Background

First, a bit about my background.   As with many violinists, my relationship with the violin runs deep.  I started playing the violin at age three through the Suzuki program – on a Cracker Jack box, covered with brown paper, with a ruler for a neck and a pencil for the bow.

By age 3 ½, I had graduated to a “real” instrument:

I continued to play the violin through high school.  Once I started college, however, my interests turned elsewhere, and the violin took a back seat to academics (although certainly the discipline and other skills that I learned as a violinist were largely responsible for my success in college).  After graduating from college, I attended law school in Chicago, where I graduated fifth in my class of over 150 students, was elected managing editor of the law review, and won a state moot court competition.  After law school, I accepted an associate position with a large and prestigious Chicago-based law firm, were I practiced law for five years.  

It was during this time that I realized that something was missing from my life.  For some time, I was unable to identify what exactly it was that I was missing and then, quite suddenly in my office one day, I realized that what I was missing was the violin.  Of course, having not played it for over 10 years at that point, my ability to build a career as a violinist was extremely limited (although I could make the argument that my ability to do this was always limited anyway).  Nonetheless, I recalled the luthier’s workshops that I frequented as a teenager and my fascination with the instruments in various stages of repair, restoration, and construction. I decided right then and there to build my own violin.

From that moment forward, I dedicated all of my spare time to reading books, acquiring tools, reading posts on Internet discussion boards, and talking to everyone who would listen about building my violin.  And, most importantly, I started to build my first violin, which I called “Beta 1” (because I wanted a test run before I built my first “real” violin).  Beta 1 was based on the plans in Henry Strobel’s book on violin making, which served as my introduction to the methods of a violin maker.  I was proud when I completed my first “beta” violin, although I knew that it was a very amateur job and that I needed more training if I wanted to make a better violin.  With this in mind, I began researching violin making schools and ultimately applied and was accepted to the Chicago School of Violin Making starting for the fall 2008 semester.

Before I had a chance to begin the semester, however, my partner Shelly had some unexpected news – she had been offered a job as a faculty member with the University of Michigan system.  We had to make a decision in a one week timeframe of whether we would move to Ann Arbor so that she could accept the position.  The answer, of course, was obvious, so instead of starting school in Chicago in the fall of 2008, I moved to Ann Arbor and started a job with a prominent law firm here and continued my violin making on an amateur basis.  

As you may know, for a relatively small city, Ann Arbor has a number of prominent violinmakers.  One afternoon, I sent an e-mail to violinmaker Gregg Alf on somewhat of a lark, explaining my situation, but not believing that he would actually reply to my e-mail.  To my surprise, he replied that afternoon and suggested that we meet so that he could “size me up” a bit.   We setup a lunch meeting at a local restaurant, where I sought Gregg’s recommendations on how to advance my violin making skills.  This lunch led to further communications and, eventually, to the opportunity of a lifetime for me – an offer to apprentice in Gregg’s studio.   To compliment Gregg’s offer, the law firm where I work in Ann Arbor generously allowed me to continue to work on a reduced hours schedule while I apprentice at Alf Studios. 

And so, the journey begins.  This blog will document the step by step construction of my first violin as an apprentice at Alf Studios.  It is intended for musicians, violinmakers, family, friends, and anyone else who is interested in the process of making a violin.  Perhaps we can learn something from each other.  I hope that you enjoy the journey as much as I expect to,  and I welcome your comments and questions on the blog, the violin, or anything else of interest.