Users of the Kun shoulder rests might have noticed the following problem as the shoulder rests get older– they can get droopy. They are designed so that you can adjust the angle between the plastic “feet” which grip the instrument and the padded part that fits your shoulder. This way you can adjust the rest to fit the slope of your shoulder and also accommodate how high you want to hold the scroll. In any case, the plastic part that pivots this angle loses its hold over time and then tends to slump the instrument in the direction of the floor. I’ll have to make some cartoons to make this all clear. While practicing today, I remembered I had some Krazy glue lying around, so I’ve crazy glued mine to the angle I want (which is entirely opposite of the way it slumps). I will let you know in this entry or a new entry of any potential pitfalls of this approach, but it worked perfectly because the crazy glue pen is small enough to put glue in the little space between the plastic parts. Is it nerdy to get excited about this solution? Well, anyone out there with the “old Kun” problem…now you can do the same.
It occurs to me to make a note that there are some models of shoulder rest that are pretty similar dimensions to the Kun but with sturdier hardware, so the same problem may be avoided by buying one of those instead. When I tried those though, they didn’t sound as good as the Kun (there is a subtle difference in the sound you get with different shoulder rests) perhaps because of the very fact that it is sturdier.
