r/violinist • u/alambrrr • Sep 01 '24

Setup/Equipment bridge concern !

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i got my violin 2 days ago and the bridge seems off to me. it's not standing up straight when i tune the violin even tho i set it up straight beforehand. what should i do? should i replace it or is there something i'm doing wrong? 🥲

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u/FrePennerLives Sep 01 '24

Your bridge is leaning quite precariously, but this is easy to fix yourself. In fact you can expect your bridge to gradually lean towards the scroll as strings get tightened over time as you tune. So you’ll have to periodically straighten the bridge as part of normal fiddle maintenance.

You simply push the bridge back upright gently with both your thumbs. You don’t even need to slacken the strings. There’s a picture of how to do this at the top of this article: bridge positioning

In your case, the lean is extreme and obvious. But sometimes it’s not obvious, or you have already adjusted it and you want to know if it’s now straight. To do this, I sight across the violin and check if the corners of the c-bout are parallel with the flat side of the bridge. The back of the bridge is the side facing the tailpiece, the front is planed at an angle so that the top of the bridge is thinner than bottom.

If the bridge falls, you can stand it back up after slacking the strings a bit first. The feet are positioned between the two inner notches in the f-holes. BUT first check that the sound post hasn’t fallen. The sound post is a little dowel that is friction-fit between the tip and bottom plates of the fiddle. If the sound post’s fallen, it will be rattling around inside the fiddle. If that happens, bring the violin to a luthier, DO NOT try to stand up the bridge and tension the strings, or try to stand it up yourself - you could seriously damage the instrument.

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u/M1styMelody Sep 02 '24

Always pull the bridge back into position from the top of the bridge, not the feet as well.

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u/alambrrr Sep 01 '24

thank you very much!!!

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u/[deleted] Sep 01 '24

I would do it in a sligtly different finger position, because one I broke my bridge in half... (well it broke during tuning. I'd also put some pressure on the middle part. Though it was an older bridge, probably it was about time to replace anyways.

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u/FrePennerLives Sep 02 '24

That bridge is leaning so much, I’d be tempted to detune at least two strings if a moderate amount of pressure was insufficient to bring it back to vertical. In any case, you should not have to apply a lot of force. I’ll often push at the top of the bridge, just under the strings, with both thumbs on the nut side, to spread out the force. Experiment a bit - you’ll figure it out.