#doll instruments

Today it occurred to me that the set doesn't come with rosin. So I looked it up and apparently the violins they make now are plastic and nonfunctional! I didn't know that till today, so I hadn't asked before buying if the set I ordered was the original wood one that made a sound when played. It shipped yesterday, too late to cancel the order without feeling guilty, so I decided to look up and save some new listings that were definitely the wood ones, just in case the one I got turned out to be plastic. If it was wood, I planned to delete the saves from my lists.

This is how I found a 1996 recital outfit (which looks just like the ones we wore for middle school concerts but was off my radar then because I didn't have a doll) that came with not only a functional wood violin and the stand and books, but also a flute! I ordered that too, because it was a reasonable price and I had been planning to get the recital outfit eventually. I figured I could sell whichever violin set I didn't want and the flute together to recoup my costs for the first violin set.

Only thennnnnn I learned that there also exists an entire doll-sized music store, to include a cello, an orchestral percussion set, and a recorder. Which they are calling a flutophone but it looks just like the recorders we played in third grade. Among others - guitars galore, ukulele sets, drums, keyboards, a piano. You could really make a whole school orchestra in 1/3 scale with everything they've come out with since that first tiny violin.

And now I am reconsidering selling the extra violin and the flute, and thinking about buying a cello, flutophone, and percussion set so I can have a whole dolly orchestra. They'll all need recital outfits, for obvious reasons.

Right now I’m too tired to english, but I’m posting these anyway. Awesome tiny viola from My Orchestra by F-Toys. I found it at Harapekodoggybag who turned out to have a single one left. There are a bunch of other instruments in the set, including two paintjobs for the violin, which would have been neat too, but since they actually bothered making a separate viola version I had to have that one!

Unfortunately the scale seems to be a bit under 1/6 (compared here to a Takara violin - looks like they got the proportiona right but forgot to scale it up compared to the violin) so let’s just say it’s a 1/3 size viola. It looks about the right size for Licca on her 21cm Obitsu body. (Fun fact: a violin is the right size for you if you can reach to grab around the scroll with your arm stretched. I don’t remember how much bigger a viola should be, but not too much I guess.)

The details are pretty nice, although the painted intarsia line is a bit off. Fishing wire for strings - I was a bit worried to push them off the when posing the doll’s hands. The bow is very realistic - the hair is soft plastic and probably a bit fragile.

It also came with this tiny little viol(in)ist figure - the paint job is a bit sloppy but it’s adorable so it’s all forgiven. Apparently there is a whole orchestra and I guess the idea is to Collect ‘Em All™, although that's going to be hard now since they're sold out. But if you do, don't forget to look for the conductor figure too.