Please visit the Don Rickert Musician Shop.
We sell an 18th type pochette (pocket fiddle) under the Neil Gow Pochette and Thomas Jefferson Pochette names, depending on the sales venue. This instrument is EXTREMELY popular, especially among our customer/friends in Japan.
The original instruments on which our replica is based, as with all historic pochettes, are generally held with some variation of the "on-the-arm" or Baroque hold. Unless one is totally dedicated to Baroque-style playing, this way of holding the instrument gets old pretty quick, especially since one is pretty much limited to playing in 1st and 3rd positions with the Baroque hold (yes, I know that an expert can play in all positions, but how many of us really want to do that?)
The majority of folks who buy the Neil Gow Pochette end up using a "transitional hold", much like that depicted in the William Sidney Mount painting, Left and Right.
The problem many encounter is when they rest their chin on the instrument, there is nowhere is put that chin other than on the tailpiece, and this mutes the instrument considerably.
Well, one of our inventive customers in Japan, Kazuhisa Yoshida, devised a solution, shown in the photo on the left. This mini rest is made by cutting down and shaping a standard over-the-tailpiece chin rest.
The cool thing is that I believe that there is an historic basis for this solution. I could swear that I have seen photos of historic instruments with tiny "bridges" over the tailpiece.
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