an oud from Syria

A few years ago, before I got obsessed with fixing fiddles, I found a lovely oud on gumtree. I was told it was made in Syria by a well-known maker around 2000. Back then, I didn't quite get my head round to learning to play it but I reckon now that I have figured out how to play folk tunes on the fiddle I should try again. It also helped that I saw a very inspiring oud recital by Wassim Mukdad (also from Syria) at the JDP in October. If in doubt, I could always tune it as a fiddle ...

So it looks like this:

And here's the label - a helpful facebook friend kindly translated it for me:

Oud Al-Sharq Al-Asil (which means “The Authentic Eastern Oud”)
Made by Mohammad Sobhi & Sons
Damascus – Jobar
Hammama Jadbani Awwal (a local area or landmark name)

A practical consideration: it came in a very heavy hard case, additionally protected by a soft bag inside the case. I now worked out that the oud with the soft bag fits inside my cello bag, so it is actually transportable. Which means I might try it in the slow session ...

Update 9.12.2025 I've now played it properly for the first time at today's harp session, and it sounds lovely even if I say so myself. I used the classic tuning (high notes to low) CGDAGD - which is very convenient to me because the higher four strings are an upside down cello (and then the bass strings just repeat the middle GD an octave below). So cello fingering re when to use second and when third finger applies in a mirror version, and the keys that are really easy on cello in first position (C, G, D) are just as easy on oud, and you can forget the fourth finger because it's tuned in 4ths, so the fourth finger is equivalent to the next string. The fifth is very conveniently located exactly on the seam where the fingerboard ends and meets the body of the instrument, so that's very easy to find too.

a new old cello revealed

Pirate Luthier update

Two years ago, when I was looking for a cello as Heinrich the family cello was about to move out to rejoin the young cellist, I looked at an old German cello which wasn't playable because the bridge was dangerously warped and the glue was coming unstuck in a couple of places. I didn't buy it then as I needed a reliably playable instrument.

Now as I heard from somebody else looking for a cello to play, I checked up on that old cello and it was still in the same state. After two years of fiddling with lots of fiddles, I now felt ready to fix something bigger and took it on.

It doesn't have a case yet, so I lent it one of my old sweaters for protection against knocks:

Which also has the advantage I can do a dramatic reveal - it is actually a very beautiful old cello, reportedly dating from the 19th century and possibly from Mittenwald:

It also has a very beautiful backside:

It has a fake Stradivarius label much like eg my aunt's violin, which is more of a Markneukirchen kind of instrument, and a serial number stamped into the inside of the pegbox, which I'm not sure about - maybe just inventorised by a trader?

I happened to have an bridge sitting around (decommissioned by a professional cellist but perfectly good for me) and some strings from the same source. So set it up with these recycled materials keeping two of its original Larsen strings, but the lower two strings were corroded and not usable). So the setup now looks like this:

I glued the bits that needed to be glued and cut a cava cork to shield the spike (like I did for the double bass a few years ago), visible in the first photo above. I also got Heinrich's old cloth bag down from the attic for when it needs a dust cover, although I am quite happy with the sweater solution at the moment. The cello is now perfectly playable and beginning to sound quite nice. I'm still playing it in with Suzuki pieces and such like, but am hoping to take it to orchestra and other musical adventures from next week.

In other pirate luthier news, violin number 30 has arrived on the premises with the most beautiful wooden case ever. I'll report on that separately later in the month, with an updated list.

32 strings attached

When I'm visiting flea markets in Germany, I sometimes see zithers, and have always passed them by. One day in September 2023, however, at the Aachener Platz fleamarket at Düsseldorf, I came across a derelict one that was marked a very affordable 5€, and when I had a closer look the vendor reduced the price to 4€. It looked like this:

I was one year into my pirate luthier adventures and thought, maybe I can fix this one, so I bought it and had it sitting around in a corner for a year and a half.

Now, after rediscovering the photo I took at the flea market before buying the instrument and sharing that on flickr, I got round to fixing it up. The biggest challenge was getting my head around the tuning of the harmony strings. The melody strings (above the fretted fingerboard) are tuned like a viola with a duplicate a string: CGDAA. (This is the Munich tuning, as opposed to the Viennese tuning which has a duplicate G string.) The harmony strings (away from the fingerboard) go around the circle of fifths: Eb Bb F C G D A E B F# C# G# Which makes 12 strings. And then the same thing again an octave below (bass strings), another 12. And then, depending on the model, there are variable numbers of contrabass strings descending from Eb chromatically. Mine only has three of these, so that's 27 plus 5 equals 32 strings, phew.

Of these, all of the melody strings and five of the harmony strings were missing, leaving me with just 22 strings in place. Bits of wire that may have been strings in happier times were strung around the back, suggesting that somebody had hung the instrument on a wall for decorative purposes.

When I tried to tune up the 22 strings (very slowly as I tried to get my head round that tuning pattern), I found that the tension warped the frame of the instrument upwards, away from its backside, with an ugly gap opening up under the tuning pegs. So I needed to relax the strings again and glue that gap shut with hide glue to make sure this can't happen.

I'm glad to report that this operation was successful, and I have now all 32 strings on and tuned up to their proper pitch and the instrument has stayed in its proper shape. I also applied some teak oil to the wooden surfaces to spruce them up a bit (not sure if that's allowed on instruments and I wouldn't have dared on a violin!), and that seems to have worked as well, so the instrument now looks like this:

There are still some small bits of wood missing around the edges which I'll carve and glue in at some point, but that's essentially a cosmetic issue and the instrument is playable now. The melody strings are brand new (cheap) violin strings, and the harmony strings are whatever I could find lying around that matched the requirements. I think the four higher ones were nyckelharpa strings in an earlier life, and the one at the lowest end is an old cello string. It looks a bit too bulky for this instrument but it does sound lovely for the bottom note.

In theory, the F, A and C# strings are coloured red for easier orientation. Now that I know this, I can just about detect remnants of the colour and confirm that I have the right strings in the right places (apart from one F string that was missing), but it's not conspicuous enough to be real help with playing. It's also confusing for harp players used to recognising the C strings by their red colour.

Oh, and when I attempted to clean up the fingerboard, I discovered a nearly invisible brand name, Sonora:

I found a few zithers and lots of other instruments under that name (including outdoors tubular bells) but it doesn't seem to be an established brand name for a specific zither maker, so it didn't lead me to any information re who made my zither where.

More info on zithers (in German) on this website claiming you only need three hands to play it.

If you think you've never heard a zither, here's the one zither tune that everybody knows.

And here is a picture from Wikipedia of a similar one being played:

Von Naturpuur - Eigenes Werk, CC BY 4.0, Link

counting craters

Pirate luthier adventures continued:

Violin number 24 has arrived! After 14 years of writing 24 features per calendar year for Current Biology, I've come to associate this number with happiness and a sense of achievement, so this is a milestone I am celebrating - and also an old violin worth blogging about.

I found it lying on a chair in an Oxfam shop (in the Oxfam shop, actually, the first one ever), looking as battered as the surface of the Moon and a bit dishevelled but fundamentally sound. No case, no chinrest, but three strings and an interesting looking old bow. Some of its many impact craters:

I'm wondering if somebody repeatedly dug the tip of their bow in there. Also not sure what happened on the other side of the fingerboard:

It's a bit frustrating to have an old instrument with absolutely no info on its provenance (no label or mark whatsoever), but based on the number of scratches I would guess it must be more than 50 years old. It also looks and sounds like an early 20th century European violin to my very limited experience. It also makes the name finding harder. Might have to start a series with eg female composers' names.

It came with three Dominant strings (GDA), so I fitted it out with a random E string I had and tuned it up to Baroque pitch to start playing gently. So here it is with my provisional set-up:

Within a week I coaxed it up to concert pitch (A=440) so it is now ready to play as normal. Will take it to the next session that comes up (which is actually today as it happens).

Update 17.3. Putting it in a case for the first time to take it to the session, I realised the body is a couple of millimetres longer than a standard violin. It only just fits into a standard (Stentor) case, squeezing the polystyrene a bit.

---

List of violins in the pirate luthier series:

violin 1) is the one my late aunt had since the 1930s, which got me started. After restoring it in November 2022, I played it almost every day for 14 months, until number 5) showed up.

violin 2) is a Stentor student 1 (a very widely used brand of cheap fiddles available everywhere and still being produced). I bought it very cheap on gumtree, mainly because I needed a case for number 1). It has a fault that is probably not worth repairing, see the blog entry on number 3) below. After stripping it of some accessories and spares, I am now inclined to keep it in a semi-functional state to try out experimental repairs, i.e. use it as a wooden guinea pig of sorts.

violin 3) came from a folkie friend who moved away. I put the soundpost back in its place and it has now found a new home.

violin 4) is a modern Chinese one which I bought from one musical friend and sold to another, no work needed.

violin 5) (donated by a friendly freegler) was my second favourite and the one I played in folk sessions for roughly a year until number 22) showed up.

violin 6) is the half-sized Lark which was one of the six violins I gave away on freegle in the first week of June.

violin 7) is a skylark from 1991 which I bought on gumtree for £ 10 and fitted with a new bridge. Good enough for folk I would say. It was one of the six violins I gave away on freegle in the first week of June.

violin 8) is the "ladies violin", a 7/8 skylark. It was one of the six violins I gave away on freegle in the first week of June.

violin 9) is the one which needed a new bridge and a tailgut and turned out to sound quite lovely on the E string. It was one of the six violins I gave away on freegle in the first week of June.

violin 10) is the broken one with traces of multiple repair attempts. I'm still gathering courage to try and fix that one.

violin 11) is the 3/4 sold by JP Guivier & Co Ltd. in the 1950s but may actually be older than that. It was one of the six violins I gave away on freegle in the first week of June.

violin 12) is a full-size Lark which a freegle user kindly donated and delivered after seeing my offer. It was one of the six violins I gave away on freegle in the first week of June.

violins 13) through to 15) I bought locally through gumtree or facebook, nothing special to report.

violin 16) is the Sebastian Klotz branded one, sadly not made by the Mittenwald luthier, but by Yamaha Malaysia, who appear to have trademarked his name.

violin 17) is the supersized violin with a very strong sound.

violin 18) is the slightly drunken but nice sounding violin from Poland, which I restored and returned to its family.

violin 19) is a Stentor student 1 violin which only needed a little TLC, and within less than a week I had it brushed up and ready to move to our local school. The most intriguing problem it had was that somebody had put in the bridge the wrong way round, with the lower slope under the G string.

violin 20) is a Stentor student 1 violin I bought via GumTree. It sounds really nice for what it is, thanks in part to a good set-up with Dominant strings. My current plan is to make this one an official Cowley Orchestra instrument.

violin 21) is a nameless student violin I bought via facebook, not quite sure what to think of it. The fingerboard is horizontal, which is all wrong and may mean there is not enough pressure on the bridge to produce a good sound.

violin 22) is the 19th century Guarneri copy, still my favourite (although I'll have to fix that crack at some point).

violin 23) is a nameless student violin I bought from a charity shop. It looks unused but had no strings, so I set it up with a set of spare strings that came with another violin. It turned out to be no trouble at all and sounds ok for an instrument that looks really cheap (with the purfling painted on).

violin 24) is the densely cratered one described above.

Balance 10.3.2025: Of the 24 violins listed above, 7 received via freegle, 3 from friends and family, 13 bought (gumtree, facebook, charity shops, cost ranging £ 10 to £45), 1 taken in for repair only and returned to its family.
Of the 23 acquired, 6 given away via freegle, 2 given to a local school, 2 sold to musical friends, 1 moved to Germany for holiday practice, 8 currently in house and ready to play, 4 in house and still broken.

List of non-violins in the pirate luthier series:

An old Irish banjo

guitar 1) is the 100 year-old one from Valencia which I set up with frets and strings and handed back to its owner.

and finally a shout-out to our family-built hammered dulcimer, which dates from 2016, long before I got any ideas about violins.

my new favourite violin

Pirate luthier adventures continued:

The latest arrival in my pirate workshop, violin number 22), has immediately become my new favourite fiddle to play, so I urgently need to blog about it, skipping a couple of less interesting specimens.

This one came from a dear old friend who inherited from her husband who inherited it from his grandmother, and the story is that the grandmother played it quite seriously as the daughter of a posh family at the end of the 19th century, until she decided she had enough of being posh and married a farmer. I was told it was last played by her grandson when he was growing up in the 1960s, but to me the tailpiece and the strings look more modern than that, so I would say the setup likely dates from the 1980s. The wooden case is original though, and it is so amazing I will have to do a separate entry on that (will also keep discussion of the bow for later).

Let's start with the backside, which is just stunning :

and possibly made from as one piece as I can't find the usual seam between the two halves, although in the photo it looks like there is one. Weird.

And I'm loving the craquelé around the waist:

There are two black dots at each end of the body. A friendly luthier tells me these are the remains of pins used to hold the back in place during construction of the instrument. Typically they would be more inconspicuous when made of a matching wood and only one at each end, but here they are clearly emphasised as a feature:

Two of the pegs have a small inlay and the other two don't. Helps you tell your pegs apart in case you're easily confused? Actually, the decorated pegs are longer than the undecorated ones, sticking out on the other side way too much (14 mm for the D peg). Closer inspection of their shapes and sizes reveals they are four different models, so must have been replaced at different times.

Looking inside we have the label pretending the instrument was made by Guiseppe Guarneri del Gesu (with the cross and the christogram IHS distinguishing the mark of the younger Guiseppe from his father who was also Guiseppe Guarneri) in 1731:

Joseph Guarnerius fecit
Cremonae anno 1731 IHC

Which was the year when young Guiseppe set up his own workshop and started using the labels with the cross, as explained here. (Scroll down to the last image to see an example of a real Guarneri del Gesu label.)

So, well, I understand that makers at Markneukirchen and Schönbach in the late 19th century copied Guarneri's label at an industrial scale, so this would be the most likely explanation. One has to bear in mind that at the time when they did that, the instrument would have been shiny and new, so there was no attempt at deception, just hijacking of a famous name, like the modern maker using SebastianKlotz as a trademark.

The bridge is from Aubert.

Like my "supersized" violin number 17), the instrument is around 1 cm longer than a standard violin, just enough to make sure it doesn't fit into a modern standard-sized case. Like 17), it has a stronger sound than the standard student fiddle, but in comparison to 17), and indeed to all violins I've tried before, it has an amazingly warm and gentle sound across the register, which is why it is now my new favourite to play. I took it to a session this week and it was just perfect.

I haven't repaired anything on it yet, but it does have a crack conveniently hidden under the tailpiece, which will need patching up at some point. Before repairing that, however, I will practice the procedure on a less interesting violin and see how I manage. To finish my raving for now, here's the whole thing, top to toe:

PS I'm amazed that I can turn up at sessions with a different fiddle every week and nobody seems to notice. By contrast, when I was taking Heinrich our family cello to some sessions, he did get recognised.

Updated 4.3.2025 to add the explanation for the black dots.

---

List of violins in the pirate luthier series:

violin 1) is the one my late aunt had since the 1930s, which got me started. After restoring it in November 2022, I played it almost every day for 14 months, until number 5) showed up.

violin 2) is a Stentor student 1 (a very widely used brand of cheap fiddles available everywhere and still being produced). I bought it very cheap on gumtree, mainly because I needed a case for number 1). It has a fault that is probably not worth repairing, see the blog entry on number 3) below. After stripping it of some accessories and spares, I am now inclined to keep it in a semi-functional state to try out experimental repairs, i.e. use it as a wooden guinea pig of sorts.

violin 3) came from a folkie friend who moved away. I put the soundpost back in its place and it has now found a new home.

violin 4) is a modern Chinese one which I bought from one musical friend and sold to another, no work needed.

violin 5) (donated by a friendly freegler) was my second favourite and the one I played in folk sessions for roughly a year until number 22) showed up.

violin 6) is the half-sized Lark which was one of the six violins I gave away on freegle in the first week of June.

violin 7) is a skylark from 1991 which I bought on gumtree for £ 10 and fitted with a new bridge. Good enough for folk I would say. It was one of the six violins I gave away on freegle in the first week of June.

violin 8) is the "ladies violin", a 7/8 skylark. It was one of the six violins I gave away on freegle in the first week of June.

violin 9) is the one which needed a new bridge and a tailgut and turned out to sound quite lovely on the E string. It was one of the six violins I gave away on freegle in the first week of June.

violin 10) is the broken one with traces of multiple repair attempts. I'm still gathering courage to try and fix that one.

violin 11) is the 3/4 sold by JP Guivier & Co Ltd. in the 1950s but may actually be older than that. It was one of the six violins I gave away on freegle in the first week of June.

violin 12) is a full-size Lark which a freegle user kindly donated and delivered after seeing my offer. It was one of the six violins I gave away on freegle in the first week of June.

violins 13) through to 15) I bought locally through gumtree or facebook, nothing special to report.

violin 16) is the Sebastian Klotz branded one, sadly not made by the Mittenwald luthier, but by Yamaha Malaysia, who appear to have trademarked his name.

violin 17) is the supersized violin with a very strong sound.

violin 18) is the slightly drunken but nice sounding violin from Poland, which I restored and returned to its family.

violin 19) is a Stentor student 1 violin which only needed a little TLC, and within less than a week I had it brushed up and ready to move to our local school. The most intriguing problem it had was that somebody had put in the bridge the wrong way round, with the lower slope under the G string.

violin 20) is a Stentor student 1 violin I bought via GumTree. It sounds really nice for what it is, thanks in part to a good set-up with Dominant strings. My current plan is to make this one an official Cowley Orchestra instrument.

violin 21) is a nameless student violin I bought via facebook, not quite sure what to think of it. The fingerboard is horizontal, which is all wrong and may mean there is not enough pressure on the bridge to produce a good sound.

violin 22) is the 19th century Guarneri copy described above.

Balance 22.2.2025: Of the 22 violins listed above, 7 received via freegle, 3 from friends and family, 11 bought (gumtree, facebook, charity shops, cost ranging £ 10 to £45), 1 taken in for repair only and returned to its family.
Of the 21 acquired, 6 given away via freegle, 2 given to a local school, 2 sold to musical friends, 1 moved to Germany for holiday practice, 5 currently in house and ready to play, 1 needs setting up, 4 still broken.

List of non-violins in the pirate luthier series:

An old Irish banjo

a violin with a famous name

Pirate luthier adventures continued:

Jumping back to violin number 16),

which needed the fingerboard to be glued back on, and it took me a while to gather the courage for the whole hide glue business, but it worked quite well and hasn't fallen apart yet.

This violin, which I bought for £25, is branded Sebastian Klotz, but sadly not by the Mittenwald Luthier, but by Yamaha Malaysia, who appear to have trademarked his name, written as one word, as you see on the label:

The rather posh case (with a hygrometer - but maybe that's more common in Malaysia?) and the rosin are branded skv for Sebastian Klotz violins, I suppose. I hear the Klotz family are still building violins in Mittenwald, maybe they should send their lawyers.

Apart from the fingerboard and a bit of scraping on the bridge, there wasn't much to do on this one, but as I had the tailpin out, I wondered if I could take a photo through the hole, and that turned out quite nicely, so here's the view of the very solid looking skv soundpost.

First impressions: The violin sounds very much like the Stentor student models - good enough for folk but nothing special. I think it's just right for holiday practice so I've taken it to Dusseldorf where it will stay on top of my grandmother's old piano. As such it will stay in my collection so I'd better add the tag of my much neglected "all our instruments" series.

I've now exchanged the photos in my freegle ad for the one at the top of this entry, think people were getting bored with the ones I had for a year and a half, which showed violin 1) before and after restoration.

Previously in the pirate luthier series:

violin 1) is the one my late aunt had since the 1930s, which got me started. After restoring it in November 2022, I played it almost every day for 14 months, until number 5) showed up.

violin 2) is a Stentor student 1 (a very widely used brand of cheap fiddles available everywhere and still being produced). It has a fault that is probably not worth repairing, see the blog entry on number 3) below. After stripping it of some accessories and spares, I am now inclined to keep it in a semi-functional state to try out experimental repairs, i.e. use it as a wooden guinea pig of sorts.

violin 3) came from a folkie friend who moved away. I put the soundpost back in its place and it has now found a new home.

violin 4) is a modern Chinese one which I bought from one musical friend and sold to another, no work needed.

violin 5) (donated by a friendly freegler) is my new favourite and the one I currently play in folk sessions.

violin 6) is the half-sized Lark which was one of the six violins I gave away on freegle in the first week of June.

violin 7) is a skylark from 1991 which I bought on gumtree for £ 10 and fitted with a new bridge. Good enough for folk I would say. It was one of the six violins I gave away on freegle in the first week of June.

violin 8) is the "ladies violin", a 7/8 skylark. It was one of the six violins I gave away on freegle in the first week of June.

violin 9) is the one which needed a new bridge and a tailgut and turned out to sound quite lovely on the E string. It was one of the six violins I gave away on freegle in the first week of June.

violin 10) is the broken one with traces of multiple repair attempts. I'm still gathering courage to try and fix that one.

violin 11) is the 3/4 sold by JP Guivier & Co Ltd. in the 1950s but may actually be older than that. It was one of the six violins I gave away on freegle in the first week of June.

violin 12) is a full-size Lark which a freegle user kindly donated and delivered after seeing my offer. It was one of the six violins I gave away on freegle in the first week of June.

violins 13) through to 15) I bought locally through gumtree or facebook, nothing special to report.

violin 16) is the Sebastian Klotz branded one described above, sadly not made by the Mittenwald Luthier, but by Yamaha Malaysia, who appear to have trademarked his name.

violin 17) is the supersized violin with a very strong sound.

violin 18) is the slightly drunken but nice sounding violin from Poland.

violin 19) is a Stentor student violin which only needed a little TLC, and within less than a week I had it brushed up and ready to move to our local school. The most intriguing problem it had was that somebody had put in the bridge the wrong way round, with the lower slope under the G string.

two bass recorders

Just two days after I posted about the recorder family, a long-awaited email came in telling me that the two recorders I had ordered back in September were now ready for delivery. As I love my Triebert alto, I had ordered the Triebert bass as a birthday treat and the garklein to complete the size range at the smaller end. And in February, as I was losing faith in that delivery ever arriving, I found the Thomann bass for € 70 at a fleamarket in Germany.

So now I have two bass recorders to compare, and the funny thing is they are externally identical (apart from the two-colour scheme in the Thomann while the Triebert is all matt black), clearly molded from the same cast (or whatever the process is to make plastic recorders) but a few details reveal that the Triebert may be getting a better quality control treatment.

• The keys are very flimsy and noisy on the Thomann, which Sarah Jeffery also criticised in her review, and blamed on the plastic material. Funny thing is, the keys on the Triebert are the same plastic in the same shape, and they are much firmer to the touch and consequently don't make that horrid noise when they're released. Peering underneath I notice a subtle difference in the metal spring: straight for the Thomann, kinked in the Triebert. So at some point I will take the Thomann keys apart and see if it helps if I make the springs more kinky.
• The joints are fitting perfectly in the Triebert. In the Thomann, the first joint from bottom is a bit tight, the second a bit loose, an the one near the kink (which can stay connected for packing up but is needed to access all places for cleaning) was so tight that I first believed it was glued together and didn't dare to force it open. Only after I saw that the Triebert came apart effortlessly at this joint did I manage to do the same with the Thomann.

Both are really easy to play and sound nice and breezy. You could use them for meditation like a didgeridoo just blowing the bottom F.

As Sarah has explained in her video, the tuning around B and Bb doesn't work with the standard fingering printed on the sheet that comes with the instrument (but funnily enough doesn't even mention the existence of bass recorders, it is marked for sopranino through to tenor!), but this can be compensated with clever fingering (eg no little finger for the Bb). Both come with identical accessories, only that each company had its brand name printed on the bag. Which I find hilarious as it shows each screaming "we made this" when clearly they didn't. I also note that both instruments came with a cleaning rod that is the size used for tenor recorders and concert flutes (it has the mark that you need for adjusting the cork on the flute). A slightly longer stick would be handy for the bass. Another DIY project I guess.

Oh and I could in principle assemble a vast number of hybrid instruments from the different parts, although for the aesthetic I do prefer the all black style of the Triebert.

So in summary, online shop prices are a factor 2.6 apart (£ 105 vs £ 275) and what you get for the higher price is a slightly better quality, but maybe not 2.6 times better? Note that the Yamaha YRB302II Bass Recorder is available at an intermediate price between these two, but by the looks of the photos online I guess it may also come from the same factory as these two?

And here's the updated family portrait, now including all recorders (except one ancient school soprano that has gone missing years ago but must be in the house somewhere):

Basses: Thomann, Triebert; tenor: Yamaha; altos: Triebert, Moeck; sopranos: Moeck, Schneider; sopranino: Yamaha; garklein: Triebert - the tenor came from the Allegro shop many years ago, Triebert bass and garklein from the Early Music Shop, all others from flea markets. All have baroque fingering, except my old school recorder and the Moeck alto in German fingering.

PS When I took the Thomann bass to a session earlier this month, a folkie friend told me she currently has three bass recorders to sell - these things are like London buses ...

PPS I've now added the all instruments tags to this entry - think I'm giving up on the formal structure of that series (which portrayed the oldest 21 instruments of our household in chronological order until Covid came along) and will now add instruments if and when I feel inspired to write about them. More exciting to write about the new arrivals than about the yamaha keyboard I bought twenty years ago. I've now also added the tag to the entries about Jenny the cello and two of the rescue fiddles I adopted.

instrument families revisited

When I discussed instrument families in August 2021, I used a wikipedia pic of recorders from sopranino to bass. As it happens, I now have all five sizes myself, so I guess it's time to revisit the issue with a new photo:

Bass: Thomann; tenor: Yamaha; alto: Triebert; soprano: Moeck; sopranino: Yamaha - the tenor came from the Allegro shop many years ago, all others from flea markets. All have baroque fingering, in addition I also have my old school recorder and a Moeck alto in German fingering.

I also may need to revise my preferences. I have warmed to the tenor recorder since the last blog entry and now use it for certain tunes at sessions, and I love my new bass recorder, so the trend is towards bigger instruments in that family (does anybody have a sub-bass to sell?). In the strings department by contrast, I have taken to to the violin and now also have a viola and a double bass in the room, so I'm spoilt for choice. Oh, and I've also found a low whistle, so families are growing all around thanks to fleamarkets, charity shops and gumtree.

a battered old violin

After successfully restoring my late aunt's violin and playing it for a few months, I started thinking I'd like to do some more pirate lutherie and put up a call for broken string instruments on the local Freegle group. This was first posted in May 2023 and gets auto-reposted regularly - and sometimes I update it.

Now, for the first time I have actually obtained an instrument from somebody in response to this post, a battered old violin:

There wasn't much background info available. The person who kindly replied to my Freegle call had inherited from their late uncle who was a pianist, and they weren't sure why he had a violin at all, as he wasn’t known to have played it. Other relatives had it looked at by Oxford Violins who said it is not valuable. Judging by the case (woodpulp/cardboard lined with felt, see photo) it could be from the 1930s like my aunt's but in a higher price bracket. No mark or label of any kind. The bow (hair cut out) is by Herrmann , a known maker family in Vogtland, Germany.

Intriguingly, the case contained an itemised luthier’s bill from Dec 1985 for

rehair   £ 12.65
repair to violin
shoot fingerboard, new bridge
clean & polish, glue seams, tailgut   £ 103.50
set strings   £ 10.33
4 adjusters   £ 2.05
total cost   £128.53,

which is almost £400 in 2024 pounds. Extrapolating from today’s cost of bow rehairs would even suggest £ 700. The bill is from John & Arthur Beare in London, who have a reputation as specialists in old violins according to their Wikipedia entry.

UPDATE 5.5.2025: more about this company in the obituary of Charles Beare who died in April 2025. I'm feeling quite honoured to think that he may have touched this violin as well as all those Stradivari and Guarneri instruments mentioned in the obituary. 2nd update: Guardian obituary

After them, somebody less qualified must have messed with the instrument, as I found all four strings attached to wrong pegs. At least the soundpost solidly in place and the bridge was kept separately in the case, so I was able to set it up in less than one hour.

The body is battered and scarred with various repairs but solid. The instrument settled in within 24 hours and sounds lovely to my not very demanding ears - even with the old strings which may well date from 1985 - notably better in the lower register than the other violins I've played so far. The old school tailpiece is fitted with 4 adjusters (as per the luthier's bill). The chinrest has an awkward shape with a rather steep edge. It has no cork,just glued paper on the clamp side and two felt tabs on the chin side. The case contained two packs of rosin: one Hiddersine unused, one Sonella in fragments, also a mute made of horn. And three unidentified spare strings.

Only one moan so far. Taking off the chinrest to look at the seam underneath it (which was ok), I discovered that somebody appears to have renovated (presumably sanded and re-varnished?) the top without taking off the chinrest. Like wallpapering around a small item of furniture. I think the appropriate pirate luthier response to this is: Arrrrrrgh. I'm slightly worried now that the same person may have effed up other things I haven't discovered yet, such as using the wrong kind of varnish or glue. Then again, can't complain about a gift horse and all that. I am aiming to keep this one to play it myself, but have already lent out another one that I restored to a young musician. If and when I am able to rescue more stray instruments the general plan is to make them available to players on a non-profit basis.

when Heinrich met Jenny

This month, Heinrich the cello will move out to reunite with the young cellist in their new home. In my effort to keep Heinrich entertained over the last few years, I have taken the habit to play cello every day (even though still not as well as a senior cello like Heinrich deserves to be played), so I went looking for a new old cello to keep up the musical exercise.

It's been a very interesting experience trying out half a dozen cellos displaying very different temperaments, even though they're basically all the same shape and size. I settled on a relatively modern one which I bought from Jenny, who couldn't take it with her on her return to her home country. As our string instruments need names, Heinrich's younger sister will now be known as Jenny after her previous owner.

As you can see in the pictures, Jenny has a very nice dark varnish and a pattern of stripes strikingly similar to Heinrich's. She also has a very warm resonant tone. I'm still learning her ways (it's amazing how many things I can forget when distracted by an unfamiliar instrument!) but am looking forward to introducing her to my orchestral and chamber music adventures in September. Some preliminary pictures of the pair (I'm sure there will be more once we see the sun again):

The only structural difference I've spotted so far is that the new cello's fingerboard rises more steeply above the body, which becomes obvious because the bridge is looking much higher (to be precise, the bridge was 12 mm higher for all four strings). A small part of that bridge height was unnecessary, however, as the strings were a bit too high above the fingerboard, so I took them down by a couple of millimetres. In the process I learned that the makers had been too hasty in putting on the bridge - part of the varnish underneath it was attached to its feet rather than the belly of the cello.

Another surprising discovery: the tailpiece is made of metal. Why? And is this a good idea?

PS Having studied the market of private cello sales in Oxford quite thoroughly, I am now also aware of several other cellos that are also really lovely and could make recommendations if anybody else is looking for one.

fiddling with fiddles

After the surprising success in restoring my aunt's ancient violin last November, I started to think I'd like to do a little light lutherie more often, so I'm now doing my own repairs and looking out for instruments that need saving. Last week I had a tiny little repair job when the tailgut broke on the old violin. It broke near one end, so I just tied up the new end with the old string, did a bit of flame melting and that was it. When I shared this on facebook, a musical friend commented approvingly on "piracy in lutherie", so here I have my new tag for these endeavours, pirate luthier.

This week I rehaired Heinrich's old cello bow. It had been done professionally in 2009, when the young cellist started playing the full-sized instrument. As they always used a different bow, the 2/3 of hair missing now from Heinrich's bow are all my work (playing almost daily for the last six years, and up to an hour per day during the Plague Year Bach Project). The rehairing went ok - it's not looking quite as neat as a bow set up professionally, but it works perfectly fine and will serve me a few years I'm sure.

This week I also picked up a stray violin in need of repair from a folkie friend who is leaving the country. Its soundpost had come off and it was missing the E-string. Fortunately, the soundpost had a wedge-shaped hole on the side facing the F-hole, so rather than fiddling with the gripping mechanism I concocted the last time, I could wedge the sharp end of my bent wire into that hole and just pull it out once the post was in place. That worked better and quicker than the last time. Within 20 minutes I had the soundpost where I wanted it.

Here's a photo of the setup showing the helpful hole:

Looking at that photo now, I may want to experiment with moving the bridge a little bit closer to the soundpost. Easier than moving the soundpost closer to the bridge. Buchanan's book says it should be closer for "well-arched models" and further away for flatter fiddles, but I'm not sure where this one stands in terms of archedness.

It is a cheap violin that doesn't sound very good (Paragon, made in China, I believe), but to my ear it is a bit better than the Stentor "Andreas Zeller" we had since 2015 (and actually paid money for, at the antiques fair in Gloucester Green), although not as good as the old family fiddle which I am now playing regularly. So here's the trio of them in ranking order:

All three are now ready to play, so I might do a comparison video one day.

I also have another Stentor fiddle (a Student I found ridiculously cheap on gumtree), which I'm plundering for accessories and spares. On that one, the peg of the A-string is slipping and I have so far failed to make it stick. - Update: looking at it again after writing this, I realised that the reason is a crack in the scroll going all the way from the peghole to the top of the scroll, on the side of the peg handle. Silly and trivial, but maybe not worth fixing? Especially as the sound (tested just now with the A string attached to the E peg) is clearly the worst of all four fiddles. I guess I'll just continue using this one as a quarry for whatever parts I may need ...

an old family fiddle

The last time I visited my aunt at Tulette (Drome, France), we were talking about the young cellist in my family, and it suddenly occurred to her that she once had a violin, growing up in Aachen in the 1930s, never got on with it, but the instrument was still buried in her attic in Tulette.

When her house was cleared out after she died, my cousin found this violin and was surprised as he hadn’t heard the story of his mother’s failure to learn the instrument back in Aachen. In June I visited my cousin and retrieved said violin with a view to bring it back to life. It looked like this:

i.e. soundpost, bridge, chinrest, and three strings missing, no bow, a bit scratched, but otherwise ok. In the photo it sports an improvised bridge I made from half a bamboo ring. I kind of like the dark look with the light borders and I don’t mind the scratches. So I took it to a luthier for an appraisal and was quoted £250 (plus strings) to get it into shape, with the perspective that it might be worth up to £500 in perfect condition. Not a really good instrument but “good enough for folk” as we like to say in folk circles, semi-ironically.

While I was pondering whether or not to do this, I discovered at Oxfam an old book on The Making of Stringed Instruments for £ 4 (George Buchanan, 1989). As it happens, it contains a very useful page on the part I thought I couldn’t do, namely putting the soundpost inside the instrument. I cut the post from a random bit of wood I had lying around. Turns out with a bit of wire bent to make a holder, a tool I made from a broken spoke, and four or five attempts, I was able to fit it in. One crucial bit of information from the book was that one can easily unplug the peg that holds the tailpiece, and thus get a hole through which one can actually see the placement of the soundpost very nicely.

I bought a bridge online for £ 2.50, and the book was again very helpful on how to shape it correctly. I had a set of violin strings sitting around which I put on (I kept the historic E string though, see how long it lasts!), and now it’s beginning to look like a proper violin:

(in the battered historic case which is lovely but not very practical for sessions, it doesn't offer much protection and doesn't have shoulder straps)

And it may be me having a Pygmalion moment here, but I do like the sound of it. Will practice a little to be able to record a video that’s not too much out of tune. UPDATE: Here's my attempt at playing Bear dance and Hunt the squirrel on day 7 of trying to play the fiddle.

Meanwhile I spotted a Stentor student fiddle at Gumtree sold for £ 25 from an address where I cycle past every week, so I picked that up on my way – it came with two bows, and I’ll probably use the case and the chinrest for the old fiddle. It also had two packs of rosin, one new and one maybe used three times.

Oh, and with hindsight, looking at the old photos taken in my grandmother’s flat at Idar-Oberstein, I recognise the violin case sitting on top of the piano (eg here and here). Better than the attic, and I do wonder whether it was ever used in those years (until 1961).

Along with Heinrich the cello, Frieda the piano, and Blue the guitar, this is the fourth instrument we have that’s been in the family for more than half a century (and I’m not even counting my school recorder, which isn’t a very good one). In this sense, this should have been episode 3 in the much-neglected all instruments series, but it comes in at number 22. Oh, and maybe I should list my house as a shelter for neglected instruments.

Update 2.12.2022 After I figured out where the gears and the brakes are on this thing, I began to realise that the historic E string didn't sound as good as the new strings, so I replaced that one as well. And with the full set of new (Dominant) strings, the instrument is really sounding quite lovely. Oh, and I'm creating a violin tag, as I feel I will obsess about this instrument some more.

goldilocks instruments

Discussed alto flutes and other size variations at a session earlier today and it struck me that I have a very clear preference in several instrument groups, but they don't line up. Basically, I like to make deep sounds, but there are limits to the amount of suffering I am willing to take for that, such as straining my arm to lift a bass flute, or spreading my fingers more than a comfortable width to play low recorders. So the balance works out as follows:

* strings: cello (obviously)

* flutes: concert flute (I just don't feel the few extra notes added at the bottom are worth the suffering with heavier flutes).

* recorders: alto (a discovery I only made a few years ago, when I saw an alto recorder at a fleamarket and bought it on the spot - basically, it feels exactly right, presumably because it scales to the adult hands exactly like the soprano recorder to primary school kid hands).

* saxophones: tenor (haven't tried any of the other sizes, but the tenor feels so right, I can't imagine any of the others being a better fit).

Based on this, I should try low whistles, which I haven't done yet. And while I never cared much for trumpets, I am curious about tubas, euphoniums and such like.

Different sizes of recorders, from bass to sopranino. Image source: Wikipedia

PSA: this is blogpost no. 2000, and also a reminder to myself that I will resume the all our instruments series once the plague years are definitely over.

poly-oc

All our instruments series, episode 21


So, well, a year ago I started this series thinking with just under 50 instruments and 52 weeks to a year, I should get through in a year or so. In the event, I got 20 done and the total number of instruments in the house went up by a dozen, so give me another four years and I may have caught up.

Anyhow, we're still stuck in the 00s, which is when the young musician was at primary school and learned to play a plastic ocarina called poly-oc (TM). I think the school handed out both the instruments and the instruction book, as I don't recall buying either. They were produced from 1988-2004 according to this website, so we just caught the tail end of them.



It irritates me that I don't really understand the physics of the ocarina - so wouldn't be able without the fingering table to tell you which combination of open holes might produce which note. (The Ocarina Workshop website says the location of the holes doesn't matter, and they are all different sizes, so is it just the combined size of the open holes that determines the pitch?)

Still, the book has a little diagram for each note, so even I can play a tune with that help. So for the video I tried Au clair de la lune.

the Galway method

All our instruments series, episode 20

In the early 00s, still, the young musician got a tin whistle starter kit as a present from her cello teacher, including a tin whistle in D with James Galway's signature on it and a 16-page brochure with Galway's method. I'm a little bit allergic to the pompous "the man with the golden flute" image that has been created around Galway, so I find it refreshing that he also bothered with cheaper instruments like the tin whistle at some point.



The book has the address of Rose-Morris & Co. - that's still the name of a shop in London, but I think back in the days they were also instrument makers, so they may or may not have made the whistle. The company history is here with all sorts of exciting instruments, but I find no reference to whistles.

For the video I've attempted to play the Muiñeira Freixido, a traditional tune from the repertoire of our Galician session, which fits exactly within the bottom octave of the whistle:



I enjoy playing whistles every once in a while, although I am not all too keen on the sound of this one. I'm sure better ones will cross my path. I often have this one in my bag when I go out to play, just in case somebody needs a whistle.

rattle and hum

All our instruments series, episode 19


Some time back in the early 00s, I visited the PMT shop on Cowley Road, with a view to buy an electronic keyboard for the young musicians, but was left more confused than I had been before (I did buy a keyboard eventually but not on that day and not in this shop, will get back to that further down the line). So while I was wondering about touch-sensitive keys and pre-programmed accompaniments, I spotted an array of brightly coloured tambourines, and bought the yellow one as a displacement activity. I remember the shop assistant was amused by the plot twist.

It's from a US company called RhythmTech, and the range is called True Colors - looks like they still make them in 5 different colours and you can still buy the yellow one eg from Amazon (although I think it was a lot cheaper back then). Apparently the company's founder invented the crescent shape tambourine in an effort to have the centre of gravity of the instrument closer to the wrist and make playing less tiring, see the company's about page.

Although I haven't played it much (and certainly not enough to feel the pressing need for an energy-saving crescent shaped one), the tambourine has enjoyed its moments in the spotlight, as I brought it to the Misa Campesina, where the conductor used it a few times in the rehearsals and in the performance.



For the video I just gave it a quick shake - these things are really quite loud ...

x is for ...

All our instruments series, episode 18

... no not for xylophone, we've had that already, and I only have one (not counting silly toy versions). X is for xaphoon, and here's my xaphoon story:

In July 2002, I was heading to Paris for a microbiology conference, via Germany to deposit various kids with various grandparents. At the start of the journey, however, I put my back out moving luggage around on trains, and the extended travels over three days didn't help, so I arrived in Paris not being able to sit. Instead of attending the conference, I spent the first few days dividing my time between walking around (a bit) and lying flat on my back (a lot) on the nice slope along the side of the Centre Pompidou (Beaubourg).

Arriving at my lying down place one day I was puzzled to hear somebody playing a saxophone very loud and clear but not seeing any saxophone. Following my ears while wondering what was wrong with my eyes I found a guy who was selling this new invention, the pocket sax, aka Xaphoon, out of his bag and demonstrating it in the street. Another customer attracted by the sound tried it and also produced a very convincing sax sound from this recorder-size instrument. So I bought one - I think it cost me 25 euros, and nowadays Hobgoblin sells them for £109, so it was a good investment. Although in my hands it doesn't really sound like a saxophone. But then again, in my hands a saxophone doesn't sound like one either.



Looking up the Wikipedia entry, I found out it really was quite a new invention when I bought it. The instrument molded from ABS resin was only made from the spring of 2000. Previously, the inventor, Brian Wittman, had made bamboo xaphoons at his home in Hawaii.

I do like it but never really got the hang of playing it properly. I'm facing two problems, firstly I don't really like the pressure of a reed on my lower lip, which limits each practice session to five minutes, and secondly, while the right hand is straight recorder fingering (German system, so very simple), the left hand fingering is weird. Unlike a recorder, the xaphoon wants four fingers on the left hand put down for G, and lifting fingers off one at a time you then get A Bb (!) and C, and then the thumb comes off before the index finger for D and E. Which is probably to do with the fact that the thumb hole is located at the height where recorders have the first finger hole and vice versa. So very confusing if you're used to recorders.

Anyhow. As I haven't had much practice, this video is really just a demonstration of what the xaphoon sounds like when it is played badly. Enjoy.

let it rain

All our instruments series, episode 17

I was meaning to progress with this series faster than the number of instruments under my roof increases, but I am losing this race (more than 40 instruments behind at the moment). Anyhow, after that slightly challenging set of panpipes here's another find from the lovely Tumi shop which I am still missing (it's been gone for more than a decade):



It is still listed at Tumi online as rainstick medium, but sadly sold out.

It wasn't terribly popular with the children, first because it is a bit short for a rainstick and then because we also had a big one made from transparent plastics where you could watch the beads percolating as well as listen to their sound, which was more attractive as a toy. (In fact I still have that one, too, but as it is clearly a toy and also a bit unwieldy as a percussion instrument, I haven't put it on my list of musical instruments.)

However, the medium rainstick is in the elite group of instruments that get to go out regularly, as it lives in the box of random percussion instruments that I take to Galician sessions. And I do remember seeing people using it at the sessions, so all's well that ends well.

Here's a demonstration of the sound (note that it sounds a lot better when it touches the wooden shelf which also supports the camera):