Zitsman 3/4-4/4 Violin Chinrest - Rosewood with Standard Bracket

Graceful and gently curved for maximum comfort, The Zitsman 3/4 - 4/4 Violin chin rest allows the violinist to place the chin over the most desirable area for playing, which is often more to the center over the tailpiece. The problem with most chin rests is they make the player accommodate chin placement, often only allowing placement of the chin to the left of the tail piece whereas the Zitsman 3/4 - 4/4 Violin chin rest, because of it's wider area over the center of the violin, allows the violinist to chooses the exact placement of the chin for maximum comfort, whether slightly to the left or actually on center. This freedom helps the violinist concentrate on playing and not on fidgeting with the violin. In my early violin training I collected shoeboxes full of chin rests as well as shoulder rests before coming onto this, the most desirable chin rest. If you are looking and comparing chin rests, you really should have this one to compare against. It could, like it did for me, end your searching.

Just what I wanted.

This rosewood Zitsman chin rest is great quality, and the perfect chin rest for me, BUT there can be some challenges when installing this particular style of chin rest on some certain fiddles, see the last paragraph below.I was looking for a chin rest that: 1. Had support both directly over the tail and to the left of it, and 2. Had clamps right on the end block, not over to the side. This is better for structural integrity of the fiddle. I normally like the Teka chin rest in terms of comfort, except that the Teka clamps off to the left. The Zitsman style chin rest seems to a pretty good alternative chin rest, for me. It doesn't have as much of a ridge as the Teka, but that's okay with me. It also is not as high as the Teka style. This particular chin rest was of excellent quality - a nice dark real rosewood with lovely finish, and everything was sturdy. I verified that the wood beneath the finish is indeed a nice, naturally dark-toned and fine-grained rosewood, after having to had to carve the bottom out a little bit, as mentioned below.PLEASE NOTE: Any Zitsman style chin rest will be VERY LOW over the tail, and many fiddles may have trouble with the tail bumping against the chin rest. You *will* need to do some work to make sure that your tail is not touching this chin rest. I had to add two additional layers of cork padding, I adjusted the tail gut a couple times to get everything to line up just right, and I had to carve out some more room for the tail out of the bottom of the chin rest using a circular file. This chin rest style will never be able to leave enough space for your tail if you have a high-angle / high bridge instrument. My fiddle's bridge is on the short side, low neck angle, and I still needed to take several measures to make it fit. If you want something that's less work to install, try a Wittman or a Teka chin rest. You can never allow the tail to bump the chin rest, or you will get some really unpleasant and surprisingly loud buzzing. :) If you know what you're doing, and don't mind figuring out how to make it work, this is a very nice and very unique chin rest. Now that I have it installed and adjusted perfectly, I wouldn't want anything else.