In the back oh my closet is my wife’s middle school 15 inch viola. I’m wondering if I can convert it into a five string fiddle. Do 5 string violins have wider necks than a standard violin? Will I be able to tune up the E string with out adding too much stress on the violin.
Thanks in advance for all your insights.
The neck is a little wider on a viola to account for strings with a wider diameter and the space needed between them for playability, but the difference isn’t as great as you might expect. Although the viola is larger, the hands of the player are not necessarily bigger, so the neck needs to be playable for most people to make it desirable. This is one detail that factories tend to miss.
To make it a 5-string, you’ll need a new nut, bridge, and a way to put a fifth peg in the pegbox. The E string will sound different from the way it would on a full size violin, but it will work.
You’ll need to plug the holes in the pegbox and redrill the five new holes. A 15” viola is pretty small if I where to do it I would try a set of high tension viola strings and a .010 savareze gypsy guitar string for the E. I have a 17” viola tuned as regular four string fiddle. It has the top three strings from a low tension viola set and a .095 for the E.
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