Wiplstix Mod

 

On goes the 1/16th size wittner. My first time fitting a tailpiece. In fact my first time doing any of this! The new strings were a bit chubby for the nut so I had to delicately widen those slots AND I had to shave some of the wrapping off the G string on account of its overlapping of the fingerboard

 
So here is the finished article, ready to rock!

 

Plenty of clearance from the body of the instrument

 

Looking good!

Wiplstix Mod

So there we go. All done pretty much, and it still fits in the case with the bow (I thought the fine-tuners on the tailpiece would have been in the way but it worked out just fine)

 
 
Then out with the good ol duct tape. If it can’t be fixed with duct tape it can’t be fixed! I decided on green and covered it good and neat, then I used heavy duty cable ties as attachments for two straps.

 

Wiplstix Mod

NOW the last job. How do I get a shoulder rest to fit on the thing? The shoulder rest it came with is an inflatable tube (part of a bicycle tube) which fits into the cap of the container. Again, another stroke of genius on behalf of the maker.

 

 


It works ok, but good luck if you want to do a lot of shifting into high positions, especially if you have a pickup attached as it picks up all the slides, rubs and taps as you release and reposition the instrument in your left hand. I tried and tried with a 1/18th size FOM but no luck. If anyone has any ideas please let me know.

All in all the job took about 2 hours and the benefits are great. I can now tune it easier, it sounds as good as my regular violin through the pickup and it is WAAAAY easier to carry around. A big thanks again to the creator of the Wiplstix, Mr Bill Whipple. Be sure to check out his site http://www.wiplstix.com/ws/ .

Star trek v Star Wars

Polkadots in Dongara

 
Here are some photos from our day out at that beer festival
 
 
I even got a quick lesson in with this guy, Clayton, he is 8 years old and was showing me all his tricks!
 

Dodgy gig time

Our polka band played in the middle of nowhere at the weekend. Dongara, about 4.5 hour drive north of Perth. It was for a beer festival so it all sounded good on paper...
 
This was the place, all looked good too.....
 
But it was an absolute hicksville, backwater town with really mentally unstable folks so we just hid in our room after the gig. Luckily I packed light.....
 

We're on a mission from god....

 
Yup, its all about keeping it real. We are doing walking basslines in year 8 at the moment, and I am getting the girls to all go home and watch the blues bothers at the weekend and compose a 12 bar riff. Great fun all round!

Fin, the computer wiz

 
Fin is getting really good at the computer lately. He can assemble duncan the train on the thomas the tank engine website with no help now, clicking and dragging all the way.
 
Here he is with his new smile. Every time we take a picture, he says "smile" but doesnt actually smile, so the only way to get him to smile is to ask him to show you his teeth.

POP!

 
I had a concert the other night where I was conducting a few nursery rhymes with one of my junior ensembles, so to spice it up a bit, in the middle of pop goes the weasel, i blew up a baloon and popped it with my really sharp baton. Scared the bejaysus out of the front few rows of the orchestra!
 
And i sharpened it with my new leatherman. I lost the old one in the back of a taxi so I got the next model up, it has 4 extra tools, ALL of which i used on the first day of having it to justify the purchase.

3 weeks of detox

 
Well, its been 3 weeks of detox. No booze or carbs during the week, then we can eat and drink whatever we like at the weekends. Check it out! Almost 2 stone!!! Unreal.
 

oh la la

 
In keeping with our european themed weekend, we headed for the hills and had lunch in a french cafe/cake shop complete with mini eiffel tower and everything

Molto Biene

 
We had an italian themed night out at the Witteks the other night (Magda and Martin). Italian food, Italian flags, Italian music and Italian beer.
 
Here is the italian phrasebook, it got minimal usage.
 
The italian tricolour was everywhere, in the decor and in the food!
 

pink rocks!

we are just back from pink! A friend was in the show and got us backstage passes, it was fantastic! She is a real performer, very professional and a very good production! I'm blogging this from my phone so sorry about the formatting.

What a show

 
We have started to watch this show again, its been about 3 years since we watched it last. 14 episodes and then the film. Its very entertaining, very good scripting, charachters and plots. I highly recommend it.

The beginning of the end.....

Remember that blog post last week about the robot uprising? Well here is more of it....

Fruit Ahoy!

 
Yup, its our first lime! Should be fully grown just in time for all those margherita's we are going to drink when we get off this healthy stint.

Cycling...again

 
It finally happened, I got back on teh bike. I have been threatening to cycle to school for about 2 years and I finally got up and did it today. It was great, I really enjoy cycling and listening to music in the mornings, so be prepared to see another few kilo's missing over the next few weigh-in's

Eurovision 2009

Did anyone see the Eurovision the other night? I hadn't seen it in years, and to be fair I only saw the last half an hour in a mates place, what a show! That stage was unreal. EVERYTHING was a screen. I don't think there was a single scene change in the whole show, even the FLOOR was a screen! And what about the winner, Alex Rybak, what a dude! Fiddlin his way to the largest Eurovision result in the history of the competition. I decided today at recess to arrange this for my string orchestra at school. One swift perusal of youtube produced the clip from last nights show:



and another 5 mins with the fiddle, managed to come up with the riff:
 
A few mins later out comes the 3 minute long, full whack, with viola solos all over the place, arrangment for string orchestra.
 
I am just back from rehearsal, the kids loved it. Woohoo!

Sugartime

 
Check out how much sugar is in a fizzy drink!!!!