The Subject is Antiqueing Believe it or not, I do not try to make my instruments look like antique instruments. I thought many years about this issue because Ruggerio Ricci asked me years ago when I showed him one of my instruments, which he said impressed him, why I did not antique my instruments as most of the better makers today are accustomed to doing? I told him, then, that I will do nothing false and to me antiqueing was pandering to a trade which preferred the delusion of antiquity to anything that sounded good. He immediately agreed but added that if I did not antique my instruments I would not sell any of my violins. I retorted that if that was the price for not doing anything false, then I would stop building violins. He hoped I would reconsider. I stopped building violins for almost 10 years because of that. And nothing has changed my mind. I still do not antique my instruments. But, you say, your instruments look to me as though they have been antiqued? My answer is: think what you like, but they are not antiqued. After much experimentation I discovered that if I varnished in multiple coats and then removed very selectively one, two, three, and sometimes four layers of varnish, I could control the pitch or frequency of the varnish by its thickness. This had such a profound effect on the playability of the instrument and improved the sound to such an amazing degree that now I am perfectly convinced that the "wear" on the varnish of the great antiques is in fact not wear but intentional careful removal of varnish by the original makers for the same reason I discovered...to improve the playability and sound of the instrument. I call this process "micro-tuning". Antiqueing is an extremely time consuming business if you are going to do it to the degree that the instrument looks like an antique. Micro-tuning, by comparison, for me at least, is relatively direct and efficient business as long as you know exactly what you are after and know how to get it with dispatch. The result appears almost identical but the acoustical effects are totally different. Antiqueing has no appreciable influence on the sound. However, since antiquers are not interested in the acoustical effects of what they are doing, it is irrelevant that the outcomes are wholly different. Micro-tuning produces the same appearance of the antiques without even trying, assuming you know what you are doing. How can you be sure, you might ask? In my subsequent investigations, I have now determined exactly what constitutes actual "wear" on the varnish of a new violin. It can be seen on the instruments made in France, Italy, and Germany in the 19th century. Some of these instruments have been well used and none of their wear patterns are remotely like what you see on the great antique violins by Stradivarius or Guarnerius. Clearly, some instruments did not need the micro-tuning at all. On those instruments the varnish is more or less uniform in shade and thickness. While other instruments had almost all their varnish removed and then replaced, then removed again, then varnished all over again without regard to how it would appear. Why do I say that? Because the result is anything but pristine and anything which is pristine has had its pristineness very highly regarded. And, in the 17th and 18th centuries in Italy, especially, the workmen were aware of the concept of Sprezzatura. In this concept, unevenness and irregularity are essential to creating a highly expressive and unselfconscious quality in anything. That spirit of self possession and confidence is crucial to creating something wonderful to behold. If you could produce extremely precise work in a totally offhand manner, so much the better, but if you couldn't, you should at least create something highly expressive and do it in a manner that is wholly unconcerned with the opinions of others. That is at the heart of Sprezzatura. Perfect work that doesn't express this idea is both weak and insipid. To be bold is an essential virtue. That is how I work and micro-tuning is my technical means of arriving at that quality of Sprezzatura. That is why I believe that Stradivarius and Guarnerius both micro-tuned their varnish. They did it in order to enhance the sound and playability of their instruments. What resulted as to the appearance is about what we can see today on those instruments...Sprezzatura. Sure there is some wear, but that wear is almost the same as what you can observe on the 19th century instruments which have not been shaded in order to antique them. I also gave years and years of thought to what the effects of age would appear like and what the effect would be on the instrument. Well, the visual effects on the instrument is negligible. There is also no significant effect on the sound from the dings and dirt that an instrument acquires with age. However, I have observed that there is a profound effect on the souls of those who play an instrument which is "dirty" and obviously "used". That effect is what I call "amicis utiorum" or user friendliness. The impulse to touch an object that appears like someone else has already used and appreciated the object is both immediate and invited. That is players feel like the instrument is inviting them to touch and play the instrument. Instruments which are pristine in every way send the clear and opposite message: Noli me Tangere! or don't touch me. Perfection of appearance declares an object is off limits. THIS is what Ruggerio Ricci was clearly alluding to many years earlier. He just didn't make that clear to me. Now that I understand the effect on the souls of players, which creating a judicious impression of invitation by carefully controlling the appearance to lure the soul to play the instrument, by making the instrument as user friendly as possible, I feel that there is nothing false in so doing. It is an active artistic decision. It is imperative. For nothing is worse in Art than to be scolded for being interested in it.