Learn who you are. Your level of experience and your personality are going to show in your work, and that’s the way that it should be. Don’t try to make your instruments look or sound like anyone’s but your own.…
Working at the HatchSpace
This summer and fall, I’m working every Wednesday afternoon at the HatchSpace, a woodworking cooperative in downtown Brattleboro. It is an opportunity to experience what it is like to work in a different space, one that has lots of other…
Strad, Ford, and Italy
In order to study, learn from, and react in an orderly way to all that the great violin maker Antonio Stradivari’s work has to offer, I have undertaken an annual series of 300th anniversary instruments, making copies of Strad violins…
Parting Words from Laurie Indenbaum
I began working as Doug’s business manager on January 2, 2008—the exact moment that the bottom fell out of the violin market. The financial meltdown of 2007-2008 was well underway. What had been a vaguely predictable pace of business evaporated,…
Sharing the Craft: Ethan Brossard
Ethan Brossard, a high school senior at the Academy of Charlemont, has been spending time in the shop with me on recent Saturdays learning about the craft of violin making. Ethan is a woodworker and cellist who plays in a…
Opus 1000: The Materials
Now that I have chosen a pattern for my thousandth instrument, it’s time to make decisions about materials. As with my choice of pattern for this special instrument, I’m using wood that is typical of my work. I like to…
Opus 1000: The Pattern
Fifty-two years after beginning my apprenticeship, I remain deeply engaged in my craft of making fine violins and violas and committed to placing those instruments in the hands of serious musicians. I will soon begin working on my one thousandth…
Playing-in & Evaluation
Violinmaker-in-Residence #24 I am approaching the moment when I will find out what the fiddle is really like. Though you might think I would know what to expect, with all my previous instruments and experience, each instrument is unique and…
Setting Up the Violin
Violinmaker-in-Residence #23 I approach the set up of this violin with expectation and reverence. Bringing the strings up to pitch is breathing life into these bits of wood. I once read in a book about quantum physics that God loves…
Varnish Photos
Violinmaker-in-Residence #22 This set of images follows the application and refining of the varnish on the VSO violin, as described in Blog #21, from the seasoned ground through set up. To follow this blog, please send us an email and…