Ninug Music

Four hours a day, against the same collarbone.

A shoulder rest is the only part of a violin that touches the player rather than the instrument, and it is almost always the cheapest thing in the case. This one is built the other way round — shaped to a shoulder, wrapped in leather, and held on by a clamp that grips the ribs without marking them.

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The Ninug Music shoulder rest clamped to the lower bout of a violin

The shape

Contoured, not bent.

Most rests are a flat bar with a curve pressed into it, and the player spends years adapting to the compromise. This is a moulded core wrapped in leather, with a raised collarbone end and a long fall across the shoulder, so the weight of the instrument is carried across a surface rather than balanced on two points.

A violinist playing with the Ninug Music shoulder rest in place under the instrument

The clamp

It holds on without leaving a mark.

  • ◆Pivoting feetEach foot rotates to meet the rib at whatever angle it finds, rather than forcing the rest to sit square on an instrument that is not
  • ◆Soft contact, machined hingeA textured rubber pad against the varnish, stainless steel everywhere the load actually goes
  • ◆Sprung, not screwedConstant pressure, so it does not need tightening halfway through a rehearsal and does not need forcing on
  • ◆Comes off in one movementBecause it has to go back in the case after every session, for years
Close view of the pivoting clamp foot and rubber pad against the rib of a violin

Setting it

One knob, and then you stop thinking about it.

Height and tilt are set together by a single knurled wheel, in detents you can feel rather than a friction joint that creeps. Nothing needs a tool, nothing needs to come off the instrument to change, and the setting you found does not quietly drift back over a week.

A hand turning the knurled steel adjustment wheel on the Ninug Music shoulder rest
Two sizes of the Ninug Music shoulder rest side by side

Two sizes

Full-size violin, and viola
The Ninug Music shoulder rest in black, tan and grey leather

Three finishes

Black, tan, grey
The Ninug Music shoulder rest in the accessory compartment of a violin case

Fits the case

Into the compartment it came with

Also

The rest of it.

  • ◆Leather over a rigid chassisThe padding is there for the shoulder; the stiffness underneath is what stops the instrument rocking
  • ◆Nothing electronic in itNo sensor, no battery, no app. It is a piece of hardware that has to be right the first time and stay right
  • ◆ServiceableFeet and pads are replaceable, because the rubber is what wears out and the rest of it should not be thrown away with it
  • ◆Made in EuropeAssembled and finished by hand

Pre-production. This page describes what the rest is being built to do. Prices, materials and availability will be corrected here as manufacturing settles rather than quietly left as they are.

A separate line, on purpose.

Ninug Music shares a workshop and a set of standards with the rest of what we build, and nothing else. It measures nothing and reports nothing. If you came looking for the wearable, that is the Ninug Band.

See the range →