How do I adjust my violin shoulder rest?
Shoulder rests help keep your body in a natural position while playing the violin. Shoulder rests are designed to take up the space between your shoulder and chin so that you do not have to raise your shoulder or tighten your neck in order to hold the instrument. There are several types of violin shoulder rests, and the instructions below should cover all of the more “mainstream” ones (Kun, Everest, Viva, Pirastro, etc). If you have a more specialized shoulder rest such as a Bon Musica, you may need to search for additional information. With that being said, let’s go over all of the ways you can adjust your violin shoulder rest.
Width. If your shoulder rest won’t fit your violin or it keeps falling off, you most likely need to adjust the width. On each side, you should see a screw with 3-4 holes, with which you can use to adjust the width as necessary.
Height. If you’re either straining your neck or raising your shoulder to hold the violin, you most likely need to adjust the height. The legs of the shoulder rest act as screws that you can adjust as you see fit; unscrew them to make them longer, screw them in to make them shorter. Also, both legs do not have to be the same length. If you’ve completley unscrewed the legs and still need some more support, you can either place a cloth under the shoulder rest, or buy extra long shoulder rest legs (available on Amazon).
Placement on the violin. When placing your shoulder rest on the violin, think about the shoulder rest making a frowny face. The shorter side should be on the same side as the chin rest and the longer side should opposite the chin rest. You can adjust how far up the shoulder rest lies on your violin.
Angle. Some shoulder rests allow you to change the angle of the base.
Overall, finding the right shoulder rest and ideal set up requires a bit of trial and error. Being able to play comfortably is going to increase the amount of time you can play per day and keep you playing for years to come.
Watch the video below for a demonstration of each adjustment, and comment down below with what type of shoulder rest you use!
