How To Place a Wittner Augsburg chinrest and adjust it in height

by | Apr 23, 2014 | 16 comments

Watch me putter!

First a short introduction to what I’m doing in this video…

To make playing the violin or viola more comfortable for your neck, you might want to fill up the space between your shoulder and neck a bit. In this way you don’t have to bend and tighten your neck too much to hold your violin or viola.

Lots of people increase the height of their shoulder rest, but you can better increase the height of your chinrest. If you increase the height of your shoulder rest, your violin will be higher and therefore your bow arm will be higher. A too high bow arm can cause shoulder injury.

The problem was that there were no adjustable chin rests, while shoulder rests are easily adjustable in height.

As a solution people would risk raising there shoulder rests and get shoulder injury… or they would have a high chinrest made by a luthier.

Having made a custom height chinrest is not only expensive, but you are still fixed to one height. You can try out different heights to find out your ideal.

Wittner has now created the Augsburg chinrest, which you can adjust in height yourself on both sides. You can try out and find out what the ideal height is for you and you can also decide to have the chinrest a bit tilted by using different heights on the left en right side of the chinrest. Great invention! Eureka!

Did you enjoy this video? Please let me know in the comments!

Love,

Zlata

Violin strings featured in this video:

Handcrafted from the finest grade-A ebony artistically designed for beauty and durability

Correctly shaped with slightly oversized shafts ready for final fitting by a skilled luthier

Manufactured in Germany

Most valued features:

  • Adjustable
  • Comfortable

Hi! I'm Zlata

Let me help you find a great bow for your violin, so you can improve your bowing technique and sound quality:

16 Comments

  1. michael

    I’m glad you’re talking about raising chinrests because very few people are aware of it. I hope you will try out or at least mention a SAS chinrest, which are the highest I could find. Perhaps you could even sell them in your store.

    https://www.viva-sas.com/chin_about.htm

    I love mine. I now play mostly without a shoulder rest. But keep in mind it can require cutting away some foam from the case so that it’ll shut. 🙂

    Reply
  2. Violinist Zlata

    Hi Michael,

    Thanks for your comment. I know mr Augustin who makes them (seen him at the Frankfurter Musikmesse some times) and I like their innovative approach. I am playing on a Viva la Musica Diamond shoulder rest at the moment.

    Shame on me I haven’t tried the SAS chinrrest although it’s on the market for a while, but it’s certainly on my list to buy a couple of them soon :). Perhaps I will even make a video around it.

    All the best,

    Zlata

    Reply
  3. Dot

    Hi Zlata,
    I just wanted to mention that I found this chin rest on Ebay for an extremely reasonable price – might be worthwhile to check it out?

    Reply
  4. Sylviane

    Beste Zlata,
    Thank you for the video, very helpful indeed! I am using the Wittner centered chin rest but not the Augsburg type. Now that I know this type exist, I might look for it for my daughter.
    Best regards 🙂

    Reply
    • Violinist Zlata

      Hi Sylviane,

      This Augsburg chinrest is also centered, so you might find it interesting to try it out somewhere. Good to hear that the video is helpful. Thanks for watching!

      Best regards,

      Zlata

      Reply
  5. Dot

    I got my new chinrest – installed it in 15 minutes. This is SOOOO great – so very comfortable! Thank you for alerting me to this! It really does help a whole lot!

    Reply
    • Violinist Zlata

      15 minutes… that’s faster than me the first time ;). Good that it helps!

      Reply
  6. Doug Thompson

    I purchased on from a local shop and got it home and began to assemble it correctly when the plastic shaft broke off from the underside of the chin rest. Well, that was that, it never made it on my violin I am waiting to hear from the shop manager as to what they can do, either return for refund, return for in store credit,etc…this rest definitely does have a design flaw and needs further refignment

    Reply
    • Violinist Zlata

      That’s too bad and strange. I trust you can get a new one, as you’ll have guarantee.

      Reply
  7. Rob

    Most people can use a Chin Rest and some want to raise the Height but I am the Opposite. I have a short neck and so far, I have not found a Chin Rest that works for me because they raise the height of the Chin above the instrument surface by at least 1.5cm and often more. I have been using a thin (vacuum sticking) Clear ‘Gel Pad’ made by ‘Scholl’ instead after trying many different types of Chin Rest.

    Reply
    • Violinist Zlata

      Hi Rob, are you already playing without shoulder rest? There are flat chinrests on the market that don’t go over de tailpiece, just on the side, so they are very low.

      Reply

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  1. 3 Solutions if Raising Your Shoulder Rest isn’t the Solution to Your Pain Problem | Violin Lounge - […] with different heights without buying other chinrests. Click here to buy this unique chinrest. Click here to watch a…

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