Thank you all very much for the advice. My fiddle is coming home on Thursday this week, and I will have to reconfigure it (it is currently set up for a lefty and I am a righty). Don't worry, I plan to have a friend who plays violin do this with me. Then I will practice practice practice all the wonderful advice you've given me so far. :-)

Sorcha, how does one keep the bow 90 degrees to the middle strings? On my rental violin (which went back to the company in January), I managed quite well to get clear tones out of the high and low strings, but the two middle ones were not so easy...

Captain Swing, by neck support do you mean chin support? My new one has a brandy-new Widdner (sp?) on it. Or is there something else you mean?

Hardiman and Praise, many thanks. I will look at the viola thread.