Dushi Curaçao

Some time ago a musician from Curaçao contacted me because of an old Cello, he is actually not playing the instrument but does not want it to erode either. He asked me what can be done to keep it in as good as a condition as possible.

After receiving some pictures to get an idea about the conditions it was quite sure there were no big problems. It turned out that it was actually needed for a concert and because I’m based on Aruba I wasn’t able to help out with little fixes like changing the strings and fixing a missing piece at the endpin. Irrespective, the musicians found solutions to the problems.

I thought then that maybe the book was closed, but luckily not as I got the opportunity to work with an old and very well preserved patient at my working table. It was buried for a long period of time in storage and dust particles and didn’t get much attention until one day someone freed it out of that state and finally got to see a violin maker.

The first step for me was to check for any cracks or broken pieces. I noticed that there was a crack on the top, on the side of the soundpost but still far enough from the soundpost.  The top of a Violin, Viola or Cello is most of the time made out of spruce. The wood is cut and used in a way that the veins follow all the way from top to bottom. Like that you get a good sound quality out of the instrument, what we would then call Tonewood. The way in which it is worked out is just a couple of millimeters thick that makes it at the same time delicate as well as good sounding. The soundpost is a kind of wooden stick, we adjust it to the sound body between back and top. It is placed lightly behind the bridge but because it is inside the instrument, you won’t see it as long as you don’t search for it.

This piece of wood is transmitting the vibration between the back and the top. Because wood is always working and moving, if the tension of the soundpost is for example too strong and the spruce is a little delicate in its structure, it can cause a soundpost-crack. Those cracks can get very uncomfortable if not treated.  A big repair / restoration with adding a sound post patch would then be the next step.  In this case luckily there weren’t any risk, the crack was already protected and patched.

After, I checked if the top or back were in some parts loose from the rips. That is something that can happen very easy with the passing of the years and change in climate. For these cases I would use natural bone/skin glue that is not too strong. For cases where the wood needs to move or deform, this glue can crack open more easy instead of letting the wood crack by itself.

In general, bodies of a Violin, Viola or Cello are made out of different types of wood (for example maple for back and rips and spruce as I mentioned before for the top). Those woods age differently and can create areas of stress due to differences in density that consequently affect the rate of expansion or contraction. That’s why it is common for an instrument to have openings from the top to the rips or the back and the rips.

This Cello is very well kept and didn’t have any of that. Everything was looking good and there weren’t any additional cracks, just the varnish that did not get much attention over the years. All original, barely small zones of touch ups but lots of old dirt. It also got some bumps so the varnish definitely needed to be taken care of.

I gave the instrument a nice clean and touch up job to let it shine again and properly represent the beauty of its sound. I want to thank the customer from Curaçao for doing business and sincerely hope to see this wonderful instrument back in my workshop in the future.

With this encounter I am also announcing the opening of our new professional photography corner, especially designed to take professional pictures of instruments. With or without a musician, doesn’t matter.

Sourcing wood in the Caribbean

The other day I got the question: so where do you get your wood?

This question is a good one, where do I get wood like: spruce, maple, ebony… given that I am living here on Aruba, a little dot in the Caribbean sea, next to Curacao, Bonaire and Venezuela. The hardware stores have wood but not the quality I need and also not the type of wood that I need. Without the option to buy it here and the fact that it is not easy to order them abroad and have them shipped to Aruba, you might think that it gets very difficult for me to work in this environment. Come to think of it, I might need to figure out a more sustainable plan for the future! Luckily, I do have a little collection of woods for the coming years and as I travel I will keep track of what is needed the most to maintain a healthy stock.

There are international fairs like Mondo Musica in Cremona, Italy where lots of wood suppliers are selling exactly what we as violin makers need.  I’m not a carpenter who needs lots of it. On the contrary, for repairs and restorations I need little pieces. The adventure actually lies in finding the correct and matching piece. You also have to study the wood you are working with, for example spruce has such a great variety of thickness between the growth rings, or a great variety of colors that it can be hard to find the perfect match.

For sure it is practical to have an abundance of choices on an island that relies heavily on imported goods. However, in cases where I don’t find the right wooden piece I can still work it out with the final retouch on an added missing piece (as you can see on this website).

I have to say I love old wood. There are violin makers that have woods of at least 100 years old. Even if you don’t have the access to old wood, you can prepare it in a way that it looks older than it actually is. It’s quite remarkable how this material works, when cooking it or putting it in the oven. All are options to experiment with but carefully as to not over do. There are also chemicals that one can but I don’t really like the side effects.

Other things to always track of and keep into account are pests like woodworms and termites, especially in this part of the world. I am very paranoid of that and always triple check my materials.

My very first Blog Post

Let me just be honest and start it like this: it’s my very first blog post and I will use it to introduce what brought me to this profession and explain a bit why I enjoy it so much.

It started very early, I was seven years old playing the violin and as is the case with owners of instruments there comes a point where something had to be adjusted or repaired. That first time of bringing my instrument for reparation is where I got to know the art and profession of restoring these powerful musical instruments.

I used to have this safety string around the violin attached to my neck in case I would let it fall. Then came a transition phase where I wasn’t using it anymore, and of course there was exactly a moment where the instrument fell bluntly on the floor. Silence in the room, me turning tomato red, seeing the instrument on the ground. I got my speech back fast: “Oh nothing happened” (smile). My teacher replied in a bitter tone: “Unfortunately you are wrong!” The neck broke off and that was a very uncomfortable feeling, especially when I had to listen to the complaints of grownups. But like that I got to know my violin maker Mr. Wagner, an elderly person with the general characteristics of how a seven-year-old would imagine an elderly German craftsman working on wood.

It didn’t take long, maybe two weeks and I had my violin back like new. From that moment I started visiting him on regular basis as he was living in the neighborhood to learn about how one actually goes by repairing something so valuable. I liked the smell of the workshop, the smell of wood, of varnish and of polish. I liked the atmosphere with all of the tools and the workbench. Mr. Wagner was always welcoming me when I called to ask if I could sit in the workshop and watch him repair and restore classical instruments.

Years later, and not anymore in contact, I decided to give violin making a chance at a violin maker in south Germany, to see if I like the job. Indeed, right after that I started informing myself about the possible violin maker schools and options I had available to me.

So just to correct the view of anyone else who still has this image of elderly craftsman working as violinmakers, know that this image changed a lot within the past decades. This field also got more and more interesting for us ladies to work in.

While I was frequenting the violin making school in Cremona I used my holidays to gain more experience in different workshops in Germany and Italy and I met fantastic violin makers with capacities I can only dream of being able to work like that. The necessary skill is training endurance, not giving up, training again, and repeat until perfection. I worked with a lot of Japanese colleagues. Their perfection starts with the sharpening of their tools. I still remember my fingers hurting because of the water and the sharpening stones, next to that I also had to learn the patience and consistency. It took me long to actually understand and see into the detail what they were able to see, and what I had to train to see it myself. As is the case with nearly any other profession, you have to keep your eyes and ears open to new things, because you should always learn something new from whoever you would work with.

One of my last clients in the Netherlands was searching since a long time for a new violin. With her own instrument she was not anymore satisfied, the sound wasn’t anymore full enough and volume was for her career not bright enough. She went from violinmaker, to violinmaker to violinmaker….  Sometimes it happened that she thought that she had found the instrument, took it with her for testing and after some time figuring out that actually it wasn’t the right one. These things happen often there is always something which doesn’t work or lies outside of the budget range, the search for the perfect instrument often seems never ending.

That day I asked her to show me her violin, it was a nice instrument, nothing special but looking good. I advised her to fix the whole setup. To plane the fingerboard, cut a new high quality bridge, put a new tailpiece with lighter material, and finally trying out a different set of strings. I told her that maybe if we do all that, it gives her more space to keep on playing her violin and would give her less stress on her quest to find a perfect one.

This turned out to be was one of those really smooth works, where there was just the possibility to improve. Even if the end result wasn’t 100% what she wanted, it would be still much better than before. When she finally came to pick up her violin and started testing it in the workshop she got this sparkling look in her eyes. She was very excited and got really happy! I heard her playing and thought about the initial problems she on her instrument and suggested another test by changing her e-string which made the sound than finally really brilliant and full and not itchy and metallic like before.

She was really happy and while I don’t know for sure, I can see her still playing on her old violin. The instrument had a great refreshment and I’m sure that it will be somehow played by someone else if not by her. That was a nice experience, seeing her so happy and receiving later on still email to let me know how happy she was. That feeling of helping someone remain loyal to their instrument is what I enjoy the most about my profession.