I recently received this question from an adult violin student:<\/p>\n
Thanks so much for your help. I am a 54 year old male … who in Sept. 2010 began playing the violin in a group strings program at. We have group lessons twice a week. I had decided to begin learning to play the viola also and need to buy a viola, 16.5 I think. There are so many brands including Franz Hoffman, Klaus Mueller, Palatino, Yin-Yin, \u00c2\u00a0etc. I need an inexpensive instrument and was considering the Yin-Yin or Mueller Prelude, or Franz Hoffman. Shar Music has Franz Hoffman, Instrumental and Southwest have the other brands but I can’t find any kind of review of the various brands. Can you help with a resource for reviews or give me some direction in this? \u00e2\u20ac\u201cJohn<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Thankfully, today there are more resources than ever to obtain a quality violin or viola on a tight budget. This is especially true since factory made instruments imported from China have dramatically improved in recent years. This article from Strings Magazine <\/a>tells the story, as directs you to additional resources that you’ll find helpful.<\/p>\n
Remember, it’s easy to be fooled by appearances, so if you’re not certain about the craftsmanship of any instrument, be sure to have it checked by a luthier or professional player\/teacher who you trust. The cost to remediate a poorly made violin can easily exceed what you paid for it. I’d suggest avoiding private party sellers on e-Bay. Stick with a known dealer with a clearly defined return or trial policy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
How to buy a quality violin for cheap.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[56,3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thealpertstudio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/566"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thealpertstudio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thealpertstudio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thealpertstudio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thealpertstudio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=566"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thealpertstudio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/566\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thealpertstudio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=566"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thealpertstudio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=566"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thealpertstudio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=566"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}