Full disclosure: I LOVE violas, especially those that are tuned like a cello (chin cello or octave viola) or like an octave violin (tenor viola). It will be of interest to anyone who currently has, or is considering acquiring, a lower-pitched viola. The Chin Cello fad Do you remember the “chin cello” fad just a few years ago. As far as I have been able to surmise, this pretty much revolved around the apparently successful marketing effort by Bellefina, a Chinese company with an Italian-sounding name, that made inexpensive large violas that were set up with octave viola strings. I recall that they even made a 5-string version. Apparently, you can still get them, at least the 4-string version, if one is to believe product listings on the usual musical instrument megastores (e.g., Musician’s Friend, Guitar Center, etc.). I, for the life of me, don’t know where they might get their strings, as the company that made the ONLY standard retail octave viola strings, went belly-up during the COVID epidemic. Those strings were marketed under the Sensicore brand by SuperSensitive. I can tell you with near absolute certainty that there are NONE of these strings left in the supply chain. The same goes for other useful strings like viola F-strings, which were generally used for 6-string and some 5-string violas. We also used them as G-strings for violoncellos da spalla. The near disappearance of Chin Cellos With the unavailability of strings, the wide-spread interest in octave violas, and even tenor... Read more →