I play guitar .

I agree, too few violists. my friends don't even know what is a viola.

Nope, i'm proud to be a violist, and i love viola. =D Love the sound esp ^^ Yesh i can read auto cleft. Well, just that we don't have much solo pieces to play on, cos a lot of the solo / concerto pieces are written for violin only. =( But still, i'm happy that I'm a violist =D

lol, normaly when i say "I play the Viola", they will go like "u play a what? violin?" haha. Face it, everyone knows bout violin, and cello, probably double bass, but not viola. xD

This post has been edited by onelove89: Jul 20 2009, 11:06 PM

had once tried viola:) very soothing and mellow sound:) unfortunately not much music piece for that instrument in mysia

hi kimmmie,

download all your viola music here

http://imslp.org/wiki/List_of_Compositions...uring_the_Viola

and those are not all the viola music on the site,so be patient and crawl through the list enjoy!

I know the pianist in Sodagreen (taiwanese band) plays a viola, it's surprisingly to see such an instrument in a POP band.

My sis plays a violin, i have never seen a viola in real before xD. I tried playing cello b4

OH MAI GOSH! THANKS OLLEC! yays i have more pieces to play. and yea, viola has a more 'bassy' sound, buts its mellow and sexy =D thats what i think.

welcome, i'm glad you enjoy it, now you probably can play a concerto/sonata written for Viola and Viola alone, not some transposed violin pieces

anyway, how long have you been playing viola? do you still learn viola in miri now?

i'm currently in KL now studying (not music though), hmm, its my 3rd year playing viola now. Still lots to learn and appreciated =D Wonder is there any small orchestra which i can join here. Don't think my uni has one. hmm...

wow, playing for 3 years on the viola, you must be loving it a lot. Does that mean viola is your first string instrument? of you play violin also before? i can't imagine parents asking their children to learn piano unless they themselves also love it!!

are you still learning viola from a teacher now? is your teacher good? ever plan to take any exam?

rare and niche talent spotted

not much ppl who plays viola in msia rite?

Any cheaper cello to recommend? So far I got the price is RM1300...

Rm1300 is very cheap d lor! How cheap you want?

My main instru is piano =) my first string is violin but i changed to viola. =D yup loving piano and viola =) I opted not to take exams. I still play pieces, and i played in orchestra. =) really fun to play viola honestly, esp in orchestras.


not sure though, but there are ppl learning and playing, just that it's not a popular instru. No la ^^ I'm just an ordinary player.

come on .. u pay peanuts u'll get monkeys so as they said.

RM1300 cello sound like Kapok (plywood) if u r really keen go Vibrante @ SS19.. ask for their discounted cello made by Scott Cao.. only extra RM500max. so tat u got no cursing !

Anyway for ur info i got nothing to do wit them... just 2cents opinion.

hmm anyone selling good violins (pro) in garage sales ah?

good question. but a better question would be "who will actually look into garage sales for pro violins?".

there're various sources, but since they brought it into malaysia, you will not able to get the price you see on ebay or online shops in western countries.

how much budget are you actually looking into? to me, pro violins are in the RM8,000~RM20,000 range. lower than that doesn't really cut it unless you're lucky.

i don't want to go through any local dealers, so i bought mine off ebay. RM20k, turned out to be a great violin that worth double of the price easily, but my pay off is to deal with great risk - violin damaged during shipping, conman, stolen parcel, etc. in order to get rid of the tax i actually insured my violin as a $100(!) violin, so anything goes wrong, there goes my RM20k. luckily, violin arrived safely and i'm enjoying every bit of it everyday.

I'm finding a intermediate one prob 1k-2k pricing hand made viola =) I'm still using my beginner viola, but it sounds rather well, not sharp and screechy sound.

yea, i as well dont encourage buyin online for that

i wanna as about the custom tax..
if you pay for RM20K
and you insured for $100,
which amount they will tax you?
10%.. on rm20k? or $100? or the invoice amount?

oh icic.. i wonder how to judge whether it's a pro violin or not. handmade? maple back? a lot of these violins are being sold on ebay and they claim its a pro or even master violins which is less than rm2k range. wa... rm20k insure it as 100 only... how about the tax how much u kena?

invoice amount usually.. but if u manage to ask the seller to ship it as ... some green form/pass thing lah.. it's not taxable

last time, i shipped a RM4k violin and they charged me 10% based on the insured/declared value written on the shipping slip. so i guess, if it's more than certain amount, they'll charge you 10% for that, perhaps lower than RM1000 might not kena tax...

my violin arrived safe and sound, straight to my house without any tax charged. if not i'll be looking at RM2k for the tax and i'll need to go airport cargo there to collect, 45mins~1hour drive there, and same amount of time to come back.

99.9% of ebay violin that seems too good to be true, they're almost always too good to be true. maybe that 0.01% is a hidden gem, which you have to really look hard. manay many of them claimed italian labeled, old violin, are usually fake, imported from china, or some old mass produced violin with fake labels. some honest seller might sell it for reasonable price, but some will sell it at high price so it's consider a scam to me.

a pro violin, old or new, will have:

1. good respond to the player's bowing
2. easy to play, in terms of getting a good and clean sound without much effort.
3. clear sound, where you can hear the intonation very easily. you'll find how much it'll hurt your ear when you play out of tune on pro violin.
4. variety of tone colour, you can control the sound being strong, gentle, mellow, bright, with a change of the bow speed/pressure. with cheap violins, you can only do 1 kind of sound no matter how you cut it.
5. projection. this is actually a rare quality to be found on violin even on pro violins. and this particular word is commonly misunderstood as the sound being loud or piercing. a true projection is the sound will not lost its power through out the journey from the violin to the audiences. and apart from projection, it can be heard above other instruments when play together.