- Shoulder rests: Everest
- Rosin: Mini dark rosin for beginners or Bernardel cake of rosin as you gain experience
- Strings: Dominant, Vision, Prelude (on a budget), Infeld Red (yes, I have tried more, ranging from Red Label—not recommended, see my experience here—to Helicore to Evah Pirazzi)
- Violins: The following brands, some exclusively found in Utah-- Kreutzer, Archer, Eastman, Suzuki; NOT recommended: instruments ordered from Amazon (teaser for another post, a.k.a. rant)
- Music stands: Manhasset
- Professional cases: Bobelock
- Bows: Carbon fiber bows only on a budget, or for negligent students who tend to whack their bows around (though these too are not indestructible)
- Mutes: Two-hole black Tourte orchestral mute
- Metronomes: Seiko Quartz metronome
- Tailpieces (if a replacement is desired): Wittner--comes with the fine tuners built in
- Tuners: Just buy a cheap app on your phone . . . or get a tuning fork!
- Candy bars (made you look!): Reese's or any real European chocolate
- Misc: Boogie Juice for cleaning fingerboards (behaves much like a Tide-2-Go Pen), #2 Graphite pencil (not mechanical) for lubricating grooves at the nut when replacing strings, handmade sturdy cloth-mesh music bags sold at Riverton Music
- Chin rests
- Microfiber cloths
- Wood bows
- Violin polish
- Professional-level violins (typically these are hand built by a violin maker or reputable string shop, and since they aren’t factory-made or mass-produced, they are less likely to be classified by a particular brand or label)
