I remember reading The Battle Hymns of the Tiger Mother and thought Amy Chua was crazy for looking for practice space when she vacationed in Europe. Why wouldn’t you let your kids enjoy their travels? Why subject them to practicing 2-3 hours a day when you’re supposed to be having fun?
But once Thumper started on the violin lessons I realized that if we were going to be gone for 1-2 months at a time, we do have to keep practicing. A lot of it is muscle memory and just retaining muscle strengths in general.
We’ve now traveled and rented violins across 3 continents and 4 countries. For the impatient, you can jump to the bottom of the post for a list of places I’ve rented violin from. Otherwise here’s what I learned about renting violin and music lessons when you travel in a Q&A format.
What do you do about your violin lessons when you travel?
Every music teacher is different in their policies, just don’t be afraid to ask or broach them from the “This is what I’d like to do” instead of the “Can I?” point of view. Teachers would of course prefer that you just attend class weekly.
When we moved from 30 to 45 min lessons, I told my teacher I would do it if we could go back to 30 min when we travel for 1-2 months at a time. Since this is her income, she doesn’t work on the “don’t pay me if you miss a class” method.
When we travel, if time difference permits, we schedule Skye or Facetime lessons. The sound quality isn’t that great but we make do. Due to time difference, we send her recorded YouTube videos while in Taiwan, Singapore, and Malaysia, and she writes us a long email detailing what Thumper needs to do.
We make up the 15 min difference through weeks of hour long lessons. For WSA19, this equated to 6 weeks before and 6 weeks after our trip.
A parent I spoke with said they didn’t have lessons or practice when they were below Suzuki book 3. That seems like a good way to do it if you have young kids. Because Thumper started violin at 9, and was fairly responsible for her own practice, it worked out for us to practice during our travel.
Do you bring your instrument with you?
No. For both WSA18 and WSA19, we were moving an average of every 4-7 days. With my back problems, I did not want to deal with yet another luggage, especially given my ability to always, always lose something everywhere we travel.
In addition, airlines have rules about instruments. While a regular full size violin shouldn’t be a problem, I was reading stories about how they can ask you to check it in if there’s no over head compartment space. I didn’t want to deal with it while traveling with so many kids, so I decided that I would just have to consider rental costs a part of my traveling expense.
There’s also consideration of temperature. Violins are sensitive to heat and humidity. I learned my lesson when I left our rental violin in the trunk once on a 6 hour drive. The instrument did not sound the same. Then I Googled and found out I wasn’t supposed to do that.
Oops.
So yeah, lugging an instrument across Singapore and Malaysia didn’t sound like a good idea.
However, for WSA20, I’m considering bringing our purchased violin along because we will be staying in one place for 2 months. The other option is to rent, and with rental prices comparable in Taiwan, that may be a less risky alternative. Either way, the violin will be sitting in an air-conditioned de-humidifying room the entire time we’re in Taiwan.
How much do you actually practice on the road?
Thumper practices her normal 1.5-2 hours when we’re on the road, when we have time. Since we typically world school on the road, we always leave time for school work and practice on our down days. This means I typically plan itinerary for 1/2 of the time we’re at a location.
Some places, we don’t have time or I can’t find rental, so we don’t. For example, we didn’t practice in Singapore because there was just too many good eats and places to visit. No time for violin!
I’m learning to not get so worked up about lack of practice because my reasoning isn’t coming from a right place. It’s more often just checking off one’s daily todo. There’s no internal motivation for Thumper when practice is dictated by me.
I do, however, get mad at her when she practices half-heartedly on the days she does practice. Again, I want that internal motivation. During our last trip, I also realized it was partly because looking for violin rentals and practice space takes time and effort; time and effort that feels wasted when she isn’t mindfully practicing.
Clearly. getting mad isn’t going to make her want to practice more. So I’m trying to tell her (it’s so hard!) in a non threatening or angry way that I need her to tell me if she doesn’t want me to rent violins, and to tell the violin teacher herself that she doesn’t want lessons when we travel. Of course, ask a kid to be responsible for their choices and suddenly, they wants to practice again. *shrug*
How do you find rental shops?
This was the hardest part because every country does it just a little differently and your Google phrases are sometimes different. It took me awhile to learn how to search, and I’m still learning.
Some things to keep in mind before your search.
- Not every store you find rents instruments.
- They will want a deposit on top of the rental fee.
- Some places allow payment of everything in credit card. Others only want cash. Taiwan wanted cash. Malaysia charged me 3% for using credit card. Australia allowed credit cards.
- Many places in Australia and Malaysia only want to rent a minimum of 3 months and take a non-refundable rental fee.
- The quality of violin varies. If you’re picky, make sure to inquire.
- Search on Google Maps first to help narrow down choices.
- Many places want a local address on the agreement and I run into problems by telling them I’m traveling. But they usually agree to let me use my AirBnB address.
In Asian countries, like Taiwan, Singapore or Malaysia, where it is very dense, I first looked for music classes to see if they rented instruments. Taiwan has a set up where children can go to music stores to rent practice rooms and instruments, in addition to your traditional strings instrument shops. So I Googled “音樂教室“ or “yamaha 音樂教室“ because Yamaha has a lot of music instruction centers.
In countries like US and Australia, I searched for violin rental places or places that sell string instruments. In the US I can Google “violin rental” but I had more luck Googling “string rental” in Australia. When I couldn’t find any rental places, I started looking for luthiers.
How I found our violin rentals in Taiwan
- Start with Google Map and search first for “音樂教室” close to our AirBnB.
- Contact them via Facebook Messenger. Procrastinate when noone replies until the last minute, then panic and call them via Skype. Yes, I really hate making phone calls.
- Searched for “violin rental” on Google Maps. Repeat step #2.
- When calling, tell them
- Duration of rental and size of violin.
- That I’m willing to pay the minimum rental period if it’s just 1 month. Do they do short term rentals?
- Do they accept payment in cash or credit card?
- How much is the deposit and how much do you get it back?
- What kind of violin do they rent? Find out the quality.
Major Lessons Learned
1. Always ask where the violin comes from and test it out before renting. Best to rent from a string shop.
In Taichung, I rented violin from this music instruction shop. Both practice room and violin rental came out to $250-300 a day. It was super cheap and it showed. Because our violin rental at home came from a string shop that had its own luthier, the most basic model had good sound quality and I’d assumed all violins at the basic level sounded like that.
I ultimately stayed away from these 音樂教室 and commuted an hour to rent our violin in Taipei in WSA19. Maybe if you have a beginning violin player, or super young children, you don’t have to be so picky? But there’s a reason for cheap rentals.
2. Bring your shoulder rest, rosin, etc.
We didn’t for WSA18 and that’s when I learned that I should have, otherwise you’re at the mercy of your rental place and they may not have the shoulder rest you’re used to.
3. Consider renting from luthier shops.
In Melbourne, I cold called a luthier with a very minimal website that mentioned they rented violins but had no other info. It became one of my favorite instrument rentals on our trip. We rented a newly made violin that played the best out of all the violins we rented. I learned that not everyone is internet savvy and sometimes I need to go back to just calling on the phone and actually talk to people.
4. Ask how the deposit will be returned
In Malaysia, I charged a hefty deposit on my credit card, expecting the owner to just reverse the charge when I returned my violin. Nope. He wanted to refund me in cash!
I did not want to exchange them back to USD and then carry such a huge wad around. So I sat there for awhile waiting for him to call his banker to find out how to issue a refund on my credit card, fill out a paper request, fax it in, and crossed my finger that the credit will go through after I’ve left the country. Lesson learned: ask in advance how your deposit will be refunded.
Side note. I ended up having a lovely chat with this owner while waiting and found out that he went to college in Taiwan as a 僑生. It was fascinating.
How much does it cost to rent?
The actual cost for us will be listed in the table below.
Our violin rental is around $30 a month in the States. I found most places to be around this price, with Australia being the most expensive. Their prices started closer to $50. Remember you have to factor in travel costs. I actually took a 30 minute Grab (like Uber) ride to a suburb to rent my violin.
We rented violins during our 6 week trip around Taiwan in 2018 and 2 months traveling through 4 countries in 2019. Even though it may have been cheaper to just bring my violin, I really liked renting. It forced me to go to neighborhoods I wouldn’t have gone as a tourist.
| Country | City | Contact | Cost | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| United States | Hawaii | Music Center of Hawaii | $20 + tax, $40 deposit | Wanted HI state ID. Eventually willing to let me put down my AirBnB address. Would not have allowed hotel address. Good quality violin. CC |
| Taiwan | Taipei | LienViolins 佳典提琴 | $700NT + $13300NT deposit | Very good quality violin. Many choices. Cash only. |
| Taichung | YAMAHA保昕音樂教室 | $300NT? for practice room and piano | Good practice room. Super cheap student violin. Cash |
|
| Tainan | 河合鋼琴 台南崇明店 | $200NT/hr for room + violin | Great practice rooms, okay violin. Cash |
|
| Hualian | Could not find any | |||
| Australia | Brisbane | Too short of stay to look | ||
| Sydney | Sydney String Centre | $35AUD + $125 deposit | Good quality violin. Requires local AirBnB address. Tons of Asian food in the neighborhood. CC |
|
| Canberra | Could not find any | |||
| Melbourne | Violin World | $40 AUD + ?? deposit? | Best to call directly. Luthier. Best violin we rented. Originally did not want to rent but agreed after we talked on the phone. CC |
|
| Singapore | Singapore | Yamaha Music School | Too short of stay to rent | |
| Malaysia | Kuala Lumpur | House of Violins | 200RM + 1150 deposit + 3% CC fee | Best to call. Refund is in form of check unless you tell them in advance. |
