The Wood Arrives and the Work Begins

The first step in the process of building a viola is to order the wood, spruce for the top plate (tavella), maple for the bottom plate (fando), the ribs, neck, and scroll, ebony for the finger board, and thin strips of pear wood for the purfling. The quality of the wood makes all the difference in the world. The professional violin wood catalogues have five quality levels from which to choose. Because this was in all likelihood my only shot at building a viola, I decided to go for the best, which cost about $1,000...for just the wood! The best wood, by the way, comes from a tree which grew in poor soil, meaning it had to be strong to survive. The resulting wood is more dense and has better echo. The best slabs of wood are also cut from the north side of the tree, which is more dense than wood from the south side. My wood came from Slovakia.

The next decision is to choose a model to replicate. Harold and I chose an 18th century Mantegazza. Pietro Giovanni Mantegazza, who lived in Milan, was primarily known for his exceptional violas. Harold had a form for a Mantegazza viola which he let me use, saving me many hours. A stringed instrument is built around a plywood form, which is eventually removed in the later stages of the process. The form has slots for holding the instrument safely in various stages of the building.

The first actual building step is to prepare the tavella (top plate), which is made of two joined slabs of spruce. The original pieces of wood are about an inch thick. They will eventually (almost 400 hours later for me) be thinned down by hand to 2.5 mm with a pre-set scientific arch, inside and outside. Before joining the wood, the two edges must be smoothed with a large plane. Then the two pieces of wood are glued and placed in a press for a day.

Next we cut six square blocks out of a piece of the spruce and glued them onto the plywood form. The glue used for violin building is made from animal hide scrapings, and comes in various strengths, according to the job you are about to perform. One block goes at the top, one at the bottom, and two on each side of the center area. These curved indentations on either side of the bridge area are called C Bouts, and one of the blocks is glued to each end of the "C".

After the blocks have thoroughly dried, they need to be sanded absolutely even on a large sanding board. From this point on, everything is built onto these six blocks, and nothing else is attached to the original plywood form. The blocks need to be smooth because all the other parts of the viola will to be attached to them.

Now comes one of the more difficult and tedious jobs, bending the quite thin pieces of maple for the ribs (the wood which joins the top and bottom plates) into curves that match the shape of the form...without breaking the wood. This step was incredibly intimidating. The wood was expensive and there is only so much of it. For the best sound and look, all the wood must match, so the thought of ruining any of it was a worry. First the wood is soaked in heated water while an upright, circular iron is heating up. The the wet wood is placed carefully inside a piece thick leather (to protect our hands), and pressed ever so gently against the iron. Slight pressure is exerted to start the bending while the wet wood bubbles and steams. This bending of one small piece of the rib wood will take up to 15 minutes. Harold explained that the wood tells you when it is ready to be bent more. It is instinctive, almost mystical. You cannot hurry up the process. You keep comparing the amount of curve you have achieved with the curve of the plywood form, until eventually they match. This process takes several days, but soon the ribs are glued to the six blocks (which are attached to the form).

Welcome to Harold's World!

You’ve probably wondered what happened to “A Viola Is Born!”, the blog I started back in June about the viola I have been building since January 2009. The process has indeed continued unabated all these months, but I was investing so much time in the actual building that there was no time left to work on the blog. So it pleases me now to announce that after more than 300 hours of unbelievably concentrated and often intense work, I am nearing completion of what has been perhaps the most fascinating experience of my life. I am eager to bring you up to date, going back to those first weeks and using hundreds of photographs to show you the steps along the way.

Building a viola is the antithesis of immediate gratification. It is based on old world knowledge that has been passed on from generation to generation through apprenticeships, often a family enterprise. You might remember that I am apprenticed to master violin builder Harold Golden, one of America’s finest luthiers. The gift that he has given me these past nine months is priceless. As I tell this story, remember it is in reality Harold’s story, the story of his passionate dedication and a lifetime of learning from other masters. The layers upon layers of this type of knowledge cannot be learned from books and cannot be learned quickly.

Harold told me a story yesterday from his own past. Although a young music teacher during the day, he spent his evenings and weekends working at Zapf’s alongside master builders of an earlier generation. A famous old German luthier came to work at the store for several weeks and was temporarily given Harold’s work station. So Harold took the opportunity to watch everything the old man did during those weeks. One day the man looked at Harold and said, “Why do you want to be a violin builder? Why not learn to build ships instead? In three years you could be a master builder, but as a violin builder, even after ten years, you know nothing. To learn to be a great violin builder will take your entire life, and at the end, you are still learning!”


In the past nine months, I have realized the incredible wealth of knowledge Harold has accumulated. Building an instrument by hand is hard. It is tedious. It requires enormous hours and in depth expertise. Between his violin and bow repairing and daily teaching on several instruments, he may be able to build two violins a year. You can never be paid enough for a new violin made with such care to equal the time and effort, but Harold builds violins because he loves creating such beauty. Imagine something that is still done in almost the same way as 450 years ago!


This blog is meant for your illumination and even fascination with old world values and dedication. You will learn a lot about how a viola is made, but it is not meant to be a tedious text. Therefore, the format I will follow will be to use lots of photographs with short explanations that should intrigue you.

The Birth of a Viola!

It all began with humorous off-hand remark to Harold Golden, the principal second violinist in my orchestra (the Academy Chamber Society of Germantown Academy) and is also one of America's finest luthiers (violin makers). "One of these days I'll have to come over to your studio and carve my own viola." Although said in jest, the seed had been planted and began to take root. On those occasions when I would go by Harold's violin shop for various supplies or to have a bow re-haired, I began to pay closer attention to the vast array of specialty violin building tools, various segments of instruments in the midst of being built or repaired, and the literally hundreds of violins and violas hanging from their scrolls on wires running from ceiling edge to ceiling edge. It was a magical place where the imagination soared, and I found myself increasingly asking Harold questions about his profession, basic ones first. "What made you want to start building violins in the first place?" Harold's obvious love of the sound, shape, and history of quality stringed instruments struck me as profoundly moving and beautiful, something I wanted to know more about. At every opportunity in the coming months, I managed to get him talking about his favorite subject, violins. He began to loan me awe-inspiring books about the art of violin making...and the bug got me.

I, too, have always loved so much about stringed instruments, especially their sound and their delicate design. I had played viola since the 2nd grade, joining my sister Julie who also played the viola and brother John, a cellist. The three of us ended up full time students at the Netherlands Royal Conservatory of Music in The Hague at ages 16, 17, and 19. Although originally trained as a choral conductor, I have had my own orchestras for the past two decades, currently conducting the two student string ensembles and adult chamber orchestra of Germantown Academy in Fort Washington, PA, in addition to two student choirs and a large adult community chorus.

But in the 56 years since my first viola lesson, I had never considered how much went into building a quality viola. I had never noticed the various segments of the instrument or seen one apart for repair. I had never looked into the history of violin making, which is fascinating. For the first time it hit me that the fundamental design for violins, violas, and cellos had not changed since the instruments of Andreas Amati in the 16th century, who developed the basic design used for the violin family of instruments and also invented the bass bar and probably the sound post, the two additions which exponentially increased the volume and capacity of the sound of a violin. Marie DiMedici was Andreas Amati's patron. Marie wanted a new invention for her son's inauguration as Charles 9th of France, so she asked Amati to come up with a new invention, and the viola was born. The violin family as we know it was on its way! Amati made a number of instruments for the French court, including a cello which is now in the Shrine to Music Museum in South Dakota. The oldest instrument of the violin family still in existence is an Amati viola dated 1535.

In the 17th century and even 18th centuries, violin makers made a few adjustments to those earliest instruments, e.g. lengthening the neck and raising its angle, raising the bridge, etc., to add more power and the increased flexibility necessary for modern concert halls and repertoire. But all in all, today's violins are fundamentally of Amati's 16th century design and technology, with most of the work of building a violin or viola still done by hand with tools similar to those used by the great luthiers of legend, e.g. the Amati, Stradivari, and Guarneri families of Cremonia, Italy. The shocker for me, though, was the realization that each instrument still requires up to 250 hours of work. As of this writing, I am up to 125 hours...but who's counting?

Since I conduct six ensembles, administrate a community concert series and international choir tours, teach Advance Placement Music Theory, teach choral workshops around the country, compose music, have just finished a new book and am starting to write another, this commitment to give 250 hours over a year's time as an apprentice to a violin maker to carve my own instrument was substantial and intimidating...but well worth the journey!

So I want to bring all of you along with me on that journey of carving a viola from scratch. I'll take you back to the beginning. When we get caught up to where I am now, you can go along with me as the process unfolds in real time.