Posted on January 2, 2020May 14, 2025 by Dale Phillips New Directions in Violin Making New Directions in Violin Making by Joseph Curtin from his 2008 GAL Convention lecture Originally published in American Lutherie #97, 2009 I started violin making as a frustrated player. My viola teacher’s husband was a viola maker, and at some point I just switched rooms. Otto Erdesz was his name, and he was a kind of crazy genius. I had a very informal education with him, which I realize now was good in some ways. He used to say, “If you take my advice, you do what you want.” The first instrument I made was a viola based on an asymmetrical model of his which had the upper bout cut away so you could reach higher positions. It seemed like a very good idea. He made about twenty of them, and then got frustrated at the resistance of musicians. Just the fact that it was different was a disadvantage. I moved into traditional violin making, which means more or less making copies of instruments from the 17th and 18th centuries. Trying to do that well, trying to do that in a beautiful way and a faithful way and a way that sounds good, is an absolutely fascinating technical challenge. It’s very useful to have the limits provided by these traditions. But after twenty years I started to feel that making another Guarneri copy was a little boring. My mother is a painter and my father is a photographer, so I come from a visual arts background. In the visual arts, the general idea is to do something different each time. It would be embarrassing to do the same painting twice. With crafts, there’s an emphasis on repetition of forms. I think there can be a balance between those approaches in instrument making. And I think there is much more openness now to new design ideas among violin makers, and I’m sure among guitar makers too. I’ll show the work of various makers, including myself. I don’t want to give the impression that this is a major movement. It’s small, but hopefully it will grow. It’s fun to spend some of your time following your imagination as much as the traditions. 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 January 2, 2020May 21, 2025 by Dale Phillips Harvesting Engelmann Spruce Harvesting Engelmann Spruce by Dennis Coon previously published in Guild of American Luthiers Quarterly Volume 10, #1, 1982 and Lutherie Woods and Steel String Guitars, 1998 Visualize for a moment a fine handmade guitar, the essence of precision and elegance. Behind it picture the raw beauty of an immense tree, cloaked in scaly bark, bristling with blue-green needles and gnarled cones. The contrast between guitar and tree is striking. And yet, the link between the two is powerful. As a luthier’s skill and appreciation for materials grows, a deeper respect for wood inevitably develops. Often the luthier begins to take a greater interest in the chain of events that provides his or her materials. Perhaps the luthier buys a billet or a log, visits a saw mill, dries and splits a local wood, or finds out exactly how the wood he or she uses was prepared. The gap between tree and instrument narrows and quite often, a life-long romance with wood is born. It was just such a romance that carried me to the arid highlands of New Mexico to visit Santa Fe Spruce, a company specifically geared to preparing wood for musical instruments. My tour of Santa Fe Spruce was conducted by Tom Prisloe, president of the company. Tom, a musician (classical guitar and lute) with a background in forestry, shares the work at Santa Fe Spruce with partners Suzanne MacLean and David Bacon. As our discussion of timber and instrument making unfolded, it became clear that these three are dedicated to providing premium quality wood, prepared in a way that few other suppliers are willing or able to duplicate. The work demanded by their approach is formidable. Nevertheless, I believe their methods, successes, and problems are instructive. 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 November 14, 2019May 22, 2025 by Dale Phillips North American Softwoods North American Softwoods by Ted Davis, Bruce Harvie, Steve McMinn, Byron Will, and Dave Wilson, moderated by Joseph Johnson from their 1990 GAL Convention panel discussion Previously published in American Lutherie #31, 1992 and The Big Red Book of American Lutherie, Volume Three, 2004 Why don’t each of you tell us who you are, where you’re from, and a little bit of what you’ve done. Ted: My name is Ted Davis and I live in Tennessee near the Smokey Mountains. The Smokeys have red spruce in them and when I found out this wood was useful, I started pursuing it. In the last two years, after a ten-year search, I have managed to find and cut a small amount of red spruce. It was the wood that was used by Martin and Gibson around the turn of the century, up into the 1940s. Bruce: My name is Bruce Harvie and I have a company called Orcas Island Tonewoods in the San Juan Islands of Washington. I have spread myself very thin cutting all the Northwest species — western red cedar, Port Orford cedar, Sitka spruce, Engelmann spruce — and I’ve just returned from cutting some red spruce. Byron: I’m Byron Will and my interest is more from an instrument maker’s point of view. I started building harpsichords in 1975 when I moved to the Pacific Northwest from Wisconsin. I wasn’t very satisfied with the woods I had been using. After seeing these gorgeous Northwest trees I started wondering about their physical and acoustical properties and how useful they’d be in my work. I decided to try some of the local softwoods and learned quite a bit through the years. 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 November 13, 2019May 20, 2025 by Dale Phillips H.L. Wild H.L. Wild by Paul Wyszkowski Originally published in American Lutherie #7, 1986 and The Big Red Book of American Lutherie, Volume 1, 2000 See also, “Out of the Basement” by Richard Bingham “A Scene from Dickens” by Steve Curtin H.L. Wild: A curiosity shop, a preserved bit of the past still alive in Manhattan. Not a museum display, not a movie set, but a place where the antiques on the shelves are for sale not as such, but as current merchandise. A real time trip. See it while it is still here. Buy some hundred-year-old veneer. Or pull together a guitar or a mandolin set from the stock of vintage woods and parts. Or you may find that this is the only place in the whole world which still has a supply of a particular fret-saw blade. Who knows what you may find here? Come on down! Betty Wild, who has recently celebrated her sixty-second birthday, is the third generation of the Wild dynasty. Her grandfather, William Wild, founded H.L. Wild (just “H.L. Wild,” no “Company”) at its present address in Manhattan in 1876. (Where the initials “H.L.” came from is not clear, but apparently at least part of the reason for choosing them was aesthetic: “H.L. Wild” fits the mouth nicely.) The original business manufactured and sold intricate wooden fretwork construction sets for models of buildings, churches, towers, and various decorative objects. Jigsaw puzzles were another major product. A copy of the 1876 catalog depicting the many different designs then available leans against the glass of a display case behind the counter. Betty shows it with obvious pride. 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 October 31, 2019May 14, 2025 by Dale Phillips Meet the Maker: Douglas Martin Meet the Maker: Douglas Martin by Barbara Goldowsky previously published in American Lutherie #90, 2007 The violin is about the only man-made device that is made today exactly as it has been for the past 300 years. Now, finally, a revolution may be under way, according to Joseph Curtin of Ann Arbor, Michigan, the craftsman who just recently was awarded the first MacArthur Fellowship ever granted to a violin maker. The cause of his startling statement is a balsa-wood violin that produces the powerful sound and excellent response everyone in the profession strives for. The unusual instrument’s creator is Douglas Martin, an amateur maker from Maine, who first introduced it to colleagues in July 2004. Since then, Mr. Martin’s work has sparked such enthusiasm that a special “Festival of Innovation” has been added to the Violin Society of America’s upcoming convention, from November 10–13, in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania. The new program’s goal is “to explore the future evolution of the violin — to inspire makers to follow their creative dreams wherever they may lead,” according to Fan Tao, a research scientist and a director of the VSA. In the society’s most recent newsletter, Mr. Curtin, also a director, claims that the traditional violin is “obsolete,” and urges members to “judge for yourself — join in the arguments, hoot or applaud — but don’t let the revolution start without you!” 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.
