Untitled - Mariposa Folk Festival

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METROPOLITAN VIBRATIONS The Musical Instrument Makers Of Toronto by Willam Laskin,'luthier' FOR MY LIVELIHOOD, I BUILD guitars. lfls my job to take pieces of trees and fashion them into a complex object with the capacity to move you to tears or make You unable to restrain Yourself from dancing. Following years of patient waiting for exotic rosewoods from Eastern lndia or ebonies from Gabon, Africa to dry and stabilize, succeeded bY weeks or months of concentrated effort cutting, shaPing and thicknessing to minute Portions of a millimetre, I produce a musical instrument. lt is an instrument capable of responding to a musician's need for a heart-melting sweet tone or a biting harshness in addition to the ability to reach Your ears, unamplified, in the back row of the concert hall. lt's little wonder that when a good musician, aware of a maker's achievements, finds an instrument that meets all her needs, she values it almost as one of her family. lt is common for such a musician to buy a second seat, when flying, for Ms Cello or Mr. Guitar as I did in the opening scenario. "You numerous guitar makers. The world made this?" "Uh-huh." renowned flutist, James Galway, has "God, stated that his Toronto made it's beautiful. You play it Goosman flute is the finest hand too?" "Sure made flute he's played. do." "You know I can't let you take it on How is it that a city in supposedly as cabin baggage." "Yes. I know. but that's not a conservative, non-arts supporting problem." Canada can elicit such admiring "OKthen. Let mesee... justthetwo comments from within musicians' of you travelling today?" and instrument makers' circles? "Yup." After all, we aren't like Cremona, ltaly "Do you know if Mr. A. Guitar with its centuries old violin making would prefer smoking or non- traditions. We're not kin to Paris, a city with a true claim to being the smoking?" "Non, please. And we'd like to sit world's first guitarmaking centre together." over one hundred years before "Fine." Spain. Barcelona, the Spanish city that is still a major classical guitar What they and most people in this centre we certainly are unlike. Yet, city do not realize is that Metro with only sporadic instrument Toronto, over the past fifteen years making events in our city's history, has emerged as the centre less even than in Montreal or Quebec of handmade musical instruments not City just for this country but for the whole continent. There are pockets of instrument makers scattered across Canada and the U.S., but no other single metropolitan area has both the variety and quantity of instruments being produced professionally, to world class standards, as do we. Without travelling more than half an hour in any direction from downtown, one can find makers of classical, flamenco and steel string acoustic guitars, electric guitars and basses, the entire violin family and their bows, mandolins, bouzoukis, banjos, appalachian dulcimers, lutes, violas da gamba, harpsichords, virginals, classical silver, gold and platinum flutes, steel drums and, if that weren't enough, the most innovative electric violins in the world are built not 5 minutes drive from my own shop in the heart of the city. - violin making centres during the first half of this century - Toronto has become home to instrument makers old and young, Canadian born and landed immigrant. And, outside of a portion of the music community, few seem aware of these artisans. Masa Inokuchi, a violin maker, emigrated f rom his native Japan after a decade of frustration over the costs of importing the curly maPle and spruce he needed. He simPlY chose to live nearer one of the sources of these materials, Canada. Matthew Redsell, a self taught harpsichord and virginal builder who came into prominence after eight years of full time work at his craft, was first a piano and comPosition student at the University of Toronto. However, as he stated it, "a J J uJ Y d z cc o ; m conscious evaluation of my abilities turned me to making, (rather than playing) the instruments." Were we to choose a person at random and ask them where they thought such high quality musical instruments were produced, would they answer ltaly? lf we prodded them for their guess as to the source of these painstakingly handbuilt things, the original locale of instruments capable of inspring such devotion from their owners that regularly paying for a second airfare is done unhesitatingly, would they suggest Spain? Maybe. Possibly. The name Stradivari might even arise but that would, pretty much, be that. A mandolin maker from Virginia once jealously admitted to me that Toronto was known, down his way, as "a real maker's town". A former student at Chicago's school of violin making confessed that while there he'd often heard Toronto labelled "guitar town" because of its Linda Manzer, a native Torontonian, is a maker ol arch-loP iazz guitars. She is one of the small number of people in the world who take the time to Produce these less common instruments as well as making regular steel string guitars.
Earle Wong, a Trinidadian living in Toronto since '1968, takes emPty 45 gallon oil drums and hammers them into tonally subtle, mellow musical instruments. He is a maker and player of the steel drum or "pan". other Bernard Walke is a bow maker working alongside his brother Gregory, a maker of violins and violas. Bernard was influenced both by lrish fiddling and his brother's insistence to look at the bow as a more exacting building challenge than the furniture and masonry work he was then doing. T The impressively innovative Raad -t electric violin was designed, patented and is now Produced, after tr, a decade of research, by a grouP of musicians who were frustrated bY the consistently poor quality of violin and cello electric pickup systems. They, the brothers and sister of the Armin family, Jim Jones and John Borah are at the very leading edge of this technology. Kolya Panhuysen, a child immigrant to Toronto, originally from Berlin, carries on his uncle's trade of making concert classical guitars while sharing his shop with yet another guitarmaker. These seven people do not constitute even one quarter of our professional. instrument making community. Some among this grouP learned their trade by apprenticeship, some are self taught, others studied in scarce instituttons but to a person, they all struggled for manY years to master a craft that is its own unique discipline. No other pursuit blends the worlds of craft, art and science as does musical instrument making. On the creative side, no two professional makers' instruments are alike. Be it the body shape, interior bracing, rosette design (the decoration around the soundholes of guitars and lutes), f-hole shape or other trademarks, they all differ from one another. And each maker, accepting the challenge of Producing an ever more suPerior sound, will be endlessly alterinq and developing his instruments. For beyond the actual constructing, an instrument has an ultimate function: to yield music, to be the catalyst for musical creativity. In such circumstances it is required to perform at a higher level of precision and under more demanding criteria than anY "craft" object. Can you imagine Segovia or Yehudi Menuhin categorizing their instruments with their teapot or the wall-hanging behind their sofa? You might well ask why one person should gotoallthe bother. After all, there arefactoriesturning out some good instruments. Surely, you might say, modern technology can take us beyond centuries old processes. But, lcan thankfully respond that "it just ain't so." But, I can thankfully respond that "it iust ain't so." Ask any good musician and they will admit, openly or grudgingly, that a superior handmade instrument has the intrinsic subtleties of sound and physical feel that is above the best a factory can ever produce. Why? Primarily becuase one person is in complete control of every aspect of the construction process. He/she can alter the types and dimensions of the materials to better work with each other both structurally and when vibrating. He/she knows all things about that which is in front of them on their workbench. And it's high time that the inhabitants of this city, this country, knew more things about the gifted artisans who live and work in their midst. Each of the makers in the Toronto community has a story to tell but rarely is it heard. Their work may be respected around the world but without high production numbers, it is sometimes still a struggle to pay the rent and import necessary materials. Where is there time or money for P.R.? I feel certain that the more Toronto learns about the unique hive of instrument makers that has blossomed under its own unsuspecting nose, the more it will acknowledge, respect and suppotl their endeavours. P.S. lf you'd like to know more about Toronto's instrument makers, be on the lookout for William (Grit) Laskin's forthcoming book - METROPOLITAN VIBRATIONS - t! t z ^ x m fr with ohotoaraphs bv Brian Pickell. T0 RoNTo'S Dolif llrollril ALTERilATIVE FOR GU]IARS, BASS, KEYBOARDS, AMPS & P/A'S ALL YOUR FAVOURITE BRAND NAMES 362.8880 ftii::, ONE OF CANADA'S LARGEST AND MOST COMPLETE RETAILERS OF DRUMS AND PERCUSSION 362.8855 STUDY WITH SOME OF THE BEST CANAOA HAS TO OFFER ALL INSTRUMENTS, PRIVATE LESSONS, THEORY, HARMONY, ARRANGING, ENSEMBLE PROGRAM. STUDIO RENTALS HOURLY, WEEKLY & MONTHLY 362-8854 TuningFork CUSTOM GUITAR REPAIRS REFINISHING & BUILDING PIANO & PERCUSSION REPAIRS 365.3220/
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Untitled - Mariposa Folk Festival

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