Don Rickert Musical Instruments(tm)

www.AdventurousMuseStore.com Online Music Store is Open for Business

The Adventurous Muse Online Store (www.AdventurousMuseStore.com) aims to be the most interesting musical instrument store in the universe! Acoustic, electric and electronic musical instruments, ranging from innovative to beyond your dreams. The Adventurous Muse venture (www.AdventurousMuse.com) was created to expand our focus beyond violins and fiddles to other types of musical instruments.

The Adventurous Muse, owned by Don Rickert Design, is for the adventurous musicians of the world for whom having the most innovative instruments for pursuing their art is a high priority and who possess and are not afraid to spend the necessary money to obtain them. They are committed to restoring the U.S. economy by supporting small businesses (by buying stuff).

Another First for Don Rickert Musical Instruments: Bartering

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Don Rickert Musical Instruments (www.FiddleandBowStore.com) will bargain with you on the price of our instruments (which we want to become YOUR instruments)

We believe that we are the first company our our type (innovative and custom musical instruments) EVER to offer our customers the opportunity to trade stuff that they no longer want or a service they can easily provide in exchange for price discounts unheard of.

Our Instruments Can Be Expensive if you compared them to a Chinese-made equivalent instrument (of which there are none anyway): We know that our instruments are not cheap, especially now that we have raised prices to reflect their real cost (a seemingly stupid thing to do during a recession, eh?). Here is a genuine opportunity to obtain many of our instruments for a price that you feel is affordable.

It is very simple: make us an offer on price (by email only PLEASE: drickert@bellsouth.net) and tell us what thing or service of value (see our posting on "Bartering Scenarios..." you will trade us to make up the difference between your proposed price and our listed (usually discounted 10%) price. This process of trading one thing for another is called bartering (see our posting on "What Is Bartering?").

A typical transaction with our new way of selling might be...

"I will give you $900 for that $1,600 fiddle, plus, I will play the instrument on my next recording, give attribution to Don Rickert Musical Instruments on the CD jacket AND produce 3 high quality YouTube videos of me playing the instrument, all within 45 days, to boot."

Another example that involves actual goods exchange: Say you want a Travel Master Pochette, but can only afford to pay something in the $500 to $700 range, but you happen to have in the closet a old but WORKING Hohner "Pokerman" model (or similar) Melodeon (button accordion used in Scottish and English Morris and Contra Dance music) in D/A (the keys it plays) or D/G.  You could offer us the Melodeon and $600 and the Travel Master Pochette would be yours...pretty good, eh?  Now, if your Melodeon plays the keys of C/G, our response would be "No thanks." Not the end of the world though, right?

Some things to keep in mind

• NOT taking us up on this offer, provided that you really want the instrument, IS CRAZY!
• Fear of rejection: Most of us are afraid to ask for what we want for fear of hearing that aweful word "NO!"

First of all, please believe that we are pre-disposed to say "YES!" and it would not serve us very well if we rejected reasonable offers. Excuse the cliche, but this is a WIN-WIN proposition.

Besides, what is the worst that can happen...we might respond with a counter-offer or say "no thanks"...that is not so aweful, is it? If we know our customers, and we think we do, there will be far more accepted offers than "No thanks" responses.

• If you feel that what you are offering us in return for reduced price is ridiculous or insulting, it probably is.

See our posting on "Bartering Scenarios..." to see some hypothetical examples of how a transaction might go and, perhaps more importantly, what is of value to us.

Don Rickert, Musical, instruments, innovative, fiddle, Travel Master, Pochette, Bartering, Barter, scenarios, affordable

Bows and Availability at www.fiddleandbowstore.com

This site is no longer being maintained. Relevant posts have been moved to the new site www.AdventurousMuse.com, which is associated with our new, expanded and just plain better online musical instrument store www.AdventurousMuseStore.com.

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The Summer fiddle competition season is upon us and this can be a problem for bow availability. We are fortunate in that the major high-end carbon fiber bow manufacturers guessed well this year. This is shear luck, as the wacky economy makes it hard to plan for anything right now. Here is the low-down.

• CodaBow Diamond Series bows for violin and viola/octave fiddle are in-stock and we are getting them in 2 days from our supplier.
• Glasser Octagonal Braided Carbon Fiber bows for violin and viola/octave fiddle are getting to us in about 5 days...the price has gone up considerably. We absorb part of this increase in our discounts, but you are still going to pay over $400 for these magical bows.

We don't know what the situation will be next month, so waiting is NOT prudent. When the manufacturers run out, it takes weeks for us to get bows.

We don't carry any pernambuco bows, with the exception of a nice old one we have for sale, at this time, nor do we any longer carry entry-level carbon fiber or graphite bows (there is a difference).

Order at www.FiddleandBowStore.com.

availability, bows, braided, carbon fiber, CodaBow, competition, Diamond, fiddle, Glasser, octave, violin

Three (3) Rickert-Fiddarci 'Cradle of Harmony' Octave Violins IN STOCK NOW (NO WAIT!!!!)

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We have the rare situation of having several of our celebrated Rickert-Fiddarci Octave Violins in stock...this means you can have one in your hands within a week rather than waiting several months. You should consider this very seriously if you would like a baritone fiddle for the summer festival season.

Note: The model we have in stock is the same one used by Alasdair Fraser.

Available at www.AdventurousMuseStore.com.

Rickert, Fiddarci, Octave, baritone, violins, fiddle, Alasdair Fraser, in stock, Cradle of Harmony

Realist Pickups added to www.FiddleandBowStore.com today

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We have not had an under the bridge pickup for violin, fiddle, viola and octave (baritone) violin available since the Shadow NFX became suddenly unavailable with Meisel Music going out of business several months ago. We did not like the first generation of the Realist pickups very much but love the new ones (a whole lot!).

Available at www.AdventurousMuseStore.com

Realist, pickup, violin, fiddle, octave, baritone, Shadow, NFX, under the bridge

New Version of Rickert Travel Master Pochette

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We made a custom all cedar version of the Rickert Travel Master Pochette, using waterproof glues and finishes that are also resistant to wide variations in temperature and humidity. It turned out to be the best sounding one ever to leave our studio, so it is now available as regular production item. Nice acoustic power and great bass overtones. This one has the new plug in chin rest like the one used on the Adventurer II Travel Violin.

Available at www.AdventurousMuseStore.com

Click on any image for a larger view.

 

Rickert, Travel Master, Pochette, waterproof, glues, finishes, temperature, humidity, variations, resistant, power, bass, overtones, plug in chin rest, Don Rickert, Musical, Instruments, cedar

User-installable "wing" kit for new Travel Master Pochettes

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Rickert Travel Master Pochettes no longer use the "wing" type shoulder rest adapters. Some customers still want the wings, so they are now available, either installed by us or user installed.

Available from www.AdventurousMuseStore.com

See the images below showing new Travel Masters without wing adapters and older ones with wings.

Click on any image for a larger view.

Rickert, Travel Master, pochettes, wing, shoulder rest, adapter

Don Rickert Musical Instruments is starting an email newsletter soon

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We will be doing it completely legally (NOT SPAM), with double opt-in, easy opt-out, etc.

If you have ever purchased anything from us, we are allowed to send you one email asking whether you wish to opt-in. This is not defined as spam, which we hate as much (maybe more) as you do.

If our ONE invitation email is not welcome, apologies in advance.

The email and subsequent email newsletters (if you opt in) that you get will come from the domain DonRickertDesign.com, the parent company of Don Rickert Musical Instruments. It will probably be Don@DonRickertDesign.com.

Sincerely,

Don Rickert, Ph.D., IDSA

Don Rickert Musical Instruments, Don Rickert Research and Design, DonRickertDesign, emai, newsletter, opt-in, opt-out, spam

YouTube Video Showing Rickert Adventurer II Travel Fiddle Being Played

This site is no longer being maintained. Relevant posts have been moved to the new site www.AdventurousMuse.com, which is associated with our new, expanded and just plain better online musical instrument store www.AdventurousMuseStore.com.

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The video on YouTube of violin/fiddle prodigy Edward Charity playing Scottish fiddle material on his new Adventurer II demonstrates its beauty and power. You can also see what it looks like with the optional shoulder rest adapter.

The Adventurer II replaces the now-discontinued Adventurer II pochette, incorporating improvement suggestions by users of the Adventurer II.

The Adventurer II Travel Violin is available from www.AdventurousMuseStore.com. 

Adventurer II, Don Rickert, Edward Charity, Scottish, travel violin, video, YouTube, shoulder, rest, adapter

Our First Fretted Pochette for a Customer

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While we at Don Rickert Musical Instruments have experimented with fretted instruments, and will continue to do so, we have a customer for whom we are doing a special version of a Travel Master Pochette (Travel Fiddle / Violin) with tied frets like a Renaissance Fiddle. The use of frets is pretty much what distinguished the Rennaisance Fiddle from the Renaissance Vielle, an updated (from the the Middle Ages) version of the Vielle that was pretty much like a modern fiddle in many ways.

Instead of gut, we will be using monofilament (15 lb fishing line), using one of several methods for tying what is called a "fret knot". Tied on frets allow the player to adjust the intonation (by moving the frets) depending on their bowing style, bridge height and so forth, variables that are far more important on violins than guitars for good intonation.

We'll let you know how it goes. Another advantage of tied frets is that they can be cut off if it doesn't work out.

If it DOES work out, you can be sure that we will be doing a story about it.

Have a great weekend and visit our online store (www.AdventurousMuseStore.com)...yes, that was a shameless plug.

Don Rickert, Musical Instruments, fretted, violin, fiddle, pochette, tied, Rennaisance Fiddle, gut, monofilament, Vielle