The Solution to the Chin Rest Problem on Backpacker Violins and Fiddles

Our continuous improvement efforts related to the Backpacker and Travel Fiddles by Don Rickert Lutherie (the Neil Gow 21C2 Travel Violin, the NEW Neil Gow 22C Travel Violin, Adventurer IId Travel Violin and Mountaineer Backpacker Fiddle) has kept us on a relentless search for a truly usable chin rest solution. Customers who otherwise love these small, durable and sonorous instruments have been asking us for years to come up with a chin rest that is truly easy to detach and re-attach (the chin rest has to be removed to fit into the tubular the cases of these instruments). Better still, how about a chin rest that does NOT have to be removed to fit in the case?

An easily detachable-attachable chin rest is an issue with all of our backpacker and travel violins, but a particularly vexing problem with the Mountaineer Backpacker Fiddle, as it is only 2 inches wide…not much to attach a chin rest to.

We were using a one-of-a-kind chin rest from Meisel before their going out of business several years  ago. We stocked up but eventually depleted our supply. Further, the Meisel chin rests were really expensive. The photo to the right is the only image we could find of one of these unique Meisel chin rests (sorry about the low quality image).

The photo below shows one of these Meisel chin rests attached to an earlier version of the Mountaineer Backpacker Fiddle. Despite its ungainly appearance, it worked pretty well…unless you lost the tiny hex wrench required to install and/or adjust it!

 
 
We've Solved the Problem

In our seemingly endless search we turned up a solution that appeared most unlikely for several reasons, which I will  address. We found a source (Dov Schmidt) for a tailpiece with an integrated small chin rest. We were quite surprised that someone dreamed up such a thing. Anyone who has had violin training knows that one of the Cardinal Rules of violin playing is to KEEP YOUR CHIN OFF OF THE TAILPIECE!!!! The idea is that the tailpiece needs to vibrate freely. Yet, here was a tailpiece with the chin rest not merely attached to the tailpiece but part of it. See the previous article Is it a Tailpiece or a Chin Rest? How About BOTH! for additional background on Dov Schmidt and his innovative tailpieces, chin rests and other accessories.

Cardinal Rules notwithstanding, Irish Traditional fiddlers and many 19th Century style American Old-Time fiddlers have been playing chin-on-tailpiece for well over a century.

We were still skeptical. We bought a few of these odd little accessories and installed them on a variety of regular fiddles and backpacker fiddles, using a variety of tail "guts"–nylon, stainless steel and Kevlar cord. To our amazement, the tailpiece did not have any noticeable effect on the sonority of most instruments and actually seemed to improve the sound of some.

The really amazing thing is that the chin rest part of the contraption is actually quite comfortable and affords a nice solid "hold" on the instrument.

The new Mountaineer Backpacker Fiddle Fiddle incorporates the Tailpiece-Chin Rest Combo as part of its design. We are also offering this tailpiece-chin rest as an option for our other backpacker and travel fiddles as well as our regular fiddles set up for Irish or Old-Time playing. But that is the topic of our next article: The Solution to the Chin Rest Problem on Backpacker Violins and Fiddles.