Instruments I want but would probably rarely play: the story of my life

July 23, 2026

I suffer from an enormous craving to purchase new instruments. I generally don’t give in because I hate spending money; so I wallow in longing for $1000+ (for ensured quality) string instruments in extended games of unrequited love.

It’s always string instruments, because they’re close enough to the violin (or are cousins to the violin) to convince myself I could, in fact, magically play them upon picking one up. An instant connection.

In reality, each of these instruments comes with their own playing style, history, and repertoire that would break the romantic illusion instantly — except for maybe the Pochette.

But such longing doesn’t die easily. I regularly research makers of these instruments and fantasize traveling to places like Sweden or Oregon to pick one up.

Until the inevitable day that I make these purchase, I wanted write up a little love note to each.

Pochette Violin
Octave Violin
Viola d’Amore
Hardanger Fiddle
Nyckelharpa
Erhu
Hurdy-Gurdy
Honorable Mention

The Pochette Violin

Also known as a kit violin or a traveling violin – pochette sounds more fancy, but the name is also practical: “pochette” meaning small pocket, as in a violin you can fit in your pocket. They used to be more common, since they were convenient for small and informal settings.

There’s not necessarily one universal design for these, so it’s always interesting to see what form they’ll take. Usually the fingerboard and neck remain untouched, and it’s the body of the instrument that’s shrunken in various ways. This gives these violins a whispering sound, like you’re hearing it played in another room.

My tale of woe is that I used to have one, after years of pining, purchased, incredibly, on an Ebay auction for $100. It arrived in the mail from Seattle in perfect condition, and came with an unusual bow: a cheap plastic one sawn in half with a wooden peg inserted on one side, meaning if you disassembled it (removing the peg from the stick) you could condense the bow to be a similar size to the violin, for maximum portability. The violin’s scroll was in the shape of a pig. Delightful.

I hung it on the wall and brought it camping. I even planned to have a friend build a custom case for it.

While returning from having it measured, I happened to stop by our fiddle store and thought to show it off. The friend at the front desk pointed out that the neck seemed to be tearing. Not a good sign.

I left it to be repaired, being initially told that the fix could cost more than what I paid for the instrument. But then it got worse: as they pulled away the fingerboard, it turned out a worm (now gone) had gone through and eaten away all around the wooden interior.

“You’re lucky this fiddle didn’t break apart in your hands!” I was told.

The fiddle was unsalvageable. But for $200 (after paying for work done) it makes for a decent wall hanging.

The Octave Violin

I’ve never seen one in the wild, but I’ve heard them on recordings: cellos that don’t quite sound like cellos. The playing style doesn’t quite match a cello, nor does the instrument resonate to its full potential, in a way probably only cello/violin players can tell.

The gap between learning to play the violin and learning to play the cello wider than people think. Sure, in theory, I could “play the cello,” but the muscle memory doesn’t translate like it does to, say, learning the viola. So having an octave violin has an appeal.

Technically, one doesn’t need to purchase an “octave” violin to accomplish this. The “octave” part is achieved by the strings, which are much thicker than the traditional G-D-A-E. But you also can’t slap these on any violin and call it a day: violin bridges (the piece of light-colored wood that holds the strings up in the center of the instrument) are made specifically for those thinner strings, both in the grooves cut into them as well as the tension they can receive. There are ways to DIY the bridge and allow the strings to be comfortably used, but some people will therefore make violins expressly for this purpose, and help support that deeper sound on such a tiny instrument.

This leads into a whole fascinating Baroque rabbit hole of historical viola instruments that fit within this range, such as the viola da spalla, that I don’t have the wallet to get into. (All violin rabbit holes eventually lead to Baroque music.) Also, the viola da spalla kind of frightens me — it’s like a cello hiding as a viola.

The Viola d’Amore

Talk about Baroque rabbit holes. The aptly named viola d’amore (viol of love) is, to me, the final boss of violas. 6-7 strings with 6-7 additional sympathetic strings beneath (which ring out when certain notes are played). It has the richness of a viola, but with all those strings, it also has a truly discombobulating D major tuning scheme (usually).

Renown violinist Rachel Barton Pine says she found it quite hard to learn to play: it took her two months to learn scales, and that the instrument is so heavy, she has to practice in bite-sized chunks of time throughout the day (for context, this is a violinist who’s been regularly practicing a full-time job’s worth of hours on the violin since she was a child, and says even 45 minutes on the viola d’amore is too much).

But love is sometimes irrational, and out of any on this list, the viola d’amore is high up there on ones I’d like to own some day. The House of Musical Tradition near D.C. had two for sale a couple years ago, and I regularly kick myself for not making the irrational splurge on this instrument that I would have little practical opportunity to play.

The Hardanger Fiddle

Sigh , what can I say about the Norwegian hardanger fiddle that doesn’t devolve into bad poetry? These fiddles, to me, are the answer to what violins would be if they leaned fully into folk art. Unbelievably beautiful instruments both in visual style and sound (I’m a sucker for inlays). American fiddles often must bend the limitations of classical violins to achieve folk music through cross tunings and bridge modifications; but hardanger fiddles are made purely with Norwegian folk music in mind.

This is to say, there are differences between these fiddles and standard violin/fiddles that go beyond ornamentation. There are extra “sympathetic” strings. The bridge is more rectangular to make double-stops (playing on multiple strings) easy. They are tuned differently. These differences alone would make for a trippy experience coming from violin.

They are also quite hard to find in the U.S., and also quite expensive. The best and easiest way to get your hands immediately on one would probably be to sign up for the Hardanger Fiddle Association of America’s summer workshop in which they have a loan program. After that, it may be time to choose an organ to sell.

Nyckelharpan

The nyckelharpa comes up more in my conversation than it should. I always describe it as, “what if you combined a violin and a typewriter?” (And I’m not the only one.) I also think of it as a more versatile version of the hurdy gurdy (to be covered below).

It’s also surprisingly recognizable. Sounds kind of like a violin? But has the whispering pop of…. a typewriter? It’s a nyckelharpa.

People love buttoned and fretted instruments, which makes sense. Having predominantly played non-fretted instruments my whole life, I find them a nuisance. But that’s also what intrigues me about this one. What would it be like to bow something with buttons?

I also just find them to be beautiful instruments, both in their sound and look. The sympathetic strings (are we noticing a trend?) give it this haunting ringing sound, while the short bow seems to necessitate quicker bowing changes — perfect length for dancing tunes, I imagine.

My web browser routinely lands on the American Nyckelharpa Association, where my pining seems certain to be endless: while they do, wonderfully, have a loaner program, they, understandably, require you to take lessons. My geographic location would necessitate me to take those lessons online which… I may resort to, but I may have more pining to do first.

The Erhu

All the instruments on this list so far have come from European music traditions due to my frame of reference on the violin. But there are instruments from other traditions that I find myself drawn to, most prominently the Chinese erhu.

The erhu is sometimes dubbed “the Chinese violin,” which may have been what piqued my interest when I was younger — but I find such analogies, while reflective of our points of cultural reference, severely lacking to the point of being unhelpful. There’s very few similarities between the erhu and the violin, one being posession of a D and A string and that both are bowed instruments — many cultures have instruments like this though.

I think my interest in the instrument comes from my encounters with it: once when my city’s youth orchestra toured in China and we did a joint concert with an orchestra of traditional Chinese instruments (that was reeeeally cool), and I knew someone in college who played the erhu. That’s more exposure than I’ve had to some of these other instruments.

I like the sound of the erhu, and how the style of playing takes advantage of its fretless-ness. And I’m so intrigued by the bow: it’s “threaded” between the two strings, which kind of blows my mind.

The Hurdy-Gurdy

Don’t we all go through a hurdy-gurdy phase? Mine was in 2019, at a time when I was listening to a lot of medieval music reconstructions. It’s just kind of a fascinating instrument. The crank and buttons makes it feel so mechanical — like it was invented by a steampunk artist. And who can resist a droning instrument?

The concept of a rosin wheel is also quite fascinating, and I hadn’t really seen it anywhere else until the Pickaso Guitar Bow company, whose ads periodically target me despite not playing the guitar, created an electronic version of this very concept — with cool attachments to boot.

Honorable mention: Devon MacRae

I have to give a special mention to this one particular luthier I’ve come across online who has, quite brazenly, made instruments that are combinations of many on this list:

Talk about niche, but someone had to do it! (And I may be bold enough to purchase one, one day.)

Another instrument that used to be on this list (and in some sense still is), is the viola da gamba — a frequent player in my Baroque rabbit holes. But in an unexpected string of events, I will actually have the opportunity to learn this instrument this upcoming week!

Will I fall in love with this terribly niche and expensive (though obtainable) instrument? Will I commit myself another music cult? Am I fool to think any of my violin skills will carry over to this fretted, lap-playing, under-hand bow-gripping, lute-tuned, treble viol?

Tune in next time to find out.

(I also have a crush on the lirone, but if you see me going around trying to buy lirones, I’ve truly gone off the deep end.)