Category: violins

Completed September 2022

Completed September 2022

Completed May 2022

It was an arbitrary decision to mark my twenty-sixth violin as the end of my violin-making apprenticeship. It could have been my sixth, or my sixtieth. The difference in quality between “Abomination” and “Biden” is significant, I feel, but after that the improvements in my craftsmanship have been more incremental and will continue (I hope!) with number twenty-seven and beyond. 

Completed April 2022

Just before finishing this violin, I heard from a friend that her husband was on hospice due to end-stage cancer. Thinking about our relatively short human life spans and how there are 300-year-old violins still being played on a daily basis, I thought Rick might find some satisfaction in giving a moniker to something that would continue on long after he was gone. Unfortunately, he passed away before he could choose a name, but his family got together and decided on “Yikes!” This was one of Rick’s most frequent exclamations of both delight and dismay.

Completed March 2022

Violin number twenty-four. Sold.

Completed February 22, 1985

This violin is out of chronological order, as it is actually the very first violin I ever made. Back in 1985 I attended the Gault School for the Making and Appreciation of the Bowed Stringed Instruments in Washington, D.C.  The school had one instructor, Willis Gault, who was a self-taught master luthier with over 40 years of experience. It was a one-room workshop, about 150 square feet, and all work was done seated on a chair with a work-board on your lap. Willis was already an old man back then and had taught dozens, if not hundreds, of wannabe luthiers. At the time, however, I was his only full-time student and got a lot of one-on-one attention. I really loved violin making, but it was Willis who talked me out of choosing it as a career: 

“Until you make a name for yourself, you’ll have to work for someone else for minimum wage. Do that for ten years, then you can open your own shop and make even less.”

Originally, this violin was a rather bright orange. It has faded considerably in 37 years. If you squint at it from a distance, it doesn’t look too bad. But compare the details and craftsmanship of Willis to the violins on either side. Practice makes. . . better!

Completed March 2022

It is traditional for violin players to disrespect violists as the players of second-rate instruments. I thought this name might confuse the issue a little. Serendipitously, of all my violins, this one has the richest, most viola-like tone. It’s one of my favorites.

• How can you tell if a violist is playing out of tune? You can see the bow moving.

• What is the difference between a viola and an onion? No one cries when you chop up a viola.

• Why do you always bury a viola player six feet under? Because deep down they are all very nice people.

• Why did the violist marry the accordion player? Upward mobility.

• What do you call a violist who’s bad at playing the viola? A violist.

• What’s the difference between a viola and fingernails scraping on a blackboard? Vibrato.

Completed February 2022

One day I was struck with the notion that I could improve on a widely adhered-to violin construction method perfected over 300+ years. Silly me! My idea was to replace the thick spruce linings inside the instrument box with thin linings made from the waste parts of the maple ribs. Once I realized how little lining this actually was, I’d already glued it in. Uh-oh. I decided to leave the violin as is. So far, it is holding together just fine and has an excellent tone, but I wouldn’t feel comfortable selling it. My plan is to keep it as my own personal instrument, and should it fall apart one day, I’ll carve out the thin lining and do it right the second time.

Completed January 2022

This violin was made and coincidentally named just before the South Pacific island nation was battered by a deadly tidal wave last winter. I lived in Tonga for six months after dropping out of college for a time. I met a rather rambunctious Scottish man there who would drag any fool (i.e., me) whom he could find deep into the many unexplored limestone caves in the country. He was also an accomplished fiddler and mandolin player. I was thinking of him when I named this fiddle.

Tonga would be a very difficult place to make or play the violin, as large swings in humidity can wreak havoc with wooden instruments, swelling and shrinking the wood and constantly pulling them out of tune and stressing joints and edges. Successful soloists, who travel the world over, frequently find their valuable antique violins in need of repair or adjustment, and sometimes discover that their multi-million-dollar, 300-year-old Strads just don’t sound as good in humid Singapore as they did a few days earlier in dry Denver. 

Making exact copies of old master violins is considered an honorable and highly skilled accomplishment, and many soloists have commissioned such instruments for travel, as a new violin can sound just as good while better withstanding the climate shifts