Fiddle Death

This is the sad sad story of what happens when I try to be good and practice my fiddle like I'm supposed to...

Although this will probably ruin the arch of the story, I'll start by telling you that when I got home from work last night I found that my fiddle case, with the fiddle secured inside, had fallen off of the window seat (about a three foot drop). I blame Morgan since he's been cuddling up next to the fiddle case on several occasions recently.

So, after feeding the animals and experiencing the joy of the pepper discovery (from yesterday's post), I sat down around 7:30 to practice the fiddle... I was tuning it up when the E string snapped... if you've never seen a fiddle (or other stringed instrument) snap before, let me tell you that its a pretty noteworthy event; its fast and loud and makes me jump off my seat every time it happens.... So, I started googling... where could I find a replacement string near-ish to my house at 7:30 at night (or more around 8:30 since that's when Nick (the one capable of driving to the store) would be home..) I found an instrument store that was about 10 miles away that would be open until 9:00. Via phone I confirmed that did indeed sell strings, however their tech had left for the day so no one could help me install it. Sweet! When Nick got home I told him the "good" news that instead of being able to change clothes and drink a beer and then walk up to Madison street to have dinner at one of the restaurants up there, that we'd be driving 10 miles into suburbia to buy a violin string, that I wasn't even sure I could replace myself. I'd never fixed a string before... the other couple of times that its happened I'd been using a rental instrument so they'd always put the string on for me... But, after watching some YouTube lessons, I was convinced that I could do it myself. So, Nick is such a good sport. He was like "ok, sure" so we drove out to the store and got the string... I ended up spending like $60 bucks because in addition to geting the one replacement string I needed I also got a full set of replacement strings for when this happens again as well as a metronome. We stopped at Culver's on the way home to pick up some food.. not nearly the good meal we were planning on having.. but it was fast and it would do. (I had a salad in case you're wondering what a vegetarian eats at Culver's).

So, we got home, we ate, we watched the freaking hilarious Daily Show from Wed. night that we had DVRed... Nick went into the bedroom to watch TV while I set to fixing the fiddle. It took me about ten minutes, but I got the string on with not much problem. I was tuning up when all of the sudden BAM! something broke, flew up into the air, and landed on the table. Not another string!!! I looked and was confused to find that all the strings were still on the fiddle.. WTF. It took me about five seconds to realize that the BRIDGE had poped off. At this point a few expletives were said. Nick came out to see what was wrong... I started YouTubing again and soon discovered that the bridge isn't actually attached to the fiddle at all and is only held in place by the strings ... so all I had to do was loosen the strings and slide the bridge back into place underneath them (making sure to get it back into the precise place where it was before... I know that it might not be perfect, but hopefully I could get it close enough to practice and them have a real fiddle technician double check it for me later). Let me point out that by this time it was already 10:15 and I hadn't even begun to practice. I slid the bridge back into place, and, feeling a sense of accomplishment for having fixed things myself, I brought the fiddle up to my shoulder to tune it when I heard the sound of something ROLLING AROUND INSIDE the body of the fiddle. At this point, I knew that things were over. It took me about five minutes of shaking it around to get a glimpse of the 2 inch long dowel object that was inside my fiddle... I have no idea what it is or what it does or how to fix it (or how someone would even get it out of there; the F-holes in the fiddle are tiny...

More expletives where said... followed by some crying... Then, pouty and defeated, I went to bed.

Being the fabulous husband that he is, Nick volunteered to drive the fiddle up to the place where I purchased it (the place where I take lessons) to see what they can do. I have no idea how long it will take them to fix or how much it will cost. But I do know that the square dance that my fiddle class was supposed to attend and play in on Friday night is pretty much out of the picture for me know. Even if I do get my fiddle back before the event, I've already missed out on the vital practice time I needed to learn the 10 or so tunes that I don't know yet.

*sigh*

I find myself wanting to blame Morgan, since he knocked the fiddle into the floor yesterday... but the fiddle was inside its case and strapped in and the case is REALLY sturdy... so , I dunno if that's what caused this catastrophic instrument failure or not.... Or, what is me and my attempt to replace the string / bridge myself ... did I ruin my new $400 fiddle?

I'll let you know what happens....


UPDATE: Ok.. word on the street is that the thing rolling around inside the fiddle is called a "sound post" and that replacing it and the bridge wont set me back more than $50. No word as to who takes the blame for the injuries to the fiddle, although a third suspect is now being questioned: the humidity.