Monday, October 28, 2013

Italian Violin Makers in Argentina

By Andy Fein, luthier at Fein Violins

One quintessential quest of many musicians is to find an instrument that gives you that wonderful Stradivarius or Guarnerius sound, at a fraction of the cost. There are any number of possibilities to fulfilling that quest.

One possibility, one that I particularly like, is to find an instrument made by many of the wonderful Italian makers working in the early part of the twentieth century. Many of these instruments are made with outstanding craftsmanship and sound wonderful!

Another possibility, albeit rarer, is to find one of the fine instruments made in Argentina by Italian violin makers, particularly those of the early twentieth century.
The cello made by Luigi Rovatti for Ennio Bolognini


Sunday, October 20, 2013

Orchestra Apps: The Symphonic Future?

Written by Joe Peterson of Fein Violins

1.08 billion people. That's around a fifth of the worlds population, and also the number of people who use smartphones (Here's an info-graph showing worldwide Smartphone usage). Nowadays, it's hard to think of a business that can't be accessed on a smartphone through the use of an app or a mobile site, because, chances are, they have one. You have a Chipotle Burritos app, a Starbucks app, a Netflix app, a Best Buy app, the list goes on for miles. Oh yeah, and Fein Violins has one. Go ahead, click to our mobile site.

a bassoon app, a conductor app...


But now, amidst all of the burritos and Frappes and Batman and TVs, there are