Posted on August 11, 2021May 16, 2025 by Dale Phillips The Anti-Murphy Concert The Anti-Murphy Concert by Alan Carruth Originally published in American Lutherie #39, 1994 I recently had the privilege of attending a somewhat unusual concert by the Tokyo String Quartet, with some acoustics experiments thrown in. Or maybe it was a physics lecture with live accompaniment? And then there was the quiz show part... I guess I’d better explain. The whole thing seems to have started with the coming together of a number of good ideas. One of the first was a plan by the Acoustical Society of America to produce an educational video on acoustics for grades K–12. This, of course, would require money to do, and the suggestion was made that a benefit concert be held. The members of the Tokyo String Quartet were contacted, and graciously consented. So far, so simple. But remember, we’re dealing with acousticians here. Why not use the opportunity to do a little research? For one thing, while the acoustics of empty halls are reasonably well understood, nobody is really sure what happens when you put in the audience. Since the object of most concert promoters is to have as large an audience as possible, and nobody likes to listen to music in an acoustically lousy hall, it seemed like a good subject for an experiment. And how about that violin thing; you know old vs. new and all? And while we’re at it... Become A Member to Continue Reading This Article This article is part of our premium web content offered to Guild members. To view this and other web articles, join the Guild of American Luthiers. Members also receive 4 annual issues of American Lutherie and get discounts on products. For details, visit the membership page. If you are already a member, login for access or contact us to setup your account.
Posted on May 6, 2021May 21, 2025 by Dale Phillips Lutherie: Art or Science? Lutherie: Art or Science? by R.E. Bruné Originally published in American Lutherie #1, 1985 Aside from the eternal “How do you bent the sides” question asked by non-makers, the most frequent point of curiosity seems to be that of other makers: “What do you think of the Kasha guitar?” I am somewhat surprised at this. Firstly, it doesn’t really matter what I think of the Kasha model. I don’t build it, and I would think this fact says enough. The second point is that the Kasha model and theories have been around for enough years (nearly twenty if I’m correct) that, were there merit in the model, it would have been almost universally adopted by makers and players by now. It took less than twenty years for the conservative makers of Spain to adopt the design ideas of Torres, for by the time of his death just before the turn of this century, nearly every Spanish maker with the exception of José Ramírez I was using his model. The reason for this nearly overnight conversion is obvious; the models of Torres were clearly superior to anything else available, and the musicians quickly accepted them. In fact, the makers who didn’t adopt his patterns went out of business. In contrast, one does not see musicians today playing the Kasha model. I know of no professional classical guitarists playing them, and in the nearly twenty years I have been involved in the guitar world, I have never been to a concert where a Kasha model guitar was played. Yet it seems there has hardly been an issue of the G.A.L. Quarterly without some article or reference to the Kasha model as if it were definitive, and desirable. Become A Member to Continue Reading This Article This article is part of our premium web content offered to Guild members. To view this and other web articles, join the Guild of American Luthiers. Members also receive 4 annual issues of American Lutherie and get discounts on products. For details, visit the membership page. If you are already a member, login for access or contact us to setup your account.
Posted on April 29, 2021May 21, 2025 by Dale Phillips In Defense of the Amateur In Defense of the Amateur by Nicholas Von Robison Originally published in Guild of American Luthiers Quarterly Volume11, #4, 1983 and Lutherie Woods and Steel String Guitars, 1998 This is an age of specialists, and I am by nature as well as habit an amateur. This is a dangerous thing to confess because full-time luthiers are likely to turn up their noses. “What you really mean is,” they say, “a dilettante; a playboy of the art and science of lutherie.” I’m afraid they are at least partly right. When once asked if I had a claim to fame, the best I could come up with was: I think I know more about lutherie than any other horticulturalist and more about plant life than any other luthier. I could put up a solemn defense of we who choose the overall view. “Amateur” literally means lover, and an amateur of lutherie very often loves the wonderful world of musical instruments in a way that the specialist builder probably did when he or she was young but maybe has forgotten while trying to keep up with all the knowledge that has unfolded in the past ten years. The important thing is that amateurs are lovers of whatever they are amateurs of. At least that is the excuse I give myself. I think what I have wanted most out of life is to find living itself rewarding. I’m sure that I have wanted that more than I wanted wealth or fame. As Thoreau said, “I don’t want to feel when I come to die that I have never lived.” Like Thoreau, I am inclined to say that I came into this world not primarily to make it a better place to live in, but to live in it, be it good or bad. And that is part of the amateur spirit. I haven’t always been happy. Who has? But I have usually been interested and involved. Become A Member to Continue Reading This Article This article is part of our premium web content offered to Guild members. To view this and other web articles, join the Guild of American Luthiers. Members also receive 4 annual issues of American Lutherie and get discounts on products. For details, visit the membership page. If you are already a member, login for access or contact us to setup your account.
Posted on July 24, 2020May 8, 2025 by Dale Phillips Area Tuning the Violin Area Tuning the Violin by Keith Hill Originally published as Guild of American Luthiers Data Sheet #283, 1984 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume One, 2000 See also, Hints for Area Tuning the Violin by Keith Hill Announcements of “discoveries” of the “secrets” of Stradivarius usually are not worth the ink used to print them. When they appear, everyone reads them with the customary curiosity. Then away they are filed along with the hundreds of other such claims. They get dredged up again when someone writes yet another book on the violin. Mindful of this possible fate, I would like to offer an explanation of a discovery that I have made. It is not of the “secrets” of Stradivarius; rather it is, I believe, the acoustical system utilized by the ancient Italian violin makers. The system is simplicity itself. It is possible for anyone who understands it and has normal hearing to use it. Moreover, it requires no measuring equipment save the ears and possibly a monochord. Furthermore, the thicknesses and their inexplicable variants, which so annoy our modern sense of decency when we observe them in the finest violins by Stradivari and Guarneri, occur naturally as a result of this system. Because it is so simple, it is, of course, the last place one would think to look for the answer. I expect that once you are equipped with the following information, you will go to your nearest antique Italian fiddle and look to see if what I am saying is actually there. Become A Member to Continue Reading This Article This article is part of our premium web content offered to Guild members. To view this and other web articles, join the Guild of American Luthiers. Members also receive 4 annual issues of American Lutherie and get discounts on products. For details, visit the membership page. If you are already a member, login for access or contact us to setup your account.
Posted on July 8, 2020May 8, 2025 by Dale Phillips Hints for Area Tuning the Violin Hints for Area Tuning the Violin by Keith Hill Originally published in American Lutherie #1, 1985 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume One, 2000 See also, Area Tuning the Violin by Keith Hill In my article “Area Tuning the Violin” I presented my discovery of one of the theoretical principles governing the acoustical quality of the violins made by Stradivarius and his numerous Italian contemporaries. Because I believe that the area-tuning principle is the most important of all the acoustical principles pertinent to violin making, I deemed it best to present it in isolation. I would be less than open with you if I did not say that the American Acoustical Society and the Catgut Acoustical Society both rejected the worthiness of the area-tuning principle. I feel that their reasons were full of vested self-interest. I tell you what I told them: Paying attention to flexibility of free plates is a waste of time and attention. Consider the following points. First, thousands of violins have been made using this notion for the last century, yet no consistently superior results have been produced. Become A Member to Continue Reading This Article This article is part of our premium web content offered to Guild members. To view this and other web articles, join the Guild of American Luthiers. Members also receive 4 annual issues of American Lutherie and get discounts on products. For details, visit the membership page. If you are already a member, login for access or contact us to setup your account.
