Keith Hill - Violin Maker

All the violins and violas now pictured here are either new or reworked very recently to bring the acoustics up to date with my current thinking about sound in violins. The 12 violins which were on this site for the last 2 or 3 years, which are no longer pictured here, have been sold. I will try to keep better track of removing the photos and sound samples of those violins that have been sold. I would like to thank Mauricio Aguiar for his willingness to come to my shop and play the sound samples on each of my newest violins on this site and to thank as well Skyko Tavis (at skylabsound.net [skyko@skylabsound]) for his help in creating distortion free sound samples of all the newest violins.

Click here for a Sound Sample of my Opus 409 The violinist in this sound sample of the Vieuxtemps Violin Concerto is Laura Johnson, winner of the Denver Young Artists Orchestra competition in 2009, playing with the DYA Orchestra for this performance on my violin, Opus 409, made in late 2008 and finished in early 2009. I have designed this violin expressly to create a violin in a slightly smaller size without sacrificing power, volume, resonance, sweetness, flexibility, or ease of playing. The purpose was to create a violin which smaller framed musicians would find easier to play. The question is: Can it be done? As time and opportunities permit, I plan to post recordings at this site so you can assess for yourselves if I have succeeded.

Nothing anyone can say about how violins sound is very convincing because, for violinists, it is how it feels under the chin and the ear that counts. I offer photos of my violins at this site to give you an idea of my visual aesthetic. But personally, I have no interest in how musical instruments look if they don't sound wonderful. That is why, more importantly, I also offer sound samples, morsels for the ears, which are extremely short snippets of music to give you an idea of how the particular violin pictured sounds. As for the rest, that requires you to actually play my instruments for you to get an idea of how my violins feel under the chin and bow. You will find by clicking on the "Judging Violins" button, my views on how I evaluate the sound of violins. If you are interested to learn about how I think about building instruments, Click on the "Art of Making" button. There you can read some articles I have had published on the acoustics of violins and on the varnish I invented to enhance the acoustics which I build into every instrument I make. Because the acoustical principles I use magnify the differences in the woods from which the instruments are made, each of my instruments sounds distinctive and unique. I think you will find, nevertheless, that they all bear a kind of family resemblance. The similarities are the result of how I choose wood and the principles I apply to enhance the sound of the instrument. Though I am extremely selective about the quality of the sound of every piece of wood I use in the construction of my instruments, still, I never attempt to make all my instruments identical sounding. That would be boring. However, I insist that each instrument be as good musically, acoustically, and behaviorally as possible, as is within my powers, for the wood used in that instrument. As you know, wood is not equal. Therefore the best possible outcome for each instrument is also not equal. That is why I price my instruments based on the acoustical and musical properties unique to each instrument. Those which are better suited to concert performance are more costly than those which work better in an orchestral situation. If you are interested in playing and hearing one of my violins, email me and I will direct you to where those closest to you can be viewed. The following link will allow you to hear a recording of one of my more recent violins. This recording and all recordings on this site were made by the kindness of Mauricio Aguiar, violinist in the Cincinnati Symphony. Click here for a Sound Sample of Tchaikovsky on my Opus 413 My contact information is: Keith Hill - Instrument Maker, 10332 - M52, Manchester, MI 48158 My land line phone number is 734-428-8660 My email address is: pictagoras@aol.com

Op. 382 Hill Violin made in 2007 I designed this violin specifically for the smaller player. The body length is 34.8 cm give or take a millimeter. Every violinist of smaller stature who plays this violin exclaims on first try how much easier it is to play than the regular size violin. Clearly, small differences feel huge to smaller players. The question is: What does one give up acoustically when scaling down the violin? Theoretically, the answer should be: "Nothing, because Amati made the larger and the smaller size instruments too." I hope this violin and the subsequent others of of my design which I am picturing and sharing sound samples of will help answer this question.

AN IMPORTANT TOOL FOR PLAYING IN A VIOLIN

Last year, I decided to investigate "playing in machines" to see what they were all about, to notice if these self aggrandizing little devices did anything remotely approximating actual playing in. I bought one which purported to improve the sound of a violin by using the violin itself as a loud speaker. This one required a stereo system in order to produce a volume significant enough to "work" the plates into submission, if you were playing classical music through the system. The manufacturers of the device suggested using hard rock and acid rock music at full volume in order to make the effect occur more quickly. Obviously, this particular device could only be used when I was absent from the shop because I couldn't stand the noise coming from the violin I was using as the guinea pig for this experiment. Frankly, I found the din of this rather unpleasant sounding device intolerable even for a short time and even using Beethoven Symphonies to play in my violin. Violins make lousy loud speakers. However, this device did work to some degree but not well enough to warrant having to listen to the racket (even through the closed door of a closet and being 2 floors away from the violin). The violin exhibited a more ringing tone but not significantly more than I have heard on any one of my violins which has been played in for one hour or so by a competent violinist. Finally, I gave up on using this device because for all the hopes it may have engendered about how it was going to improve my violins, I found the set up troublesome, expensive, time consuming, incredibly noisy, and irritating to listen to when I was trying to work, even though I had sequestered the violin to a closet in another room. The amount of improvement in the sound was negligible. The next device I tried out was one that sent two kinds of wave forms through the violin. This playing-in device worked by having a clip which was to be attached to the bridge, through which a sound akin to a miniature jackhammer was electronically sent either in constant wave form or in the form of a mechanically induced first inversion chord in which the notes were sounded sequentially from the bottom to the top. Again this device could only be used when I wasn't around to listen to it. And if that weren't bad enough, this device had absolutely no noticeable effect on the sound of my violins. Listening to a jackhammer concerto for solo violin was not my idea of a way to use my hearing. Finally, after only being used two or three times, this annoying little piece of equipment stopped working. I was delighted by the thought of not having to listen any more to this nasty sounding unit. What I was not happy about was how much money I had spent on these fanciful delusions when they hardly had any effect at all. At that point I stopped the investigation because it was a failure and I figured that it probably was all wrong headed to be asking a machine to improve the sound of a violin...that is what violinists are for, in effect, isn't it?. WHY A PLAYING IN DEVICE MIGHT BE USEFUL OR NECESSARY The problem of not being able to hear what one’s violins sound like after they have been played in is a quandary faced by all instrument makers. That is, they must wait years, if ever, to know how their instruments are going to sound when played in. If, as most savvy players have come to figure out, the violins sound too good at the beginning, they too often end up sounding dull and muffled after they are played in. For this reason, a culture of second guessing has developed in the violin world in which violinists will purposely choose a raw, harsh, piercing sounding violin that is as loud as possible in order to forestall any possibility that once the violin is played in it might become dull sounding, in hopes that it will sound like a great antique violin by, hopefully, Stradivari or Guarneri. And anything that sounds too beautiful at the outset, they fully expect it to turn dull sounding and muffled. And, indeed, they are right. Mediocre but beautiful sounding violins usually end up sounding dull and muffled. This radicalism has been a problem for me for most of my 30 years of violin making. Indeed, almost every violinist who owns one of my violins is astonished that the instruments actually sound better, that is, more focused, more resonant, more intense, more solid, more flexible, more brilliant, more ringing, and more powerful after a number of years of being played in...exactly the opposite of the effect that the cultural lore has dictated should happen. My explanation for why this happens is that playing in only emphasizes the most basic and fundamental underlying structures in the sound. When a violin has been made without any thought at all given to creating a structure to the sound, that lack of structure is what becomes more and more pronounced over time and playing. When the structure of the sound has been created to be rigorous, well defined, and balanced at the beginning, playing in will only increase the sensation of the sound being extremely rigorous, well defined and balanced. The problem, here, is that a clear sense of structure in the sound sounds too good to be believable according to the cultural lore, which dictates that what starts out sounding too good at the beginning will eventually become lifeless and withered once it is played in. Only recently, as the prices of the 5th and 6th level antique violins have gone above and beyond what the average violinist can pay for a violin, have violinist begun to take seriously good sounding instruments by contemporary makers. As violin makers have figured out how to varnish violins so as not to loose the initial sound quality of their violins, players have become less susceptible to the cultural lore that dictates that when a new violins sounds too good from the outset, blah, blah, blah. So players are now more willing to give new made instruments a chance to be played and heard. As this has been happening, something miraculous has happened. A SIGNIFICANT AND RECENT TREND Violinist are now requiring new made violins to sound and play like the very best violins made by Stradivari and Guarneri. This is the most important shift in the violin world since the development of non gut strings for stringed instruments. Here is why. Violin makers will only build what will sell. In the past, the more perfectly wrought the furniture making on the violin was, the easier it was to sell the violin. Back then the cultural lore dictated that if the sound was coarse, raw, piercing, and strident, playing in would make that sound eventually more refined and sweet sounding. Well, that doesn't happen. A new strident and acrid sounding violin then will eventually turn into an old strident and acrid sounding violin now, with the exception that playing in over time dulls the edges on those razor-like sounds. Now, with the average violinist wanting new violins that sound like great antiques, makers are beginning to try to figure out how to make that happen in their violins. From my standpoint, that's old hat. I have been working on that problem for the last 30 years. And as my violins are now become more interesting to violinists, my main problem has, as I said earlier, been to figure out how to play-in my violins, so I can better construct the sound so that it plays in in exactly the way I want it to sound. This is what stimulated my investigation into this business of playing in devices. BACK TO THE TASK AT HAND After I gave up my earlier investigations into this matter, a year elapsed. Then recently I ran across an advertisement for another such device, called the ToneRite. At $200, this one was, of all these nonsense devices, the most expensive. For me, the cost was not the problem, it was the question of whether or not the device would perform as promised. It was a risk. But I figured, nothing ventured, nothing gained. So I ordered a ToneRite playing in machine. When it arrived a few weeks later, according to the instructions I stuck the device on top of the bridge of one of my experimental designs. For the last three years, I had been trying to get this violin to not sound overcast or slightly muffled on the G and D strings. Everything I did always improved the sound to some degree but for some reason I couldn’t get the sound of those two strings to not sound slightly covered. After six acoustical explorations of the insides of that violin, I had to finally give up because nothing seemed to cause the overcast aspect to the sound to part in order to allow the high frequencies to come out. However, after 24 hours under the gentle purrsuasion of the ToneRite device, the first thing I noticed when I tuned up the instrument was that the bottom two strings were sounding far more focused and brilliant, like the sun was beginning to shine in the sound of this once covered sounding violin. Delighted, I put the ToneRite machine back on the bridge and let the unit continue to do its work. What I observed about the ToneRite at work was that it sounded no louder than a typical refrigerator running in the kitchen or an air pump for a fish tank. It also had a pronounced tierce in its hum tone. What was hard to understand was how something that vibrated at such a low level of volume was able to excite the wood in a violin in such a way that could result in such a strong improvement of the sound of my violins. Indeed, after the end of the second day of playing in using the ToneRite the bottom two strings sounded like a bright sunshiny day, powerful and crisp, from the lowest notes on each string to the top notes. The sound of the whole instrument had become stronger, more integrated, more focused, more massive sounding and more singing, in short, more like the sound of an opera singer. At that point, I switched the ToneRite on to one of my other fiddles. Again, the first thing to happen after a 24 hour stint under this device was the bass notes became extremely focused and brilliant. After another 24 hours, the sound became more integrated and solid sounding. Following the next 24 hour tour of duty under the machine, the violin developed extreme depth of sound. Interestingly, all of the previous qualities that evolved as part of the way the violin was sounding remain intact. Nothing good disappeared as the playing in process proceeded, which was something I suspected would happen but with untested devices...who would be able to say? Happily, the next 24 hour brought forth a huge boost in volume,resonance, and brilliance that made the violin sound so powerful that it was almost painful to the ears, yet pleasantly so. After the recommended 144 hours of being under the ToneRite’s arts, the violin acquired what I like to call a “cathedric” acoustic, with a sustain and ring to the sound that was deep and chest voice sounding on the G string, intensely resonant, throat voiced, and focused on the D string, heady in the intensity and resonance on the A string, and on the E string the sound got stronger louder and more pure the higher up on the fingerboard it was played, like a coloratura soprano. The illusion of imitation of as singer like Luisa Tetrazzini was palpable. When I finally heard the full effect of what the ToneRite was making my violins sound like, I knew that I needed at least four more of these devices and put them to work on the 13 fiddles that I had in a finished yet unplayed state. Though the folks at ToneRite have published a disclaimer saying something to the effect that the device won’t turn a sow’s ear into a silk purse, I would say that their playing in device certainly verifies what I only knew as hearsay about my violins, which is, that ‘curiously’ my violins defy conventional wisdom, about new made good sounding instruments deteriorating in sound after they are played in, because my violins actually improve in sound when they are played in for a year or two, getting more brilliant and resonant and ringing as time goes on. I had hoped that that was true but so rarely if ever had one of my violins returned to my shop after I sold it so I could hear the effect for myself. I plan to rerecord some of the violins which I recorded last year in September and post those sound samples on my website so you can hear what the difference is for yourself. Hopefully, that will happen sooner rather than later. You can order one of these devices directly from me for $199.00 or you can order one on the website of the ToneRite company. Their link is: www.http://tonerite.com/violin/vmchk Please, tell them you read this article.