Pictures of violin-making

Photography - φῶς (photos) "light", γραφή (graphé) "drawing" - drawing with light. For me photography is “keeping the light in order to share”.

This light was captured between 2008 and 2011 in Tokyo, Mexico and The Hague : various steps in making instruments at my violin-making studio.

Recently I had the twelve prints matted and framed. Now they are hanging on the walls of my violin-making studio in The Hague.

☆円高による値下げ！☆

もし日本にお住まいで、新しい楽器ご注文をお考えでしたら、とても良いお知らせがあります。

当工房はユーロでのお取り引きとなりますので、円高の影響を受けて、日本円での価格が大幅に低価格となっております！最もご注文の多いオプションBのヴァイオリンも、100万円を遥かに下っています。

また当工房では弓も製作しております。

どうぞこのチャンスを逃さずにご注文下さい！

パンフレットはこちら。

フィクション、寓話、ヴァイオリン。

"フィクションは、愉しまれるためには、見る者の眼に適う真実のようでなければならず、寓話は読む者の信頼を試しすぎてはならない” -- Horace, The Art of Poetry

画像は２台目となるグロテスク・スタイルのはめ込み細工装飾付きヴァイオリン No. 71です。ついに完成し、すでに弾き込まれています。

　この楽器の音は、今月27日にオランダのVoorschotenで行われるコンサートにて聴くことができます。

　ピゼンデル：ヴァイオリン協奏曲　他

　　ソリスト　三原朋絵

　　指揮　ペーター・ファン・ヘイヘン

　　デン・ハーグ王立音楽院オーケストラ

装飾模様から自体は楽器の音に何ら影響を与えませんが、

Fictions, Fables, and Violins...

"Fictions, to please, like truths must meet the eye,
Nor must the Fable tax our faith too high"
-- Horace, The Art of Poetry

This is my second violin adorned with inlayed grotesque patterns. No. 71. It is just born and being played in. You might hear it in a 
concert on the 27th of January, 2012, 20:15, at Dorpskerk in Voorschoten, The Netherlands. Violin concerto by Pisendel, performed by Tomoe Mihara and the baroque orchestra of The Hague Royal Conservatoire, conducted by Peter Van Heyghen. 

The carved patterns may not add to or take anything from the sound, however

Why the Badiarov violin bridges are always black. What is bridge?

In the late 90th I was studying violin design and then I happened to come across with a few designs of a lute which contained a vesica piscis (see below).

Baroque violin and viola protective antislip chin-off pads

Leather pads designed to protect baroque violins and violas from direct contact
with the skin and to prevent them from slipping off during performance.

High quality leather "chin-off" pads for baroque violinists and violists have been developed at my studio last September.

Playing the baroque violin without the chin-support wearing the modern hard-collar shirt and a suite and a neck-tie can be a miserable experience. I have seen musicians using chamoise leather for cleaning or the rubbery anti-slip mats designed for the dining table. These solutions, though not esthetically pleasing do work, however, with these pads we have made a step forward - firstly, they are beautiful. Secondly, their shape have been carefully designed so that they do not affect negatively the sound of the violin. In that respect, the red elk leather available from our supply in Germany has proven to be the best. When all has been carefully measured and materials chosen, we commissioned a special cutter to our blacksmith in England.

Red elk leather pad for baroque violins and violas

The chin-off pads can be used by ladies too because the pads are designed not just as anti-slip leather pads for gentlemen but also as protection against the direct contact with the skin which inevitably damages the varnish and can even melt the glue and loosen the joints between the ribs and the vibrating plates of the violin.

Available at this moment:

1. Sturdy, light coloured cow leather chin-off pads approximately 1.5mm thick come at the price of 10 EUR.

2. Superior red elk leather chin-off pads (on both pictures) approximately 2.5mm thick are extremely soft yet sturdy comes at the price of 19 EUR.

Money back guarantee if you do not like the pads, of course, in exchange for the unused pads.

How to use:

The endpin hole in the leather pad is small enough for the pad to fit tightly. Simply gently and slowly pull the pad over the endpin and leave it on the instrument at all times. The pad, specially the cow leather pad is rather stiff in the beginning but it will soften and acquire a nice shape in a few weeks. The same is true for the red elk pad, though the latter is much softer.

Both chin-off pads are quite invisible for the viewers as you can see on the picture of the player above.

Should you have any questions, do not hesitate to take contact via our website : http://badiarovviolins.com 

The Best Team Ever: Success of the Action to Protect European String-Making Tradition

Last year you have probably been watching closely on the developments in the field of european baroque string-making. The trouble had been caused by certain laws and important string-making companies ceasing production of such strings.

For this reason even I had no choice but play in December a concert on violoncello da spalla strung with three steel strings though I did ask a few string-makers in August to provide gut-strings for it. Helas, strings have never been supplied.