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Show VIOLIN MAKING. Violin making in its perfection is one of the most difficult of callings. It is apparently nothing more than the adjustment of certain bits of wood, which are planed, filed, saw-cut, scratched, sand-papered, carved, pegged, glued and varnished; but to give it soul requires the highest capability of human intelligence. Hands must work in a material which, though easier to cut than metal, can not be kept up to the same degree of precision. Fingers must be subservient to brain. For a guide you must have the fine appreciation of tone quality. If with mechanical dexterity you possess the necessary fineness of ear, your wooden case will give out the sound of a Guarnerins, a Steiner or an Amali. The trick of it all is so subtle that he who makes a good violin is no longer a servle imitator. A commonplace instrument may be quite within the scope of a good patternmaker, but a really fine violin, such as a great soloist will accept, one perfect throughout the whole register, one that responds to the least touch of the finger, that makes a pure and unalloyed sound, with the tone quality, whether you just touch it, or rasp it with yon bow - well that is nothing less than a "Chef-d'-?nvre." Why, there are only four people in the world who can turn you out such an instrument. -Barnet Phillips, in Harper's Magazine. |