Fiddler Dan Violins & Workshop, Brisbane
Violin sales and all string repairs in Mansfield and Mt. Gravatt, Brisbane South
I had this lovely Chinese Zither in for some minor work last week. Its proper name is a Guzheng. Its a plucked instrument like a horizontal harp if you will.
Accompanying it was a Ruan that also need some work, A Ruan is a kind of Chinese guitar that comes in three sizes and it tuned tonic-fith-tonic fith
Cara, the artist who brought them in is a regular performer, here is one of her recording for the ABC.
Visiting artist Bulgantamir brought this amazing horsehead fiddle by my workshop for some minor work. It has 2 strings, that are made of twisted horsehead. Inside the instrument is a bass bar and sound post. The music was interesting, lots of harmonics and rhythmic bowing.
Catch him on insta
Make makes a violin expert? Are you looking for a violin expert then you might have come to the right place ……or you might not? It’s a self appointed label a violin store or workshop owner might give themselves. So what would make a violin expert, would you need to be an expert violin player, a expert luthier with expert knowledge of product? …
If your looking for a violin expert to fit out your young child with an instrument you might be looking for something quite different to a concert violinist looking for a new specialist instrument for soloing.
So after 40 years of violin playing (not all of it at a high level), working as a violin luthier for various music shops and apprenticing to a violin maker I find myself unwilling to venture in and call myself an expert ( Dunning Kruger have something to say on this ) . Yet when I look at the instruments that come to me for repair, or someone coming to buy an instrument I certainly think I have a measure of some expertise to offer. Many find my perspective as a player, educator, luthier and also as a parent of young players helpful.
Ernst Keller Violin Review.
I see Ernst Keller Violins come my way in the shop occasionally. These violins are less common of the student violins in the market and I suspect this is because they don’t make the teacher recommended list. One the surface Ernst Keller violins are pretty much like the other beginner student violins on the market, though they feel a little heavy. What I think sets them apart from the teacher recommended brands is the setup. On the Ernst Keller violins I have seen the nut heights are usually too high and bridge shape and sound post not always positioned optimally, which can affect the sound and the playability. I suspect, as this is a violin that most often makes its way into generalist music stores, that the setup might be done with sufficient expertise…but thats just a guess The Guarneri style chin rest doesn’t always suit young chin shapes either. So the Ernst Keller violin review verdict , good bones and a solidly built instrument and with a bit of care they can sound OK.
So in my spare moments I have been restoring this lovely old French cello. It’s had by the look of it a very full life with extensive work done on the neck and some sound post patches. It has a highly resonant top plate that unfortunately has split in several places and many of the edges and a corner are quite badly damaged.
The top plate itself has shrunk such that gluing it back together would like cause tension in other areas of the top plate and in places has been filled with a black glue that was quite hard to remove.
Leaving the top on the cello on initially, as it was to fragile to remove it, I set about rebuilding the splits with thin slivers of spruce inserted and stabilising the other five cracks. Then the top plate was stable enough to be removed and then worked on in my cello cradle. Here more than twenty cleats were installed across the various cleats. Cleats go cross grain in an offset pattern to spread the stress unevenly to other grain lines. These days I’m using parallelogram shaped cleats and finishing them in a slight pyramid feathering to the edge to remove mass – they are not as manificent as my teachers though. I then burnish them slightly with some pigments to blend it in with the old wood.
Next up are the edge repairs and corners repairs to the cello, unfortunately many of these go beyond the purfling line and the wood next to them is quite weathered as well, so I have gone for an edge doubling technique to provide better mechanical strength. The lower layer is hidden and thus can be slightly- or a lot cross grain for strength. Normally cross grain is somewhat avoided because of shrinkage cross grain with age will be different for the old and new timbers, but in this case was needed to hold the edge together. The top layer is matched for the grain of the top plate though. One the timber is rebuilt and shaped, new purfling can be installed once some channels are carved. Colouring new wood to old wood is a challenge, whilst I have the traditional pigments, building up the layers and how the light plays through it is a whole art in itself, the main thing is the repair doesn’t draw attention to itself.
Once all back together a new bridge was needed – it seems the top sits higher now that the structure has been restored…and the sound…sublime!!!
I have a good friend, Simon who makes his living behind the lens, back in the day he used to work on all the big name films (ask him about his ‘on the set of star wars story’…broke something he did), till he needed to stay put and raise a family. These days he does a lot of portraiture, but with a cinematographers eye for composition. I love this style because sometimes he doesn’t chase simplicity by avoiding complexity…he embraces it.
Simon took this photo of me in my workshop recently…I love it because it captures the essence of what I do, every day. I used to apologise to my customers for my messy workshop, especially if I was in the middle of a glue up…but you know what? they really seem to like it. I guess in the glitzy, fast paced work of influencers and chasing perfection there is something really honest about “here I am, just doing what I do, pull up a chair and try some instruments, if you like one take it home”
Thankyou Simon.
Check out his other images and video work on luximages.com.au
He also did this great little film as well. My mate John kindly played some guitar to accompany my fiddle playing of “Raglan Road” for the background. Forgot to wear my hat though , so its a bit shiny 😉
This lovely old violin came my way recently in quite good condition and looks to be well made. However the neck is what let it down and it turned into quite a rabbit hole.
The button had at one stage been broken on the violin and been repaired with an internal button graft , complete with wooden pins. Higher up on the neck root signs of fracture, were plan to see. A neck graft was required…
On disassembly the reason for the fracture was plain, the screw holding the neck to the body had rusted into the timbers. This method of neck attachment, as a butt joint was common on older violins, especially baroque era instruments. Today it serves less well as there is a lot of strain placed on the button and end grain gluing of the neck root to the ribs is not considered sufficiently strong for modern higher tension strings. Originally the neck and top block would often be nailed together for strength, though on this instrument was likely replaced by a screw.
The solution for this instrument was to graft on a new neck root, ensuring plenty of parallel grained timber for strength as end grain gluing is not that strong. Also a modern neck joint was carved into the neck block to increase gluable area at the bottom of the neck root and mechanical strength of the joint as well.
Once this was undertake, neck angles set and the button graft attended to, it was time to finish the neck with sufficient traditional pigments and a bit of “splodge” to blend in better.
I’m looking forward to playing this instrument…but first the peg box needs some attention as well…so I need to be patient
Cello repairs on the numbers outweigh violin repairs, proportionally speaking. This is especially for student instruments. They are small enough they can be carried about by students, but large enough that it’s a bit clumsy to handle. One of the most common causes of injuries is the humble chair, against which a cello leans and inevitably topples when left unattended.
The most common injury from the toppling is the neck break (which I discuss on my Cello repairs page ). The challenge for student cellos is the fingerboard, which is often attached with “white glue” and thus more time consuming to remove and more likely to leave some scaring.
Its desirable to remove the fingerboard to pin the neck across the break to give it further strength. However it is often necessary to undertake if there is a screw placed there at the time of manufacture (common among some student brands).
Where this screw doesn’t exist, pinning through the fingerboard helps substantially reduce the time to repair…and thus the cost. While a ‘no-no’ for traditional instruments, its widely considered acceptable for student grade instruments though.
Whats best for the cello repair is highly variable dependance on factor like
Almost gone are the days of using a tuning fork to tune your instrument. Actually I still have one in my case but usually I’m tuning to a piano. Enter the rise of violin tuners….
For the beginner a tuning fork takes some getting used to , its only one note (and its 440Hz but thats another story). There is an abundance of tuners out there today and they are great for young players to tune the violin too. These clip on tuners tune by vibration so you clip them to your violin peg and adjust the screen so you can see them. The violin tuners are more of a general instrument tuner, so if you see it advertised as a guitar tuner …relax it still works on a violin…and pretty cheap on ebay too!.
My favourite of these clip on style is the D’Addario one, its harder to find an a bit more pricey, but worth it because you can leave it on your instrument so really convenient. Clip on violin tuners are also great for a noisey environment, because as it tunes by vibration it doesn’t matter what everyone else is doing, thus especially useful in a contemporary band situation.
At my workshop people ask if I sell tuners, I tell them they have one already in their pocket, which is good for a laugh. Yes take out your favourite smart phone, go to the App/ play store and search for instrument tuner and your goog to go… Your welcome, no need to buy one……unless the convenience of a clip on is desired.
The Makers series of handmade violins are made by a husband and wife in China with only a limited number each year. Thus they represent something quite different to the usual factory violin instruments coming out of China, nuanced and expressive.
There is a real benefit to instruments coming out of a small workshop, firstly the timbers are more likely to be hand-selected in small quantities, so you are starting with higher quality timbers from the get go – just through the sorting process. Secondly a violin made by a single pair of hands means the individuals flair comes through uniformly and everything matches together just that little bit better. Often violins made in production have a different luthier working on each single component before being put together – this guarantees a certain quality and keeps costs down. The downside is the tuning for resonance isn’t something that flows through the whole process. Necks done a certain way affect the resonance a bit and needs to be in harmony with the plates its going to sit upon for example. So the Makers II violins have that individual attention right through the process.
As a further benefit every instrument is individual both in the way it looks and in the way it sounds.
The Makers II violin come through a single Australian distributer (Paytons) and you see them for sale in a variety of music stores specialist and general across Australia. They are sold as instrument and fingerboard, with the rest of the accoutrements needing to be added afterwards. This allows for the flair and inout of the retailer – but also means to sound its best it must be setup right. Interestingly the instrument is shipped without a label on the inside, and with a bit of digging I see its been badged by quite a few places in Australia…so you might not know it but you might be buying one under another name.
The instruments come in three grades A, B and C a variety of finishes and a Stradivarius or Guarneri shape from ~$600-1000RRP body only…so quite a bit more with case, bow and a good setup. The below instrument has been antiqued, and quite stylish, it makes a visually welcome change from the bright and shiny instruments that often come out of China. But how does it sound? I setup the below instrument up with Larsen Virtuoso strings and a 1 tree Despieu bridge. The instrument is represents a subtlety in tonal qualities, sweeter than most that come out of China that tend to optimise for project above all other qualities. I quite like the sound during the playing in period and will grow into a wonderfully expressive instrument once its new owner finds it.
