Category: Hobbies

Things I do for fun

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Scott Kelby World Wide Photo Walk

This year Charleston is a location for the 2nd annual Scott Kelby Worldwide Photo Walk and I’m helping to organize it, along with Chuck!

What is it? It’s a day (July 18) where hundreds of people/photo geeks all across the world will get together in groups and go take pictures. So far there are 400 locations all over the world with walks being planned.

For the Charleston event, the plan is to start the gathering at the Gazebo in White Point Gardens at 9AM July 18 and head up the peninsula from there. I’ll try to work out a route that will take the group through some interesting areas, but the route will be flexible. If people in the group know of other good spots to go to, we can do that. Afterwards, we’ll descend on the unsuspecting Tommy Condon’s for lunch and celebratory libations..

The photo walks are limited to 50 people, so if you want to go, check out the photo walk page and sign up.

I think what I need to do is get with Joan and have her help me plan out a route. Even better would be to get her to come along!

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New bow

Finally got around to ordering a new bow for the viola a few days ago, and it arrived today.
Viola and Bow
Sounds a little rough right now. Still need to get the bow broken in with rosin and remember how to bow the strings. Can definitely tell the viola’s just a little too small for me (or else I just have fat fingers).
Now to see if I can re-teach myself all the viola-playing stuff I used to know.

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Strings on the viola

While running errands over the weekend I stopped at a nearby music shop to see what they had for string instruments. Picked up a set of strings and a pitch pipe to help me get things into tune, but they didn’t have any viola bows in my price range. The ones they did have were very nice, but a little more than I needed at this time. Thanks to the pitch pipe and a few MIDI files I found online, the viola is now newly strung and sounds decently in tune, although the A sounds kind of odd to me. Maybe when I hear it with the bow it’ll sound better. Plucking the strings does make some very satisfyingly familiar sounds though.

Now I just need to find a bow and some beginner’s books.

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More on the viola

Inside the body of the viola, there are two stickers. One sticker says

A. R. Seidel
Mittenwald OBB
Handmade copy of
Antonius Stradivarius West Germany

This sticker has 1986 written on it.

A. R. Seidel Mittenwald OBB

Continue reading “More on the viola”

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In search of musicy-bits

Ok, so now that I’ve got this spiffy viola, I need to find a place around here where where I can get:

  1. a new bow (or two)
  2. rosin
  3. some strings (C, G, D and A)
  4. music and instruction books
  5. something to help me tune the viola

This should be interesting. Simba was a total spaz yesterday when I was checking out my new toy and plucking the strings trying to tune it. I bet it will be even more entertaining when I actually start trying to play the thing.

Anybody know of any good local music shops that carries stuff for string instruments?