Help: Instrument carry bags?

Subject: Instrument carry bags?
From: GUEST,JZG
Date: 01 May 00 - 01:50 PM

A slightly odd question maybe -- has anyone ever seen such a thing as a padded instrument bag, not the same as a case or a gig bag, but something you could wear and safely slip a small stringed instrument into when you weren't using it? I'm doing some music onstage in a play, and have a logistical problem where I have to exit while playing a mandolin *and* carrying a fiddle I used earlier in the scene. The other musicians can't carry it for me because they're playing too. A bag I could put it in would solve the problem -- I'll probably have to make it myself, for costuming reasons, but if something already exists maybe I could get one and disguise it somehow ...

Are they out there? Not the sort of thing a musician needs most of the time, I know -- theater complicates things!

JZG

Subject: RE: Help: Instrument carry bags?
From: Ely
Date: 01 May 00 - 04:46 PM

I'm not exactly sure what you're asking (the closest thing that comes to mind is the quilted canvas bag my brother puts his Civil War rifle in when traveling to reenactments).

My mother made for me a "quiver" to carry one of my lap dulcimers in when I needed my hands free but didn't have any place to leave the instrument. It's literally just a cylinder of fake fur with velour lining and a long strap that runs from one end to the other--perfect for wearing diagonally across my chest so I can carry the dulcimer on my back. I can just walk around or sit and not have to worry about my hands or keeping it balanced. Of course, fake fur is not a requirement--my brother's Union infantry wouldn't let me play in their camp with a modern-looking instrument bag.

Subject: RE: Help: Instrument carry bags?
From: GUEST,JZG
Date: 01 May 00 - 05:39 PM

That sounds like what I have in mind! -- except made for a fiddle and/or mandolin, of course, and I guess I was picturing carrying the instrument sort of at my side rather than on my back. Hmm, so far it sounds like designing and making the thing myself may be the way to go ...

JZG