I took our oldest girl to the shop where she gets her strings and other items from. She is going to college this fall, and she has a scholarship in music amid others, she'll be playing for the Californian Baptist University of California in their Orchestra, Symphony, Choir Ensemble and a Quartet. She'll be busy, and she'll be earning that scholarship!

Since she is in the big leagues she had to upgrade her bow from the one she has been using. The instructor of the strings section requires all bows to be a specific weight, in order to ensure an even tone throughout the orchestra.

We had to head on over to the shop and purchase a bow, it wasn't your average bow I found out! Some more overtime at my day job is in order, again!

While there, the Cruz's, the wife and husband couple who owns the shop is always gracious and welcoming, and Mr. Cruz always comes out from his builders shop and plays something for us, or he'll show off a new violin or Mariachi instrument he just made as you'll see in this set of images. So I just walked around and snapped some images from my cell phone, I thought our woodworkers would like to see a working shop for building stringed instruments. He also performs maintenance on instruments that belong to the school districts around our region, and he is very busy repairing, restringing, as you can see by all the cases around his shop, and the violin on his bench.

 

A school violin on Mr. Cruz's bench being repaired

 

 

Just another shot of his shop

 

Some of his jigs and patterns, he specializes in the Stradivarius style violins.

 

And another shot of his shop

 

Take a look at his nice Laguna 14" Band saw!

 

More shop

 

A view of his area from the front of the store

 

Mr. Cruz plays a Mariachi instrument he made, as our daughter looks on and enjoys the sound

 

Mrs. Cruz looks on as well as Mr. Cruz plays. Mr. Cruz is an accomplished violinists and violaist as well as playing all instruments in the guitar family.

 

We always enjoy our visit to Cruz Violins in Riverside, CA. We always go there with in mind we'll be there for a few minutes to just pick a few things up, but we always end up staying over an hour or more, just visiting and listening to Mr. Cruz play, he always comes out and is ready to play his most recent creation for anyone who walks in.

It took two hours for our daughter to choose a bow, they had two dozen bows out for her, she played with each one until she found the right one.

 

For a sneak peek at where our daughter will be playing starting in the fall, here is a video of her new orchestra, she'll be sitting in the pit with the other violinists soon! We are so very happy for her.

 

 

What a wonderful visit! I envy folks who play instruments- I can barely play the radio.

 

Nice advertisement for our Laguna sponsors!

I'll have to go back Lew and do an in depth interview with Mr. and Mrs. Cruz and incorporate the Laguna 14" Bandsaw into the blog/interview. It would be a wonderful thing to show support for our sponsor like this, I thought of that while I was there. But I'll want to do it right, I'll have to take my voice recorder and my nice Canon camera for the interview.

I can't even cat a tune in an ipod. I thoroughly impressed by all the jigs he has hanging above his bench. 

They actually moved from next door, his old shop really had a lot of character and old stuff and the walls and everything was just really used and beat up, pretty cool, you can tell this shop is newer, not yet broken in yet.