Reykjavík Grapevine - 13.08.2010, Blaðsíða 43

27
The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 12 — 2010
eton violin—it had no resonating body of
its own.
The next stage was to make a real in-
strument, a real violin. A couple of years
ago I carved a violin out of wood that was
based on these harmonic shapes. Last
October we had a concert in the library
in Alexandria, Egypt. We got this really
good Egyptian violinist, Khalid Owaieda,
to improvise some Arabic Sufi tunes.
It’s a violin, but it’s based on modes of
thinking that belong to our time. It ac-
tually kind of works. It still needs some
development, of course. For me fooling
around with this new instrument is even
more exciting, because people haven’t
done very much, not in this way.
So what’s next?
The next project is to make a two-way
violin. It’s going to be like a two-way
speaker enclosure with two or maybe
three chambers. Each chamber will take
care of its own frequency range. You can
play modern music on a classical violin,
and you will be able to play early music
on the 21st century violin. Music tran-
scends the form and the “gestalt” of an
instrument.
do you think a really great violinist
can transcend an instrument?
A good player can make a cigar box with
rubber bands sound good. Do you know
the story about Jascha Heifetz? After a
concert some lady told him, “Mr. Heifetz,
your violin sounds wonderful.” He put his
ear up to it and said, “That’s funny, I don’t
hear a thing.” The sound that you hear
has a lot to do with the person playing.
In fact, when we are trying to do acous-
tic listening tests, one thing that is really
difficult is, if a player is really good, he or
she will give so much of the tone from
the way the fingers are pressed onto the
fingerboard. It’s hard to be completely
objective, because you can’t take that
away.
Why are older violins so popular? Is it
true that violins get better with age?
When you assemble an instrument, the
wooden parts have to support quite a lot
of tension. In the first few months and
maybe even the first three or four years,
all those different parts are getting used
to being subjected to that pressure all
the time. Also, things like fingerboards
and necks can get used to a certain
player and vice versa. The player and
the instrument are like a symbiosis—they
are like two ends of the same thing. The
monetary value of an instrument has a
psychological effect. No one believes
that an instrument worth 2 million dol-
lars is not laced with a certain degree of
quality. On the other hand, the fact that
the world's best musicians have been
the only people using the old valuable
instruments has helped to enhance their
reputation.
Myth or no myth, some of the old
masterpieces are truly awe-inspiring.
There were just some incredibly talented
people around at the time. There was an
amalgamation or mingling of all kinds
of different interests and disciplines. If
you were making instruments, you were
probably fooling around with astronomy
or maths. I think the same thing is hap-
pening today. I think violin making is be-
coming great again.
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