I brought my Fender electric violin with me to Saturday night's TML gig, along with Z's amp that Mike gave me to try out (Z is trying to sell it) so that I could plug a direct line into Mike's loop pedal for Reflejo de Luna. My brother gave me the Fender for Christmas just before I was paralyzed, and for many years I couldn't play it because the thing is so freakin' heavy. It's mostly solid body. I figured I could handle it for one song, though, so I hauled it along.
As we were setting up, Z arrived to pick up something from Mike and said "hey, I have a gig down the street but I don't care what kind of violin I play. I have my [insert name of some fancy electric violin that I promptly forgot] here--want to switch electrics?" (p.s. he's trying to sell it so he can go back to an acoustic). Two minutes later I had gotten out the chinrest wrench and switched our chinrests, and off he went with my Fender while I got to noodle around on this very cool violin.
I like it because it's much lighter than the fender, and the proportions must be similar to my Kagansky (acoustic) because it felt very natural to play it. I played the whole gig on it. It is still heavier than the acoustic and it did make my neck hurt enough that I couldn't really enjoy dancing after we finished, just before midnight. But some of my neck tension was probably due to the fact that, because of the way the speakers were set up, and because the electric puts out only a tiny sound under my ear, I couldn't hear myself at all. It's a really weird sensation to be playing the violin and not know how it sounds. Yuck.
And shoot, wouldn't you know it, I had a chance to dance intense tango that night and couldn't because my neck felt crappy. Argh.
But that violin is reallllly cool anyway. I'll try it out at North Star this month, I hope.