The Art of Fiddle Making

ALISTAIR PEEBLES investigates the work of violin maker Colin Tulloch in Birsay, via a detour to Knoxville, Tennessee

BIRSAY, ORKNEY may seem a long way from Knoxville, Tennessee. And both seem far from Cremona, world-famous home to the only violin maker everyone can name, Antonio Stradivari. About as far, in fact, as they seem from Canada, Austria, or Bosnia, where the maple, sycamore and spruce originate that are still used to create those instruments.

A special network connects all those places, however – the world of dedicated master craftsmen who still follow the examples of the great Italian makers.

Colin Tulloch of Tulloch Violins in Orkney is poised, he hopes, to take his place in that world. Working part-time from his home in Birsay as an instrument maker and repairer, he recently benefited from an award from the Crafts Department of the Scottish Arts Council – a Professional Development Grant – that enabled him to travel to Knoxville in February this year, where he studied violin-making under the expert guidance of Kelvin Scott.

Colin has been more or less self-taught up till this point, gaining in expertise bit by bit over the past twelve years, and his current output is four instruments per year. Now that the experience he gained over those three weeks in the States has sunk in, however, he feels optimistic that his dream of working full time as a maker is much closer to reality.

To a man with a young family, of course, that kind of dream can be a mixed blessing. But he has won high praise from local musicians for his work to date, and a visit to his workshop shows you are with someone who is well capable of creating a space that’s finely matched to what he sees as his real purpose in life, and his passion.

Even if there are makers in Britain as accomplished as Kelvin, they’re not necessarily going to throw open their secrets to anyone who asks.

There’s a big area for rough cutting and large machine tools – grinders, bandsaws and the like, the latest acquired being an impressive lathe on which he plans to produce, for example, intricately-turned pegs a couple of inches in length.

Next is the studio where finer work is carried out, each drawer a treasure chest of smaller tools – finger planes no bigger than those pegs, and chisels, templates, clamps, ingenious jigs in steel and brass that he designed himself and had made for him by a toolmaker in Wales. Not to mention a row of violins, of course, and parts of violins, and stacks of wood blocks seasoning at an inch a year.

Finally there’s the varnishing area. Two rooms – for varnish is much more than surface decoration where acoustics are concerned. One section looks like a small lab. Here are the shelves of ingredients, natural resins and so on, that he now uses to prepare his own mixture.

The other section is a large temperature-controlled cupboard (it surely helps that Colin’s day job is engineering), dust-free and filled with ultra-violet, where the layers of varnish are allowed to cure.

In 18th century Italy, instruments were hung out in the sunshine to dry – but even if that were not an insane procedure this far north, one gets the feeling that ingenuity and rigorous pursuit of control in every detail are hallmarks of Colin’s whole approach to what he does, and taking any chances with the process is not part of the game.

It was those qualities – and his track record to date – that impressed Kelvin Scott enough to offer Colin the chance to come to Tennessee and work with him. Violin making at that level is a very small world and inevitably it keeps itself quite close. Even if there are makers in Britain as accomplished as Kelvin, they’re not necessarily going to throw open their secrets to anyone who asks.

And that in essence was Colin’s answer to the question asked initially by the funders – why did he have to go as far as Tennessee to learn what he needed to know. No doubt it helped his case that Kelvin had been an apprentice of Gregg T. Alf, whom Colin describes as “one of the leading violin makers in the USA and regarded as a master all over the world.”

Once grasped, the logic of his need to go all that way seems rock-solid, and the effort paid off handsomely. In fact Kelvin was unstinting in the advice and assistance he gave Colin – he told him everything he needed to know, including what seems almost grail-like in this context, the varnish recipe and processes. Even now, I think, Colin can hardly believe his luck.

Of course there’s an Orkney connection in all this, and still more luck. Kelvin Scott’s father came from North Ronaldsay, where Scott is still a common surname. As common as Tulloch in fact – hence the connection. Distantly related as they are, it was a cousin, Ingrid Tulloch, who fortunately made sure the two men met during one of Kelvin’s visits.

Colin is very grateful also to Orkney Islands Council’s Arts Development Officer, Clare Gee. “She’s a godsend to Orkney,” he said of her willing assistance with paperwork as well as the encouragement she gave him generally to go through with the process. Making violins is one thing and not at all like making applications. Indeed paperwork of the business variety is one of the main worries that he has about launching out on his own – doubtless he may need to consider adding another room to his workshop.

He’s very much a musician’s maker – the service he gives to folk that have bought one of his fiddles is second to none.

At present however, Tulloch Violins is getting ready to go online, marketing being another essential tool. On any instrument maker’s website, one of the main features is a list of well-known owners. While Colin’s list of clients doesn’t extend far beyond Orkney at the moment, he does have some very notable players here.

Douglas Montgomery, for example, and the rising young musician Aaron McGregor, who recently won a prestigious Dewar Award. Aaron will be using his award to purchase the violin made for him by Colin, that he played at the opening event of the St Magnus Festival this year.

For his part, Douglas is full of praise for the workmanship in Colin’s “fantastic” instruments, and for the “quite unique sound” that he is able to impart to them. “It’s a beautiful, rich, almost dark tone,” he says, “one that a lot of fiddle makers struggle to get.” Douglas has the third fiddle that Colin made – “the Tulloch Number 3” – and he prefers it to the two others he owns, French and Italian respectively.

“All his fiddles have that tone. It’s like all instrument makers, each one has an individual sound that features in all the instruments they make, and is quite different from that produced by any other maker. It’s hard to put into words, but it’s something that comes from the maker himself. Stradivari left all his drawings and notes, but no matter how closely they’re followed, the results are always different from the original.

“He’s very much a musician’s maker – the service he gives to folk that have bought one of his fiddles is second to none.”

In fact Douglas had a part in Colin’s decision to begin making fiddles. When they met during Douglas’ years as a music student in Edinburgh, Colin asked him for lessons. He was making furniture at the time, but that wasn’t so much of a challenge, and it didn’t take him long to realise he might possibly be better at making fiddles than playing them. “And,” says his onetime teacher, “he succeeded in that right from the start.”

Colin himself is glad he decided to call a halt to the attempts to learn, saying that it “would just be a distraction when I’ve little enough time as it is.” Luckily for him, a skilful young player lives just up the road, and she helps by giving the instrument a first test when the time comes.

“I’ve seen me going round at eleven o’ clock at night – once the fiddle’s ready I can’t wait to hear how it sounds.”

It’s very much a local scene that Colin is part of at the moment then, though the chance to go to the States couldn’t have come at a better time, and having caught sight of the potential further afield he’s ready to move on when the circumstances are right. But he’s clearly rooted here, and has everything he now needs at hand.

Indeed, if the instrument makers of the world have a tradition going back a few hundred years, many Orkney traditions go back far longer, as I was reminded on the evening I called round to see him. His wife Leona looked in at the workshop, an empty gallon container in her hand, saying she was just away for some water.

Water?

Now Fidgarth, where they live, is about a bucket throw from Boardhouse Loch, the local reservoir where we mostly get our water, usually through a tap. Colin restored the house himself and it certainly has all the amenities you’d expect, but it turned out that because their water – like that throughout the West Mainland – has been tasting, as the supply company says, “earthy”, for many weeks now, they’ve been fetching their drinking water from the old spring along the road.

“Mans Well” it’s called, as in Mansie, or Magnus. The name refers in particular to Saint Magnus, whose body is said to have been washed there before burial, apparently at the church nearby which is now known as St Magnus Kirk. This was twenty or so years before the saint’s remains were reinterred in 12th century Kirkwall, and building commenced on the cathedral.

St Magnus Kirk is no longer in use as a place of worship, but is well maintained as a venue for tourists and weddings, and concerts are held there from time to time. Colin told me that he and Kelvin hope to organise a concert at the kirk in a few years time.

The plan is to gather between them enough instruments of their own making to equip a quartet of local players. It’s an attractive idea, one that will bring Knoxville and Birsay together again, and mark a return to the well from which so much history has sprung in these islands, and is still running reliably clear today.

Dr Helen Bennett, Head of Crafts at Scottish Arts Council, said: “It is always a particular pleasure to learn, as is clear in Colin’s case, that our support has contributed to enabling an artist to make a significant step forward in their practice. I am delighted that the period of mentoring in Knoxville proved so rewarding for him.”

The Scottish Arts Council Professional Development fund offers assistance for individual artists in most artforms working at a professional level in Scotland (and representatives of arts organisations, supporting their role in the development of the sector), and the possibility of support towards a range of short-term training and other professional development projects. Further information is available on the Scottish Arts Council website by following this link: http://www.scottisharts.org.uk/1/funding/apply/individuals/acrossartforms.aspx or by contacting the Help Desk: Tel 0845 603 6000 (local rate); E-mail help.desk@scottisharts.org.uk

© Alistair Peebles, 2005