Posted on June 23, 2021March 6, 2024 by Dale Phillips A Contrabass for the Pugo Brothers Cuenca. They Became Self-Made Luthiers in their El Cebollar Neighborhood. They Make String Instruments. A Contrabass for the Pugo Brothers These Artisans had to Desecrate Several Secrets Before Making Violincellos, Contrabasses, Violins, and Guitars. But they did it. by Juan Carlos Morales translated by John L. Walker Originally published in American Lutherie #73, 2003 When Angel Pugo was a young boy he developed a phobia that never went away: fear of school. His teachers’ intolerance, according to him, was the reason that caused him to not sit near the blackboard anymore. “Those that went around barefooted were never well considered,” says Angel, now a violin maker. His father, Miguel, had heaped rondadores, flautas de pan, pingullos, and ocarinas1 upon his sons while he watched the corn grow on the hillside. After one of his first “traumas,” as Angel calls them, he also hung up his pingullo and headed towards the Conservatory of Cuenca. “They told me that all they did in the conservatory was repeat do, re, and mi, and that it was very boring. But solfège delighted me.” The musical center’s director looked at him carefully and said, “You are worth it.” This same director, after sitting him in front of a piano, would choose Angel Pugo as a beneficiary of one of the thirty pianos provided by the government of Jaime Roldós Aguilera.2 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 13, 2021March 6, 2024 by Dale Phillips Bow Hair Jig Bow Hair Jig by Thomas Snyder Originally published in American Lutherie #3, 1985 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume One, 2000 As and apprentice luthier, I have come up with a better mousetrap for rehairing bows. The results with this method have been uniform hair tension, long-term retention, and reduction in rehairing time. The jig was fabricated from pine and oak. I used oak on all blocks. Item 4 makes a great carving back for ferrule wedges. I average ten bows a month and this method and jig has cut my time in half and increased the quality. On my sketch, items 2A, 2E, 2D, and 2F are the new additions to an old jig. I have made a few small changes. For the lack of a name, I will call this a “hair holder.” Item 2A swings aside to place hair over sponge rubber. The half of a 1/8" dowel holds the hair in place when the wing nuts are tightened. 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 December 27, 2020March 6, 2024 by Dale Phillips Bass String Choices Bass String Choices by Frederick C. Lyman, Jr. Originally published in American Lutherie #5, 1986 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie, Volume One, 2000 Fifty years ago, basses had gut strings, usually the top two plain gut and the lower two wound with wire. Whatever techniques a bassist wished to learn, classical, jazz, or the various folk/ethnic categories, they had to be within the limited possibilities afforded by this kind of string. Gut strings were at their best in the deep background tones of a symphonic bass section because they had a strong, true fundamental that stayed back where it belonged. Plucked, they had a punchy jazz rhythm sound in the lower and middle register, sometimes producing a delayed response that was known popularly as the “walking” effect. For solos of any sort, the range was limited because the high notes were feeble and uncentered. The first steel strings for bass, with a solid wire core, were stiff and had a harsh, metallic sound. But improved strings were developed with flexible, stranded cores and multiple windings. These were developed along the lines of two different design philosophies, and musicians had to choose between them. 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, 2020March 6, 2024 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, 2020March 6, 2024 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.
