Weiser 2012

The National Old-Time Fiddlers Contest has been held during the third full-week in June for many years now.  This year was its 60th anniversary (the same as celebrated by the Queen of England), though I don't know that it's been the third-full week in June all that time.  It has since before I've been going.  Went to my first Weiser in 1995.

Phil Stanley, a Boise bowmaker, and I have been running the repair shop for maybe 10 years now.  We're not sure, and would have to look through our records to figure it out -- clearly not important enough for us to actually do it.  We started out the first couple years running it under Hartz Music's sign, but since then on our own hook.

We set up behind the practice area in the Weiser High School.  Here's the view as you come in the door.

As you can see, visually its a mixture of high-school sports, woodshop, computer shop, and our violin and bow shop.  I have a place here in the foreground to do violin repairs, while Phil sets up at the back bench where he does bow rehairs and repairs.

We sell books, cases, bows, fiddles, some strings and tuners.

Phil tries to sell his handmade bows, and I try to sell my fiddles, both factory and handmade.

We've been there long enough that we have a good time seeing the same faces year after year, as well as seeing what were little kids becoming young adults.

Weiser Tuesday

Before things got busy, I took a few photos this morning, the 2nd day of the National Old-time Fiddlers Contest in Weiser, Idaho. We set up shop in the shop/computer-lab of the High School, right behind the warm-up area. A good bunch of folks. My work area is in the foreground, with the blue towel for padding. A customer is checking out a fiddle, while Phil is at his rehair bench. In addition to Phil's array of handmade bows, we have 7 Idaho-made fiddles on the tables -- 4 of mine and 3 of Ruston Ruwe's.

Hard to get a shot of the entire room, and many remnants of the shop room naturally remain behind, such as the stick-frame house model above the book case. We've done well selling music books this year.



A different view of the book case, with some of the table displays.

After the workshop, after Weiser, back to reality...

Finally catching up on sleep after 3 weeks of long, but good, hours.

The Southern California Violin Makers Workshop was terrific, as usual. I spent 2 weeks there, at the campus of Pomona College in Claremont, California. Basically a fantasy world for violin makers. One of the high points for me was that I was able to play a 1714 Stradivari violin and a 1742 Guarneri del Gesu violin, one after the other. Of the two, the Strad was my favorite. I generally hate my tone on the e-string, but on this Strad, I liked it. People use the word 'silvery' or 'shimmering' to describe these Strad e-strings, and it always sounded a bit overblown to me. I was wrong. There really is something there, hard to describe.

In addition to those two, one of the bow-maker students brought his 1733 Bergonzi violin, another classic Cremonese instrument. He has owned it for 61 years, and according Michael Darnton, it was in amazing shape. Lots of varnish, excellent edges, well-tended after.

But the most important part of the workshop is that many of us have become good friends. We share a common interest, and enjoy learning from each other. Michael Darnton is an excellent teacher, with a tremendous amount of knowledge. I spent most of the time experimenting with edgework, though I did get my two plates in fairly decent shape by the end. You can compare these to their state in my previous post, "pre-workshop rush!"

It's hard to pick among the photos I took, but if you want to see more, please go to my flickr set here The grounds of the campus are beautiful as well.

After two weeks at the workshop, I flew home, loaded up the shop, and took it up to the National Old-time Fiddlers' Contest in Weiser, Idaho. Again as usual, Phil (my bow-maker friend) and I had a great time with wonderful folks. Plenty of good fiddlers played my two fiddles, making them sound pretty, and giving me good feedback. I hope to have several more to offer at next year's contest.

Now, back to work.