In november 2013 I went to violin teacher Evert Sillem and I had my first violin lesson. After that I was hooked. Yes, you don't choose the instrument, the instrument chooses you.

I used to play classical guitar (good) and piano (bad) and the first thing I noticed was the difficulty in holding the violin (ugly). Soon the first shoulder en neck pains started to appear and I bought various shoulder rests but none of them worked fine. The best for me was the BonMusica shoulder rest but the shoulder and neck pains remained, albeit to a lesser extent.

So I bought a Viper violin from Mark Wood, good quality but his design did no do the job in relax playing the violin. It was a bit too bulky and just a tad off designed for me.

The BonMusica shoulder rest and Marks' Viper inspired me to board on a quest for a solution. I wanted to play the violin in a relaxed, natural manner.

I went to Local Makers, a 3D printing an design company in Amsterdam, where Lisa Klaever and Gabi Potsa translated my wishes into the present ChestRest.
Sounds simple but the whole process took almost three years, with the usual up and downs.

Nevertheless, the present ChestRest is a fine solution although very probably there are better solutions possible.
Since the ChestRest is released under the Creative Commons Zero license, everybody is invited to tinker with the design.
Hopefully this will result in a range of different ChestRest designs that enhance the comfort in playing the violin.