Daily Care by the Player

Daily care which should be performed by the player.

• The instrument should never be held or carried by the body (Corpus).  Only hold the instrument by the neck and chin-rest or end-pin.  Treat the Corpus as you would a valuable painting.  Acids and grease from the hands damage the varnish and wood and ultimately have an affect on the sound.
• Remove all resin dust and finger grease with a clean soft cloth from the top, sides and back of the instrument.  Never use the same cloth twice as resin is abrasive and damages the varnish. Use a separate clean soft cloth to polish the entire instrument including the scroll.  Do not clean and polish the neck.  Be extremely careful with polishing the wings of the f-holes and press no harder than you can press against your own eyeball, otherwise you may crack the top.  Be careful with the edges of the f-holes and keep them sharp.  Do not polish in a straight line but make circles.  Clean and polish the bow as well (not the hair).
• Wrap the Corpus of the instrument in pure silk cloth to avoid sudden humidity changes of the wood and to maintain an even as possible humidity level of the wood.
• Remove the total tension of the bow when not in use.  Do not only look to the hair, believing you have released all of the tension, but look also to the frog and see if it has slid back enough to slacken off the hair completely.  Have the bow rehaired without delay if the bow is still under the slightest amount of tension and the frog cannot slide back any further.  If you don’t have the bow rehaired, it will bend out of shape and lose its fine qualities.
• Keep the bridge straight.  The bridge is never glued in place and can move from its position if the owner does not properly look after it.  The sound is greatly affected when a bridge (and/or soundpost) has moved from its position, and can permanently damage the top of the instrument.