Re: The Red Violin WAS Re: playing outdoors

J. Teske <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message news:<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>...
> Absolute nonsense that one has to be a musician or a practicing
> violinist to write fiction about the instrument.  An author aspiring
> to such things has to go no farther than this NG to check out nitty
> gritty details.  You will get sufficient input to write these details
> anyway you choose :-).
> 
> One thing I will say about the film "Red Violin" is that the mechanics
> of violin playing were done better in that film than in any other
> movie having to do with playing the violin except those that actually
> had Heifetz and Stern playing roles in them...e.g. "They Shall Have
> Music" and "Tonight We Sing."   For example, "Hilary and Jackie" might
> have been a decent movie as long as you didn't have firsthand
> knowledge about string playing and if they hadn't portrayed Barenboim
> as a total  wimp.
> 
> Jon Teske

That reminds me about an odd novel I read a while ago, set in Scotland
and somewhat super-natural - the protagonist falls in love with a
young woman who is actually a mermaid.  He is a fiddle player and all
the while I was reading it I was trying to figure out whether the
author was a violinist himself or had just researched it really well.

Most of the detail was very authentic but two things seemed completely
out of place to me.  Firstly the character has a special violin
purchased for him by his late wife made of mahogany.  Secondly he has
him cleaning it with lavender oil.

Neither of these seem like authentic details to me and it seemed so
odd as the author had obviously done his homework very thoroughly on
all the other aspects of violin playing and contruction.

Or are mahogany violins and using lavender oil to clean it actually
quite common and I'm the ignorant one?

Liz D