How Violin Rentals Generally Work

The option to rent an instrument makes sense in a variety of circumstances. Understanding the variables should help players decide what’s right for them.

To rent or to buy a violin? This is the question parents of violin students generally ask. The answer depends on a number of factors, not the least of which is how enthusiastically the student embraces their musicianship. But simply knowing how it works should help the parent sort through their options.

First, if your student violinist is …

Very young and therefore small in stature. As violins come in eight sizes, enabling even very young children to study the instrument, it makes little sense to purchase the smallest of sizes unless you are very confident the small stringed instrument will be used by other, subsequent children. The three smallest sizes – 1/10, 1/8 and ¼ -- should be rentals while the 1/2 and larger instruments might be worth purchasing.

Just beginning. There are beginners who are 3 years old and others age 30 and 60 and even later (fyi, studying an instrument is recommended as a way to prevent cognitive decline). It’s reasonable to rent in the first year at least to determine if the interest in playing will endure – at which time a purchase might make more sense.

Experienced enough to appreciate good tone. Rental instruments are sometimes of a lesser quality than what the student wants. Higher quality, fine stringed instruments are easier to play. As musical proficiency increases, so too does the need for a better instrument, quite likely one he or she owns.

Second, understand the variables of violin rentals …

Renting costs include instrument rental, instrument set up, and insurance. This might be $50 or more per month ($600 per year), however that balances against what insurance and maintenance (string replacement, for example) costs would be with an owned instrument. With rental instruments string replacement is usually included.

You can rent-to-own. Some stringed instrument shops will allow you to accumulate credit toward a purchase of a violin, a cello, or viola with monthly rental payments. It’s a good option for people who think ownership is a distinct possibility, but most violinmakers will not treat it the same as monthly payments on credit. Rather, it will more likely come with limitations, such as how value from rental fees will not exceed 50% of the value/price of the instrument.

Renting to own can be a smart plan for growing children, as it allows an accumulation of money as the child’s needs a larger instrument (the rented instrument is not necessarily what ends up being owned).

Rental instruments are sometimes poorly maintained. As with rental cars, it’s a “buyer (renter) beware” situation. The fact that stringed instruments are subject to changes in humidity, or may have been mishandled by a previous renter, suggests that the instrumentalist renting a violin should work with a trusted local violin shop with a good reputation. That dealer, typically a skilled luthier, would provide a thorough examination of the instrument to ensure it was in optimal condition.

Sometimes a purchase is just not affordable. At the lowest end a violin can cost as little as $100 – but the student who shows talent and enthusiasm might expect to spend ten times as much (and much, much more if the child progresses to serious study). If a family cannot afford that a rental instrument might make sense until the resources can be mustered to buy it (the rent-to-own option may or may not be available).

So there is no “right” or “wrong” to renting. It all has to with the circumstances of the student and his or her family.

A History of Violins in the World of Jazz

The versatility of bows on strings is evident in how musicians over the past century have found ways to swing an instrument that can do bebop as well as Bach.

To understand the history of violins in jazz music, one should understand the history of jazz itself. Violins aren’t typically the first jazz instrument that comes to mind – saxophones, trumpets, percussion and the stringed bass might have that honor – but from the very beginning violins (and versions of violins) have played an important role in the development and expression of this uniquely American musical style.

To be clear, jazz derives African musical traditions. The city where jazz was born, New Orleans, was and remains a polyglot of cultures going back hundreds of years, a place where Spanish explorers, French traders, Cajun immigrants, African slaves and freemen, and Creole culture converged. Here the fusion of musical styles emerged in the late 19th century that evolved into French quadrilles, ragtime, blues, swing, Gypsy jazz, and bebop. Eventually cool jazz and free jazz emerged.

The sound produced by the violin was a bit soft for some of these styles, but instrumentalists and instrument makers found ways to make up for that. Among those were the Stroh violin, a combination of the familiar stringed instrument with an amplification horn tacked on, what looks like a violin and a trumpet got together and made a baby. The electric violin, seen in modern music, is perhaps the great grandchild of the Stroh (minus the horn bell). Both enable the violin to be a standout in the idiom.

Certain recording artists saw early value in the violin as a jazz instrument. They include A.J. Piron, Alphonso Trent, Andy Kirk, Stuff Smith, Claude Williams (of the Count Basie Orchestra), Eddie South, Juice Wilson (Freddie Keppard band), Edgar Sampson (Fletcher Henderson band), Angelina Rivera (accompanying Josephine Baker and Spencer Williams), Leon Abbey, Clarence Black, Carroll Dickerson, and Erskine Tate. A three-violin section in the W.C. Handy orchestra illustrated the love for strings by Handy, considered the Father of the Blues.

Perhaps the best-known jazz violinist was Papa John Creach (1917-1994), who played with Louis Armstrong, Fats Waller, Nat King Cole, Jefferson Airplane, Hot Tuna, Grateful Dead and the Charlie Daniels Band.

Particular gratitude for giving a star role to violins and other stringed instruments in jazz goes to the Romani (“gypsy,” by another name) groups. Called “gypsy swing,” “gypsy jazz” and sometimes, “hot club jazz,” its origins are in France during the interwar (1930s) period. The style originated with accordions and banjos, but with a strong dependency on string instruments, drawing from the cultural history of the Roma people, which rarely included brass instruments. Among the stars of this genre was Stephane Grappelli.

Contemporary jazz violinist Regina Carter, of the Regina Carter Quintet, teaches and performs the jazz violin to its breadth and depth. “Back in the 1920s and 30s violins were part of the Big Band era, but in the bebop era it was less part of the idiom,” she said in a 2003 Kennedy Center program for students on non-traditional repertoires for jazz ensembles. “I like to improvise and come up with my own voice. Playing jazz is less bow and less vibrato; you really have to swing it. It’s about learning the language of this instrument. There are a lot of things you can do with a violin.”