. . . Laboring in the Dungeon. . .

I've been in the violin business for over 35 years, so I guess it must agree with me. My major teacher for woodworking was Karl Roy, former Director of the Bavarian State School for Violin Making, with whom I studied for sixteen summers at the University of New Hampshire. I also studied violin acoustics for a number of years with Dr. Carleen M. Hutchins, the foremost violin acoustician of the 20th century, at her now-famous basement acoustics lab behind her home in suburban Montclair, New Jersey. I feel that these two remarkable individuals represent the best teachers of my time, and I feel uncommonly fortunate to have studied with both of them. The results of this training, coupled with my own years of reseach in violin geometry and design, can be found in the instruments shown throughout my site.

In this picture, I am adjusting the pegs on one of my earlier and smaller alto violins. I'm working in my shop, which is in an unfinished portion of my basement (note the attractive pink insulation in the ceiling). I call this space "the dungeon," and I love it. I have to love it. I spend a third of my life in here.

I came late to the profession, having begun my checkered musical career as a bassist and later as a high school orchestra director. I was thrown into violin work when I needed to repair school instruments to keep the students playing. I ran a part-time shop in the evenings, on weekends, and during school vacations. For the first ten years or so I concentrated mostly on repairs and the requirements of running a business. I left public school work in 1980 and continued increasing my skills in repair and restoration. I didn't start making violins professionally until I was in my forties, and then I was only able to do it part-time.

I left the business end of the violin profession when I was 56 and finally got the chance to work exclusively on building new instruments. I tell people that I've retired, but in fact I am working harder now, making more instruments, and having a lot more fun than ever before. The focus of my work these days is strictly on creating new instruments, including the standard violin, viola, and cello as well as all instruments of the new violin family, including the basses. I'm most noted for my cellos, which have been owned and played by the late Mstislav Rsotropovich, the greatest cello virtuoso of our age; John Martin, now unfortunately deceased, who was principal cellist of the National Symphony Orchestra for an amazing 50 years; and Charles Forbes, founder and current member of the New York Camerata, among others.

I am a member of the Violin Society of America, the Catgut Acoustical Society, and the New Violin Family Association. I was the editor of the Association's Violin Octet Newsletter for six years (2003 - 2008). Because of my interest in refining the New Violin Family, I have given invited papers at meetings of the Acoustical Society of America and the original Catgut Acoustical Society. I've had a couple of papers published in the CAS Journal, and my most recently my three-part work on the geometry of violin design was published in American Lutherie, vols. 93, 94, and 95

Last updated: November 1, 2009

. . . A European Master comes to America . . .

I began my formal training in the craft of lutherie under Karl Roy at the University of New Hampshire in the early 1970s. The idea that a true European master violin maker was willing to travel to America and teach rank beginners simply astonished me. I thought it was a colossal waste of his talent, and perhaps I, more than anyone, bolstered my own argument by being the first tyro to enroll in Karl's classes.

I remained with Karl for 16 summers, and the annual trek to Durham became the high point of my year. I was the first in a line of class assistants that since has included esteemed friends and colleagues like A.Thomas King and Thurmond Knight. It is hard to overstate the impact Karl had on my life and career. Without his patience, masterful teaching skills, and unwavering confidence that I really had some abilities hidden in me somewhere, I'd still be repairing plywood basses.

We live in an age that is much different now than it was even in the 1970's, let alone the 1600's. I feel lucky to have experienced, even in a truncated and interrupted way, the older method of education that existed between a master and his apprentices. Karl taught me much, but the lesson I valued most was how he trained me to be observant and to notice little things. "Steal with your eyes, Bob," he would tell me. It is a lesson I have put to good use in all the years since.

At first I was just his student. Later, I became his friend. It was a profound experience. I am glad that I now live in a time when we have the Internet because it gives me the chance to thank him in front of the entire world. I would go so far as to say that the entire craft of violin making, which was a dying art in the 1960s, owes Karl Roy a debt of gratitude as well.

This picture of Karl was taken in the summer of 2000, about 12 or 13 years after I last attended his classes at the University of New Hampshire. The photographer was Gary Samson.

. . . Researcher, Acoustician, Scientist, Teacher . . .

What can one say in a few paragraphs about someone who literally shook the violin world to its foundations? Someone who pulled aside the veil of romance and mystery that had enshrouded the violin for centuries and looked at the instrument as an object for scientific study? And who then developed an entirely new family of eight, scaled violins ranging in size from a piccolo model with a body length of eleven inches to a contrabass over seven feet tall?

That would be Carleen Hutchins for you.

Carleen came later in life to violin work as an untrained and inexperienced housewife who wanted to improve her factory viola so she could play chamber music with her friends. Through a most extraordinary series of events, she ultimately received instruction in violin making from Carl Berger and S. F. Sacconi, training in violin acoustics from Frederick Saunders, assistance in scaling theory from John Schelleng, and help over many years from other top experts in the field of physics and acoustics such as Arthur Benade and Norman Pickering.

Before her long and productive life came to an end in her 99th year, she had written doezens of papers that were published in scholarly journals, edited two volumes of musical instrument acoustics, was made an honory fellow of the Acoustical Society of America, held the society's silver medal in acoustics, received two Guggenheim grants, and was the recipient of four honorary doctorates. Along the way, she developed the theory of free plate tuning, which gave the violin maker an important new tool and arguably changed forever the way that violins are made. What was even more astonishing is that she shared her findings freely and taught the technique to anyone who wanted to learn it.

I was among the lucky ones.

To clarify how important this technique turned out to be, I'll tell you a short story about my third cello, which was the first I had made on a model of my own and the first on which I used Carleen's then unproven plate-tuning techniques to their fullest. Through the greatest of beginner's luck, I managed to achieve a particular alignment of free plate modes so rare that I have approached it again only once in all the years since. Carleen looked at the numbers (mind you, the cello was still unfinished and in pieces) and said, "Bob, that's going to be one heck of a cello!" After it was done, Bill Steck, then concertmaster of the National Symphony Orchestra, arranged to have the cello played by Mstislav Rostropivich, the conductor of the NSO. "Slava" played the cello for two minutes and bought it on the spot. Carleen was right. It *was* one heck of a cello, If that's not enough to convince one of the power of this technique and the benefits of scientific research, I don't know what is.

To be a student of Carleen Hutchins, to walk that fine line between science and art, was the experience of a lifetime. I am proud and humble to have been among the fortunate few, and Carleen's help is one of the reasons I feel so strongly about the New Family. With the passing of this unque woman on August 7, 2009, helping to make her dream successful remains one of just a few ways I can repay my teacher for her great gift.