Baroque violin no.62

The current work in progress: baroque violin 62.

I am really lucky to have lived 12 years in Belgium, where the Gothic churches, specially in Flanders, feature incredible carved altar-pieces.

The altar-pieces in Flanders and certain surviving instruments were my best teachers in carving the wood in a way that does not rule out master's human reaction to the story being told in carved images or to the events of daily life - be it in an alter-piece or in a musical instrument. This way of carving is radically different from the modern style.

We wish you a Happy 2009.

String Arts Studio's assistant

Since the 2nd half of December 2008 my work as a luthier is assisted by Mr. Abiko, a very capable young gentleman, still a student at our violin-making school and in the past a temple-builder.

What do you think baroque violin is?

What do you think baroque violin is? Why did Early Music return in the end of the 19th century and developed into a new, alternative form of music-making?

When people talk about the differences between the modern and baroque violins they usually mention a short straight neck, a lighter bass-bar and gut strings instead of plastic or steel strings. I never felt quite comfortable with this though correct but simplified description because the most important is not included. If the differences are so minor, then one might wonder what the fuss with Early Music is all about? Why not to use the usual modern violin?

However baroque violin is not just about these differences of a few millimeters. It embodies an entirely different way of thinking and feeling the music.

It is an approach that draws the energy and inspiration from the epochs that precede the piece of music rather than from the epochs which follow it. It is an artistic approach practiced by the greatest artists of the past and present. It is beautifully and laconically expressed by Matsuo Basho among other Occidental and Oriental artists: "Do not try to find the footprints of the ancestors, search for what they were searching for" (Matsuo Basho, 17th century).

In other words, artistic idea develops the technique, not vice versa. The artistic idea, as is the case with the baroque violin and Historically Informed Performance Practice (HIPP or Early Music) is based on sources, the basement, and not on what rests atop.

There are many styles in Renaissance and Baroque music, consequently there are a many styles of baroque violins. The instruments have a language of their own, seamlessly matching the language of music written for them. When these languages are humbly assimilated the result is the style, or rather a direction known is HIPP.

The violin presented here is based on aesthetic ideas and technical details described by various authors of the early Renaissance and Baroque - architects, musicians, theoreticians and a luthier. It is also based on surviving instruments and strung with the strings which were widely used at J.S.Bach's time. These strings were a rarity some 10 years ago but today they got a wider acceptance among less conservative performers. Here we come back again to the artistic idea rather than technical aspects. One may wish to look into the sources in order to find one's own idea, one's own style and standards, and one's own technique that will be right for one's idea. The creative possibilities are endless but engaging with this process involves expressing yourself, and, as it is said by Tadao Ando, "if you are going to express yourself you need courage. You have to stick your neck out. Sticking your neck out of course entails a danger". Too bad, however, I assume if you read this far, you are not from the weak-nerved.

May your creative spirit thrive in the New 2009!

P.S. The baroque violin (op61) played in this video was built by me at the String Arts Studio in Tokyo, in December 2008 and recorded the same night as it was finished, about an hour later. The strings are by Mimmo Peruffo, aquilacorde.com. Copied and pasted into iMovie on OSX.

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Baroque Violin No 61

Here are the pictures of my latest baroque violin (no.61). It was finished a week or so ago on a very windy night. The same night I played a few notes on it and recorded the sound. The sound of the wind in the forest surrounding my studio can be clearly heard between the notes. I hope to find the time to upload the video-file before the end of this year. Please, visit my blog soon.

Artistic idea develops the technique - not vice versa.

One of my violin-making students understood what I wanted to teach most of all: artistic idea develops the technique, not vice versa. In his words: "First think, then make". What a nice reward in the end of the year! He wants to make a baroque violin and try to keep making violins for ten years from now on. Good luck!
One of baroque violin students who attended my lecture at the University of Fine Arts and Music seem to have come close to understanding what the seminar on gut strings was about: not so much about guts, but about artistic idea that maybe drawn from the strings and music - should one be thursty for it. Again, a nice reward.
Happy New Year!

The last day of teaching

It has been an eventful day. Another student of mine finished his first violin.

Stringing a new violin for the first time and for the next three hundred years is always a very special moment - no matter how many dozens of times you did it before. For the students the moment of stringing their first violin is even more significant. This is the moment their dream comes true. It is often a moving moment.

Three of my students seems to be inclined to inscribe for an extra term in order to make baroque violins. This is significant too, perhaps, but I would not hurry with speculations on this theme.

In the end of the day two violin-making students of another teacher came over with their violins. To round up the year nicely they played the famous Pachelbel's canon. I played the bass part for them.

While I taught at the violin-making school my new assistant worked at my studio to prepare the wood for the next few baroque violins.

Baroque Violin No.61

Ms Kaoru Ouchiyama, who currently studies in The Hague with professor Ryo Terakado, tries her new baroque violin at my studio. This is my 61st violin. The last this year.

Tomorrow as I live my studio for teaching violin-making at the violin-making school in central Tokyo a young assistant shall work at my studio to rough out the chunks of wood for the next instruments.

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Christmas day with strings, violins and lots of music

Yesterday's lecture at the University of Fine Arts and Music might has been a success, at least, there is a chance that the students might wish to try the knew ideas. It was certainly fun.

The feed-back from the participants was extremely positive and amusingly different. Their answers to the question "What's the main thing have you learned from this lecture?" were surprisingly various. As well as another question "Was the lecturer's Japanese clear enough?" Only one student wrote the truth: "No!" However from what she answered to all other questions I can see she managed to learn that which I wanted to teach.

Usually it takes a few years before students know what they can do with their fresh knowledge. This time I made the theoretical part as short as possible, that is, two hours of talk. The rest of the day, four hours, we spent playing the violins strung with all sorts of historical strings in chronological order. No cello or viol-players attended therefore we had no stringed bass. However we had plenty of keyboard players who read the Basso Continuo parts on the harpsichord and organ. One of them even struck the drum while the violin-students played the French renaissance dances.

P.S. Photograph by D.Badiarov, stringing the violin

芸大、「バロックの弦」についてのセミナーを行います。

皆様

主人ディミトリー・バディアロフが、
今週１２月２５日（木）１０：００〜１７：００、
芸大（東京藝術大学音楽学部）の古楽器４１６室において、
古楽器科の集中講義の一環として
「バロックの弦」についてのセミナーを行います。

実際に時代や場所の違う４種類の歴史的ガット弦の弾き比べを行います。
現代に普及しているいわゆるガット弦ではなく、限りなく当時の制作方法に近く作られているアクイラのもので比べます。
ご興味のあるかたは、是非いらして下さい。

すがきよみ/ディモトリー・バディアロフ

Baroque violin: musical stringing

Today I finished the baroque violin no.61 but it can be played only tomorrow night.

In the end of the day I experimented with the strings. Today my violin was strung with my customary strings, almost identical to those of Niccolò Paganini: e" - 73, a' - 91, d' - 116 and a thick 18th century g-string, all made by Aquila. Exactly the same types of strings were common at Bach's time. These strings are known as equal feel. Although their tension is physically not equal - it does feel equal under the bow and the fingers. Play the video to get an idea of of what J.S.Bach might have meant when he wrote this music. The violin functions in a very different manner with this type of strings, specially if compared to the modern baroque strings, also known as "fake baroque" strings.

The common modern baroque strings: e" - 54-62, a' - 79-82, d' - 104 - 112, and a modern Pirastro g-string. This might give you a clue to knowing why you might have been struggling with the sound (too frail and acid) or unstable intonation or monotonous dynamics - thin strings have no reserve: piano is usually too loud and forte is simply impossible. Baroque violins fitted with such strings sound like a bowed ukulele... which is cute though...

Opposed to equal feel, equal tension strings existed in the 18th century too and they work marvelously well. However they come from an earlier period, when double and triple stopping was by no means common, for example in the music of the 17th century. In that repertory the e" = 82 is now my favourite. The structure of my baroque violins have been adapted to accommodate baroque stringing from any period, however I do not recommend - for musical reasons - anything thinner than the hand-rectified e"-64, a" - 85, d" - 112 and the Galeazzi pure silver g.

On the creative use of laundry pinches in violin-making

Laundry pinches seem to have evolved specially for the use by luthiers. One of these violins already got the neck fitted on.

A new baroque violin from String Arts Studio

The varnish is dry and the violin is ready to be fitted up. The customer will soon fly from Europe to pick it up.

Strings, Violins, Music: Christmas course on the history of gut strings

25.12.2008, University of Fine Arts and Music (Geidai), Tokyo, 9:00 - 17:00

The lecture shall be in Japanese/English. Intended audience: students of the Early Music Department and beyond: open to all interested.

The four periods in the history of gut strings shall not only be discussed in theoretical terms, but the students will be able to play various strings on the instruments specially provided for that purpose. Plain high-twist guts, catlines and half-rectified strings, 17th century loaded strings, Italian wound and French half-wound demi-filee strings, equal feeling VS equal feel, modern baroque etc.

As far as I can see, probably unofficially, my lectures have been opened to non-Geidai students and professionals alike. If you feel like attending, you can probably simply enter and find your place in the room.

Baroque Violin's time-machine

This is the mystic psaltery, the time-machine. I made it yesterday for my lecture on the history of gut strings at Tokyo University of Fine Arts and Music.

The psaltery's main function is to pre-stretch various types of strings which have been in use on baroque violins from ca.1550 to the end of the 18th century and throughout the 19th century. It also stretches a set of present day "baroque" strings.

Although the strings are pre-stretched for the purpose of using them on violins, one can also pluck them one by one - from the oldest to the newest - and hear how the sound of our music changed over time.

The lecture shall be rather practical than purely theoretical class, the aim of which to give the students a clear idea of what the strings looked like and what music they can or can not make. I hope baroque bowed instrument playing shall take a new fresh spin - in Japan too.

Want to play the music time-machine? Welcome!

Daily routine at my studio

Joined the ribs and the neck of the next baroque violin and finished the ribs for yet another violin. The baroque violin for Kaoru Ouchiyama got it's final coat of varnish. Got invitations for three concerts: two as a soloist and one as a leader, bought 20 pegs to make a string-stretcher for my lecture at the university and passed the local violin-making school to find and recruite an assistant... phew... not too little for one day! Hoping to update my websites (1 & 2) some time soon, but they need urgent attention of a professional webdesigner...

Architecture and Violins

Architecture has always been of great interest to me. I lived 10 years in St.Petersburg - a city remarkable for its 18th and 19th century architecture. Then I lived 12 years in Europe, another place where it is not possible to be inspired by the works of architects since antiquity to Art Nouveau and Modernism. And now it is Tokyo, remarkable for its contemporary architecture and art. I try not to miss any architectural exhibitions and luckily Tokyo is the place where such exhibitions occur all the time. Now it is Tadao Ando.

"It's the same with all the arts - if you are going to express yourself you need coarge. You have to stick your neck out. Sticking your neck out of course entails a danger" - said Ando in his latest interview for The Japan Times. His works prove his words. His artistic credo is in the seamless integration of the nature into our buildings and cities. He also says, "in Western architecture, the idea has been to have thick walls that protect the inhabitants from nature, but with Japanese wooden architecture in particular, it's not possible to say where nature ends and the human area begins. They are one". This is true, of course. However, it is also worthwhile mentioning here that the Western architects, in particular the followers of the pythagorean theory since the time of Marco Pollio Vitruvius, believed that in using musical proportions they follow the model of the Universe as created by the God. Once their pious vision is realised they resorted to the thick walls to protect the inhabitants against the harsh climatic conditions of the greater part of Europe.

I use the fundamental theory of proportions of the classical architecture in my violin designs which I always drew myself and rectified over the period of 10 years. Rather than trying to re-construct a working method of any particular luthier of the past, say Amati or Stradivari, I try to re-construct the fundamental system which was used by the artists of the past, including luthiers. Much of this information comes from treatises on architecture, plainting and music, of course. These basics give me freedom to create, since it is difficult to be free without having any structure in place. According to Ando, "architecture is the same. It needs to be an architecture that is free, but that is built on the architectural traditions and history - both Japanese and international". I my case, it is the tradition of Historically Informed Performance Practice translated into terms of violin-making.

25 December 2008: Baroque violin strings, music and instruments. Conference at Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music

On the 25th of December 2008, I shall be giving my third lecture on the history of violin, viola and violoncello strings at the University of Fine Arts and Music, Tokyo.

A box of violin strings made by Mimmo Peruffo has arrived today. Peruffo is one of the leading musical string scholars and a master-string-maker, whose contribution to the baroque-violin playing in the past 10 years is hard to over-estimate.

Strings do not play themselves, but violins without strings are not worth much. The history of our music and stringed-instruments went hand in hand with the development of musical strings.

The first lecture one the strings delivered last year was half-boycotted: no string-players showed up. Nonetheless it seems to have been a good lecture: several organ and harpsichord players enjoyed it a great deal and most of them participated in my second lecture.

The second lecture earlier this year was attended better. There were the keyboard players from the first lecture and a few baroque violinists, as well as a violinist from another university, Tokyo University.

Shall the third lecture be attended at all? I remember myself being a student: skipping a class and drowsing at a lecture is a special kind of pleasure and I do not want to deprive my students of the pleasure they can enjoy only for a while. 18-years old students have problems more important than what twisted strings to choose from for the madrigals by Johannes Ockeghem or cantatas by J.S.Bach or W.A.Mozart symphonies.

Anyway... it is an enormous pleasure to explore the music and instruments, to search and find, to spot a technical or aesthetic problem and solve it, to experiment in the immense world of early music and instruments. It's a pleasure to work on such a lecture and it's a pleasure to talk to the few truly passionate and involved young musicians, even if their numbers, compared to Europe, may seem very small indeed.

At the first two lectures was talking about various periods in the violin-string history and the connections with the music: development of the consort music, sonata and concerto, development of the instruments etc. I dedicated a great deal of attention to the sources, dates, names, iconography and baroque string-making technology. We listened to lots of examples on selected CDs, where I knew what kind of strings were used by the performers. As a whole, I could conduct my third lecture in the same manner, however I decided to change my tactics.

On the 25th of December, instead of dates, names and sources I shall focus on the practical application of this knowledge, that is, on the artistic side. I shall bring different sets of strings: a number of historical sets including "equal tension" and "equal feel" sets, a number of plain-gut sets of the 16-17th century music, a loaded set for the 17th century music, a few catlines, couple of red Lyons or Pistoys, a French set with a demi-filee, and, of course, for the sake of comparison a few lazy sets - the "modern baroque" sets based on the long out-dated knowledge and aesthetic.

Apart from the strings I shall bring a few violins and a pile of music ranging from Johannes Ockeghem and Pierre Attaignant to Giovanni-Paolo Cima and Marco Uccellini, Jean-Baptiste Lully, Johann Sebastian Bach and others. If there shall be any baroque violin students they can see the strings - gathered in same place and time - and play them all, as much as they please, on the violins which I specially prepared for this event.

Looking forward to the creative discussion with whoever participates. Baroque music and violins is fun. Keep it fresh and free of conservatism.

Violin-making: not a rhetorical dilemma

It happened to be the work of a photographer Yasuhiro Ishimoto that crossed my mind when I tried to convey a message which will hopefully take my students' violin-making experience into the realm of art. One day, maybe...

Music, specially where it is a live tradition, is art. There were the times, before the rise of Romanticism, when music-instrument making was art too. It was a few weeks ago when Jun Seki, a student of mine, suddenly asked: how does one determine the position of the sound-holes? It was an unexpected question. However after reflecting a second I understood, that this was exactly the kind of questions I was hoping to hear since some time.

A few months ago I tried to convey the idea of proportional, geometrical yet personal approach to violin-making. It was not readily grasped by my students at that time so I decided to postpone this subject till later. Additionally, I was not sure whether this was due to the complexity of the problem or due to my shortcomings with the Japanese language... somehow I must admit it's not a very easy language for me.

At that moment my students would rather want to know precise measurements expressed in the modern decimal system: 195mm from there to here, 25mm from here to there etc. At last, when Jun asked me how one determines the position of the f-holes, I said, "all right, you know, it's 195mm..." And suddenly I felt, it did not make sense to him anymore. Indeed, it does not make sense to me either. Jun expected me to elaborate on the Pythagorean tradition which made profound influence on the music-instrument making at least until the first half of the 18th century.

I quickly explained the use of proportions in the violin design and drew a simple sketch according to the method I developed 10 years ago...

Once we had it done with the sketch, we turned to the talk about craft and art. There are two ways out there: one way is to follow the tradition and ask no questions; another way is to absorb the rules of the tradition and break them, thus bringing the craft to another level, maybe, art's level - innovating, rejuvenating, producing new forms of expression, challenging the established tradition both emotionally and intellectually.

Traditions. We value them. Traditions survive thanks to the rules and thanks to the conservatism of those who guard them. For some reason, ancient Egyptian art did not evolve for thousands of years and the same is true for many arts in the Orient. This is, generally, not the case with the Occidental art, but even there, an artist willing to absorb and break the rules for the sake of freedom and innovation usually suffers from attacks of those on guard. This sounds like a personal, artist's drama, however the loss of traditions may be regrettable too. Isn't this a question of balance and culture? Shouldn't there be a Middle Way?

At that point the photograph by Ishimoto, one of my favourtite artists, came to my mind.

The picture is nothing but a stretch of asphalt street. Despite the simplicity of the subject matter the tonal range of it is extraordinarily rich. In other words, it is photogenic, engaging both visually and intellectually. In fact, it is as engaging as one wants it be because there is nothing to look at - just a piece of asphalt road. However, if one looks at it carefully, one starts to notice small details: thin cuts in the road. Probably, roadworks. Something like, "Walk here, please". This might symbolize the rules of a tradition: "This are our values: obey!" In the corner of the picture one can notice a pair of small white kimono shoes. They are out of focus, however it strikes that the woman, a geisha? "Geisha" literally means "an artist". She does not walk by the pre-established path, the cuts in the road. She goes her own way. This suggest the dangers and the personal drama of an artist who breaks away from the rules set by the tradition. While an artist going her own way is guaranteed the break with the tradition, she is not guaranteed to find her own way.

It was just a fine silver-gelatin print. Like wordless music, or music-instruments, it may have different interpretations. Depends on the viewer's (or listener's) heart.

CD review on MusicWeb international

Google Alert brought this review on a CD in which I play four solo arias. CD is on sale in all major CD shops as well as on the internet.

String Arts Studio looking for an assistant

Currently I am searching for an assistant to help out with various workshop procedures. Mr. Genya Komatsu, a graduate of the violin-making department at Kunitachi University and a maker with three years of experience at various dealer shops called up and visited my studio for three work days. He came from a the city of Fukuoka in the south of the island, however he still lives in Fukuoka which is really far from Tokyo.