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The Paul Schuback Story

The Paul Schuback Story

from his 1986 GAL Convention lecture

Originally published in American Lutherie #9, 1987 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume One, 2000



Paul Schuback was born in Barbados in the West Indies in 1946 and moved to the United States at the age of nine months. Through his experiences and training, he lived in thirty-three different homes before the age of twenty.

His interest in musical instruments began when he was quite young, when he took up the violin at the age of seven. At the age of nine he began playing the cello, joining a youth symphony orchestra in Utah at the age of fifteen. Then, before graduating high school, he began his career as a luthier with a three-year apprenticeship to master Rene Morizot, in Mirecourt, France. Following this, he specialized in violin making in Mittenwald, Germany. He then became a graduate in bow making at the Morizot Freres again in Mirecourt, France. He continued his studies by researching historical instruments in France, Germany, Switzerland, and Italy. From 1968 to 1971 he worked as journeyman in the Peter Paul Prier violin shop in Salt Lake City, Utah, before moving to Portland, Oregon, where he established his own workshop and where he resides today.

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