Meeting the Luthier 12/14/22
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I play the violin (for pleasure; I took lessons for 10yrs as a kid,
but those skills have long since gathered dust), and recently noticed
that my sound post seemed a little askew. Without much hope of finding
anyone to help closer than 1.5hrs away in the big city, I hopped on
Google to see if I could locate a luthier who could make an adjustment.
To my utter amazement, I found that there is a luthier a couple miles
from my house, right here in my little mid-Missouri city! I have no
idea what the odds are of this happening, but I'm fairly certain
they're small. After some digging around, I sent him an email.
He responded pretty quickly, and we setup a time that worked for us
both. Our exchange was before Thanksgiving, and our meeting was this
week. No need to rush, a sound post adjustment isn't an urgent sort of
thing generally speaking.
In my head I had envisioned stopping by his house and dropping off my
violin, receiving instructions to come back in a few days to pick it
up. But this was a warm and friendly luthier! He invited me in. His
wife was just starting a meditation session in his workshop, so he
softly knocked and apologetically requested the use of the space. She
was warm and kind as well.
It's worth mentioning here that his house was one of those houses
where everything appears to exist for some decorative purpose. That's
not to say that it looked staged, but rather that it had a sense of
aesthetics. The decor was decidedly antique, vintage, perhaps even
rustic to a degree. And his workshop was double all-of-the-above. His
work table, topped with two handmade violas in progress lying on a
pelt, looked like it was crafted for the space. The lamp had a
cloth-covered cord. The floors were wood--the old narrow slats, not
those new-fangled engineered and tight-fitting planks.
(Unrelated to his luthier-ness, there was a notable painting on an
easel in the middle of the room. It was square, about a meter on the
edges. I asked about it in the course of our conversation, and learned
that he had started paining it in the 1980s; it was, supposedly,
unfinished. A man he was doing work for saw it and was informed that
it wasn't quite right and that it would probably be painted over. The
man liked it so much, he offered $500 for it on the spot. That man
took it, and had it for over 30 years. When he passed away, his estate
returned it to this luthier-painter, who now is deciding how to finish
it once again. He painted it while sitting in the Missouri woods,
during a 30-day hiatus. The subject was an old tree snag, fallen and
broken, in a field of brown grass. It gives the sense that you're
looking up a hill, and that is it the very end of winter, with tiny
flowers breaking through to announce spring.)
At this point, I thought that perhaps he'd assess the violin, and tell
me when to return. But instead, we conversed as he examined the
instrument, explaining every detail of how and why he was doing what
he was doing. He showed me how to quickly and easily measure the sound
post position using a bit of card stock with a partial slit down the
middle and the edges cut to resemble a fountain pen nib. He played a
tune to check the tone (it was a fiddle tune; I learned that for
decades, he had traveled and played gigs with country bands. It was
during that time that he trained himself to repair violins. He started
working for Martin Guitars making tops, and from there taught himself
to make violins and violas.)
I loved listening to him then, and after the adjustment. Sincerely,
with a smile on my face the whole time. There is something about
listening to people play instruments that they love to play, that just
makes my heart glow.
He then got out two metal tools for adjusting the sound post. I've
seen them before, but don't know what they're called. He said he had
done this thousands of times, and from his deftness, I believe him. As
a DIYer, I had looked at these tools on Amazon, but I'm glad I didn't
buy them and attempt the adjustment myself. As he worked, he explained
everything he was doing and feeling. The feel of the post as it moved,
which told him of the condition of the underside of the top/belly. The
pressure, position, rotation, etc. How to look through the f-holes,
how to hold the violin to see what you're doing. Maybe there's a
youtube video that has all the same things, but is that really the
same thing as sitting with someone?
My bridge was not quite right either, I learned. It was serviceable
(as a gig player, he seemed to have a very practical approach to such
questions. "Will I be able to play this next set in 10 minutes, or is
this thing going to break and fly across the room?") You have to deal
with the bridge when adjusting the sound post, because you have to
loosen the strings up to let it move. He showed me the grains on the
side of the bridge, which are the correct indicator of the front/back.
Mine was stamped on the wrong side, and facing the wrong direction. I
vaguely recall putting that bridge in 20 years ago, but nothing else.
He tested it out a few ways, and determined that it was warped such
that it now needed to stay in the way it had been, or be replaced. But
it was fine for playing.
After adjusting everything, he tuned it up before playing again. I
generally use a pitch pipe, because that's what has been in my case
since I was a kid. But he used a tuning fork, which is infinitely
cooler. My pegs weren't rotated properly to stay out of the way of my
hands (I didn't know I was missing out!), so he unwound the e-string
and tried moving the string into the peg a few times, to get it right.
It was even pleasant to watch him tune up. You watch someone who's
done a thing thousands (tens of thousands?) of times, and the natural
flow of their movements, and you can't help but appreciate it. It's
like watching a gymnast or a painter, or anyone who loves what they
do.
An hour and a half went by, talking and adjusting and teaching and
learning. He said more than I wrote, and I saw more than I described
in his lovely little home. He told me the adjustment was free, but I
paid him for his time anyway (but even then, the experience was worth
more than the cash I had on-hand; recall, I was planning to return to
pick it up.) He said I could come back any time I had any problems,
and I in turn offered my help with any projects he might need a hand
with. As it turns out, he does need some help, so I'll be returning in
January. For my work, he's going to make me a new handmade bridge,
which I'll love having on my violin as a keepsake. I asked him how
often a bridge should be replaced. He said a good bridge properly
cared for should never need to be replaced; his, he expects, should
last 200 years. I'm pretty sure that will be more than enough for a
guy like me.
