Setup

The Luthier's Apprentice

Chapter 23: Setup

The setup is the conversation. The conversation between the maker and the instrument, the conversation that asks: what do you need, and that listens for the answer, and the answer comes not in words but in the physics of the assembled instrument, the physics of the string tension and the bridge height and the sound post position and the fingerboard projection, and the physics speaks a language that the maker has spent a lifetime learning to hear.

June. The workshop was bright with the long Italian summer light, the light that arrived at six in the morning and did not leave until nine in the evening, the light that filled the workshop with an abundance that was the opposite of December's scarcity, the abundance allowing Giovanni to work longer hours if he chose, but Giovanni did not choose, Giovanni maintained his schedule, the schedule that the decades had established, the schedule that the body required, the body that was seventy-eight and that had earned its rhythms and that did not trade them for additional light.

The violin lay on the workbench. The body varnished, the amber-red cured, the surface hardened to the resilient film that the oil varnish produced, the film that would protect the wood and color the light and contribute to the sound. The neck varnished, the scroll varnished, the pegbox varnished, the neck ready to be joined to the body, the joining the first act of the setup, the first step in the transformation of components into instrument.

Giovanni fitted the neck. The neck's heel — the flat base where the neck joined the body — was mortised into the upper block, the block that sat inside the body at the top of the upper bout, the block that provided the structural support for the neck, the support that would bear the tension of the four strings, the tension approximately twenty-two kilograms, the weight of a small suitcase, the weight pulling the neck forward and the bridge down and the strings taut, the tension the energy that the instrument would convert into sound.

The mortise was cut into the block. Giovanni had cut it with a chisel, the chisel removing the soft willow of the block in measured strokes, the mortise shaped to receive the neck's heel with the precision that the joint required, the precision measured in tenths of millimeters, the joint tight, the fit snug, the neck held in the mortise by the fit and by the hide glue that would seal the joint.

He applied the glue. He pressed the neck into the mortise. He checked the alignment, the alignment critical because the neck must be centered on the body, the fingerboard must run down the center line of the top plate, the center line passing between the f-holes, the alignment determining the string spacing and the bow clearance and the playability of the instrument, and the playability was the purpose, the purpose of the setup, the purpose of the conversation: to make the instrument playable, to make the instrument responsive, to make the instrument ready for the hands that would play it.

The neck was glued. The neck was aligned. The neck was clamped while the glue set, the clamp holding the neck at the correct angle, the angle that Giovanni checked with a straightedge, the straightedge laid along the fingerboard's surface and extended over the bridge's position, the straightedge showing the projection, the projection being the height of the fingerboard above the top plate at the bridge's position, the projection determining the string height, the string height determining the action, the action being the distance between the strings and the fingerboard, and the action must be correct, must be low enough for the player's fingers to press the strings without excessive effort and high enough for the strings to vibrate without buzzing against the fingerboard, and the correct action was the conversation, the maker asking the instrument what it needed and the straightedge providing the answer.

The fingerboard. Ebony. The black wood from Africa, dense and smooth, the wood that the player's fingers would touch, the wood that was the interface between the human and the instrument, the boundary where the living hand met the made thing. Giovanni glued the fingerboard to the neck, the ebony's flat surface meeting the maple's curved surface, the two woods joining, the junction invisible beneath the fingerboard's black surface, the junction strong, the hide glue bonding the ebony to the maple with the same bond that had joined every other component.

The pegs. Four pegs, turned from ebony, each peg a tapered cylinder that fit into a tapered hole drilled in the pegbox, the taper allowing the peg to be pushed in to tighten and pulled out to loosen, the taper the mechanism, the mechanism ancient, the same mechanism that the original Cremonese makers used, the same taper, the same friction, the same relationship between the peg and the hole, the relationship that held the string at the correct tension, the tension that produced the correct pitch, the pitch that made the music possible.

Giovanni fitted each peg. The fitting was precise, the taper of the peg matched to the taper of the hole, the matching achieved by reaming the hole with a tapered reamer and then sanding the peg with fine sandpaper until the peg seated smoothly, the seating the fit, the fit the function, the function the tuning.

Nadia watched the fitting. She watched Giovanni hold each peg, insert it into the hole, turn it, feel the resistance, remove it, sand it lightly, insert it again, the process iterative, the same iterative process as the chalk fitting of the bass bar, the process of progressive refinement, each iteration bringing the fit closer to the correct, the correct being the state in which the peg turned smoothly without slipping, the smoothness the lubrication of peg compound — a mixture of chalk and soap — and the non-slipping the friction of the taper, and the balance between the smoothness and the friction was the fit, and the fit was the conversation.

The tailpiece. A small piece of ebony, shaped like a narrow trapezoid, the tailpiece attached to the endpin at the bottom of the body by a loop of tailgut, the tailpiece holding the strings at the bottom end as the pegs held them at the top end, the tailpiece and the pegs the two anchors of the strings, the two points between which the strings stretched, vibrated, produced the sound.

Giovanni attached the tailpiece. He measured the tailgut's length, the length determining the position of the tailpiece relative to the bridge, the position affecting the string's afterlength — the length of string between the bridge and the tailpiece — and the afterlength affecting the overtones, the harmonics that colored the sound, and the coloring was subtle, was one of the fine adjustments that the setup provided, one of the variables that the maker could tune.

The bridge. The bridge was the most critical component of the setup, the small piece of maple that stood on the top plate between the f-holes, the bridge that transmitted the strings' vibrations to the top plate, the bridge that was the intermediary, the translator, the converter that took the linear vibration of the string and converted it into the complex vibration of the plate, and the conversion was the sound.

Giovanni carved the bridge from a blank. The blank was a piece of maple, pre-cut to the approximate shape of the bridge, the shape that was the arch of the top and the two feet at the bottom and the narrow waist in the middle and the four notches at the top where the strings would sit, the shape familiar, recognizable, the shape that every violinist knows, the shape that sits at the center of the instrument's top plate and that is the fulcrum, the point around which the instrument's acoustics pivot.

He carved the bridge with the knife. The knife that had cut the f-holes, the knife that had carved the bass bar, the knife that was Giovanni's most personal tool. He shaped the bridge's feet to match the curvature of the top plate, the feet's surfaces conforming to the arching so that the bridge stood flat on the plate, the full surface of each foot in contact with the plate, the contact the connection, the connection the path through which the vibration traveled from the string through the bridge to the plate.

He thinned the bridge. The bridge's thickness affected the sound: a thick bridge dampened the vibrations, produced a dark, muffled tone; a thin bridge transmitted the vibrations freely, produced a bright, open tone. The correct thickness was the balance, the thickness that produced the tone that Giovanni wanted, the tone that he heard in his mind, the tone that was this violin's tone, the tone that the wood and the arching and the graduation and the f-holes and the bass bar and the varnish had been preparing for, the tone that the bridge must serve.

He carved and the bridge thinned and the thinning changed the bridge's tap tone, the pitch rising as the bridge lost mass, the pitch an indicator of the bridge's flexibility, the flexibility an indicator of the transmission efficiency, the efficiency an indicator of the sound. Giovanni tapped the bridge with his fingernail and listened. He carved. He tapped again. He listened again. The carving and the tapping and the listening a cycle, the cycle the conversation, the conversation between the maker and the component, the component answering in pitches, the pitches telling the maker: more, less, stop, and the stop was the knowledge, and the knowledge was when the bridge was right.

The bridge was placed on the top plate. Not glued, never glued, the bridge held in position by the tension of the strings alone, the tension pressing the bridge's feet against the plate, the pressure sufficient, the pressure the design, the bridge removable, adjustable, replaceable, the bridge the only component of the violin that could be changed without disassembling the instrument, the bridge the variable in the equation, the variable that the maker could adjust.

The sound post. L'anima. The soul. The final component, the dowel of spruce that Nadia had spent an afternoon learning to set, the dowel that was the most acoustically significant element of the instrument, and now Giovanni set it for the last time, set it in the last violin, the setter angled through the right f-hole, the dowel entering the dark interior, the dowel finding its place between the plates.

He positioned it behind the right foot of the bridge. He adjusted, a fraction of a millimeter at a time. He tapped the plate. He listened. He adjusted again. The cycle that Nadia knew now, the conversation between the maker and the instrument, the conversation conducted through a dowel the size of a pencil, the conversation that asked and listened and asked again.

The sound post found its position. Giovanni stopped adjusting. He tapped the plate one more time. He listened. He nodded.

The setup was complete. The neck was glued, the fingerboard was glued, the pegs were fitted, the tailpiece was attached, the bridge was carved and placed, the sound post was set. The violin was assembled. The violin was an instrument. The violin needed only the strings and the tuning and the bow and the playing.

The violin lay on the workbench. The amber-red varnish glowed. The scroll crowned the instrument. The f-holes opened onto the dark interior. The bridge stood on the top plate, its arch casting a small shadow. The pegs protruded from the pegbox, dark ebony against the figured maple. The fingerboard extended from the pegbox to the body, a runway of black ebony, the surface smooth, the surface waiting for the fingers that would press the strings against it.

Nadia looked at the violin. She looked at it as a whole, the complete instrument, the assembled object, and the looking was different from any looking she had done before, because she had watched this instrument being made, had watched every stage, had participated in several stages, had held the ribs while they were glued and filed the f-hole edges and applied the varnish coats and sanded the surfaces and swept the shavings, and the watching and the participating gave the looking a depth that mere observation could not have provided, the depth of involvement, the depth of knowing how the thing was made because you were there when it was made, and the being-there was the apprenticeship, and the apprenticeship was the knowing, and the knowing was in the looking.

The violin was beautiful. The beauty was the varnish and the arching and the flame of the maple and the tight grain of the spruce and the scroll and the f-holes and the proportions and the centuries of tradition that the proportions embodied, the beauty the accumulation of all the choices that Giovanni had made over the months of construction, each choice contributing to the whole, each choice a stroke in the painting, a note in the composition, a word in the sentence, and the sentence was the violin, and the violin was the sentence, and the sentence said: this is what a man can make with his hands and his knowledge and his patience and his wood and his tools and his years.

Giovanni stood at the bench. He looked at the violin. He looked at it with the same assessing attention he had brought to every stage of the construction, the same careful observation, but the observation was different now because the object of the observation was complete, was finished, was the whole thing rather than a component, and the wholeness changed the looking, the wholeness adding a quality that the component could not have, the quality of completion, the quality of the thing-done.

He looked at Nadia. He looked at Marco. He looked at the workshop. He looked at the light from the windows. He looked at the tools on the wall. He looked at the templates. He looked at the bench.

He nodded.

The nod encompassed everything. The nod was the assessment, the approval, the acceptance that the setup was done and the instrument was ready and the conversation between the maker and the instrument had reached its conclusion, the conclusion not a resolution but a readiness, the instrument ready for the next conversation, the conversation between the instrument and the player, the conversation that would happen when the strings were tuned and the bow was drawn.

The violin was ready.

The sound was waiting.