn't have a specific place for the player to rest her head other than the smooth front surface. Players pretty much stuck the instrument against the side of their neck, and some held it "fiddle style" near& their armpit. Others just rested the instrument on their collar bone, where it balanced at the mercy of the left hand to keep it in place.

This wasn't much of an issue in the early days of violin-ing as the necks were shorter, hence a more restricted range of notes, and the music was correspondingly simple with little to no shifting or vibrato and the phrasing and volume were .

As music harmony and compositions evolved and audiences and players alike demanded more depth from performances, the violin simultaneously evolved to have a longer neck and a higher range of notes. Of course, this also made the pieces increasingly more difficult to play.

Players were now shifting up and down the instrument, using wider and more powerful vibrato and playing with much more volume to accommodate the larger and larger venues and orchestras. Despite violins being built a bit deeper from front to back, they were still considerably shorter than the average neck, which didn't solve the problem at hand.

It was in the early 1800s when a clever, perhaps crick-necked, violinist named Louis Spohr devised a contraption consisting of a carved block of wood that attached to the bottom of his violin in order to raise it up a tad and give the edge of his jawbone something to hold on to. Apparently his design required a fair bit of tweaking and he broke several prototypes before other violinists caught on to the idea. Market demand drove various makers to improve on the concept and being installing them on nearly all violins.

Fast forward to the 21st century: A "chin rest" or "chinrest"(which spell check doesn't like) is a simple contoured device or accessory for use in holding a violin or viola under the jawbone or chin.

It attaches at the bottom left side of a violin's/viola's tailpiece (the right side of a violin made for left-handed players) using a variety of metal fasteners, best secured on both sides of the end pin where the instrument is strongest owing to a block inside the instrument.

Most chin rests are carved from wood, the main varieties being ebony and hard nut woods such as jujube or almond wood. Other options usually include rosewood and cocobolo (which have a variegated, lined pattern), boxwood (a paler beige/brown) and those made from plastic or carbon/graphite.

Interestingly the violin itself never evolved to incorporate a permanent chin rest, owing mostly to acoustical properties coupled with players' differing options on which model is best. There are a number of various shapes and sizes of rests, some of which have come in and out of popularity over the years.

I have dedicated a lot of time and money in researching and testing most of the models with my students to determine what is the best model, not only for myself, but for all players overall to accommodate a range of body types and preferences.

Hence I am of the strong opinion the Guarneri model chin rest (as seen on nearly all the violins I sell) is the best option for violinists and most violists. The design features a soft contoured cup section, with a smoother outside edge as to not dig into the player's jawbone.

A bridging section on the Guarneri chin rest extends over the tailpiece, which is not only safer for the very thin rib material (the interior block supports the pressure of the hardware) but it also protects the tailpiece from being squished down and putting the whole violin under added pressure and putting the violin out of tune every time it's played.

Some viola players using a larger viola (usually over 16") or small-framed players on a too-large viola prefer a centre-mounted chin rest, where the cup floats over the tailpiece. This enables the player to have the wider viola further up the shoulder and can make bowing and left hand work easier as it is at closer reach.

I've seen plenty of violins damaged by crappy chin rests over the years. Cracked or crushed ribs and collapsed seams were a common problem due to poor design or players who overtightened the hardware to compensate for their death-grip hold lacking a shoulder rest (see below).

I have also seen the nastiest gunk literally growing inside the grooved bits of a Mulko rest or rets from a porous wood or plastic that doesn't "breathe." This often results in even nastier skin rashes and bruises that have earned the informal moniker "violin hickeys" because they really do look like hickeys!

My advice is to use the Guarneri rest with the addition of a super comfy Strad Pad.

 

Man playing violin with a strad pad on his chin rest

Padding Helps!

Our Strad Pad product page goes into the specifics, but here's my rundown:

No violin hickeys, no sore neck or collarbone, hygienic and washable, awesome protection for the violin's varnish and wood.Visit our Strad Pad product page for more info and to purchase one.

Considering you spend so much time with this part of the violin literally touching your face and supporting your violin from an untimely death, it's really worth it to use a good chin rest with additional padding on top.

Best shoulder rest ever: the Bon Musica

Shoulder Rests

The advent of the chin rest a couple hundred years ago was only the start. The shoulder rest was still to come, albeit in wide use by the 1970s and beyond.

Whereas the chin rest attaches to the front of the violin, the place where ones chin actually rests, the shoulder rest attaches to the back of the violin to correspond with the shoulder. Simple!

I'll spare going into detail on the advent of the shoulder rest because it is essentially the same kind of origin story, only fairly more recent and, as such, comes with that much more dissent and opposition (to be discussed below).

What is important to mention is that I experienced a similarly exhaustive search trying a wide variety of newly burgeoning shoulder rests in my formative years as a student combined with testing various models as a shop owner for many years since.

I discovered the German-made Bon Musica shoulder rest in 2002 and have had decades of experience using it as a professional musician (read: playing for hours and hours). This is by far the best shoulder rest design ever and receives my firm, loyal endorsement.

My shoulder rest page covers many of the benefits of using a Bon Musica, but here are the key features/topics:

  • Reliable Stability

  • Functional Versatility

  • Ergonomic Comfort

  • Long-Lasting Quality

 

My advice: Pair the Bon Musica shoulder Rest with the Guarneri chin rest with the addition of a super comfy Strad Pad for a winning configuration.

violinist without chin rest or shoulder rest

Cue the Purists

Yeah yeah, there are the diehard musicians posting on any online chat group or forum that will listen their cemented opinions about chin rests and shoulder rests. These purists are the ones scoffing at us at rehearsals as they wrap a yellowing handkerchief over their violin with no added padding or support because it's the way their teacher taught them to play fifty years ago.

Many players were trained from beginning to "ride bareback" (no shoulder or chin rests). It's excellent if you have studied from a young age with a teacher who specializes bareback playing and it works for you. That's quite a feat!

However, most of us find the constant balancing act of resting the instrument on your collar bone both tedious and difficult. The technique involves pushing the violin inward toward the jugular vein during shifts up, raising left shoulder up to squeeze the violin against a clenched jaw during downward shifts, and fighting to widen a vibrato without causing the whole violin to shake.

Leopold Mozart, father of Wolfgang Amadeus, was a major influencer on violin technique in his day and beyond. He had such a low violin hold (near the top of the upper arm rather than up on top of the shoulder) that most players today find makes reaching all the notes very difficult.

I tried one of the old style violin holds, studying with one of Toronto's top violists in an intensive solid 10 hours of lessons over the course of a week. The problem is I started this technique when I was an impressionable (and by that I mean my violin will left literal impressions in my head) 18 years old.

I already had an indentation in my jaw from using a dreadful Mulko rest with a variety of too-short shoulder rests, and my long neck needed more support, not less, so the new technique was lost on me.

In addressing the argument that most violinists didn't use a chin or, especially, a shoulder rest in the old days, opponents of rests can really only continue to state they didn't come along until long after the violin was invented. Yes, but the Ford Model T didn't have seatbelts, shocks or pneumatic tires and there were no traffic laws to speak of. Early-on any invention is a prototype and even after mass production we are finding new ways to provide comfort, safety and enjoyment.

Sure the old dead guys with gigs didn't use a chin rest or, especially, a shoulder rest, but also consider the preferred medical practices of their day involved leaches, people pooped in bowls kept under their bed, most babies didn't survive infant hood and life expectancy was into the 40s to 50s. Just because we didn't have a shoulder rest for the first few hundred years doesn't mean it's not relevant today. (She says via the Internet, something that was not used by most people until the 21st Century.)

Given the choice of suffering in the dark or comfort using modern technological advancements, I'm pretty dang sure tall and gangling Paganini and his fiddle peeps would have gladly sprung for the latter had they been offered the choice.

I share this tidbit on my own regrets in not having better options when I was young:

$6500 and 3 years of my life in my early 40s went toward braces to correct an off-set lower jaw and bottom row of teeth likely resulting from clamping on my violin too hard as a child. I didn't have enough height, stability and padding to protect my soft young bones nor a teacher's guidance in seeking better support.

 

Laptop Computer Hunching Posture

Modern Life Can be a Pain in the Neck

I don't have a government research grant to prove this, but I think people have more tension in their necks today than in the days before the chin rest or shoulder rest.

We are all affected by driving in traffic, using a computer, bowing our heads in the "Blackberry prayer" as we use our handheld devices. Even children report neck strain resulting from watching tv and playing video games. I'd go as far as to say the all-consuming stress of living on a planet whose very existence could be snuffed with out by pressing a big red button is a contributing factor toward tension in our necks.

Did Bach have neck strain from sitting at a computer for 6 hours a day? (No, he just went blind from composing by candlelight.) Was Mozart tense from too much Call of Duty into the night? Was Vivaldi stressed out by the nuclear arms race? Naturally, these people had other stresses in their lives, but I do think our more stationary, high tech lives present new challenges for our necks and stress levels.

One thing that has been proven by research is how people are getting taller all the time. Humanity has seen a need in recent years to create new sizes of shoes and more women require cesarean deliveries because our noggins are expanding to accommodate our larger brains (likely due to all the super smart violinists shopping at Fiddleheads and reading my articles).

We are getting so long we need more legroom so we don't need to origami-fold ourselves into airline seats before takeoff (though it seems Boeing didn't get the memo on that one). With taller bodies comes longer necks, and with longer necks comes need for more support.

 

Lady pretending to play violin without an instrument - air violin

Cost Concerns?

The added cost of a Bon Musica and Strad Pad (our violins and violas are sold with chin rest included) brings the overall purchase price of your violin outfit from us up by $100 or more. Tight budgets could be stretched by adding one or both products and I don't ever want to push people to spend more than they feel comfortable.

In the grand scheme of things, however, the added cost of a rest and pad are a drop in the bucket against the overall price of the instrument, the cost of lessons and the purchases of strings, books, and more over a lifetime of playing violin.

Add to that the likelihood of a new player sticking with the violin if they are more comfortable vs struggling with pain, intonation issues and other problems and it seems a darn good investment toward the enjoyment playing. The many long-term benefits are worth the up-front cost.

 

Old man without a chin rest and bad posture

Mobility Concerns?

Some players who have been trained to play without one or both rests will argue that use of a rest, particaurly a shoulder rest, causes the player to become more rigid. To be fair, some people raise their shoulder rests so high that their necks are like a car raised by a tire jack and there is zero mobility in their neck as a result. Tension issues arise.

Here's an area where you just use some common sense. Make sure you setup your shoulder rest in a way that you have freedom of movement and you will be just fine. With the violin, relaxed support is always better than no support or the opposite of total rigidity.

Soundwave spectrum

Sound Differences?

Both the chin rest and shoulder rest attach to the body of the instrument. There are players, namely violinist Leopold Auer, who vehemently argue against this because clamping something to the violin will significantly mute the volume and/or colour of the tone by reducing the vibrations in a way a mute does the same on the bridge.

But is there really much of a difference? Are these claims valid?

In most cases the difference in adding a shoulder rest in particular is totally negligible. Even if the violin has no shoulder rest, the back is still touching the player's shoulder, which also reduces the vibrations.

Your average player cannot discern the difference and it is usually only truly measurable using a computerized signal analyzer that compares sound waves on a graph. Of course, the samples should be collected from a violin played by a robotic bow arm because, guess what, adding the variables of a shoulder and chin rest will change the way the player is playing the violin.

Mr. Auer dramatically claimed one third of sound was lost when using a shoulder rest and may other players accepted this as truth. However, recent studies have proven any sound loss to be considerably lower and other factors such as how the violinist is holding said violin (resting on the collar bone, clamped between shoulder and chin or with a shoulder rest) have more of an impact on the sound.

Even if you are losing a scientifically proven 2% to 5% of your volume or tonal quality as a result of using a shoulder and/or chin rest, ask yourself this: Is it worth the bodily pain to play without the added support? Will I notice the difference? Will my audience notice it?

Lastly, if you are splitting hairs and desperate to improve your sound by ditching the supports, why don't you instead consider upgrading your instrument to a really excellent quality violin where you really can't hear the difference and can keep the rests.

 

Man playing violin with a bon musica shoulder rest

Rest Up!

I encourage beginners to start right with the right supports on your first instrument; it's worth the investment!. If you are already playing but it doesn't feel right or you feel sore after you play, try a change.

Remember the magic combination: Chin rest and pad with a shoulder rest.

 

Rhiannon uses a Guarneri chinrest, Deluxe brown Strad Pad (with Velcro Fastener) and 4/4 size Bon Musica Shoulder Rest with the long foot section on both ends.