Musical instrument makers design and build musical instruments, such as high-quality violins, harps, lutes and guitars, and repair and maintain them. To do this, they use modern manufacturing and processing techniques, such as laser technology or traditional handicraft methods, such as carving by hand, and design the instruments artistically. They use metrological methods and instruments to test acoustics and sound. They are usually specialized in one instrument or one type of instrument. In order to preserve historical musical instruments in an original and functional condition, musical instrument makers also restore them and add e.g. missing parts.
On the basis of musicological, scientific, artistic and historical knowledge and methods, musical instrument makers also analyze and evaluate the quality of historical musical instruments and prepare instrumental reports, e.g. as a valuation report for insurance companies or as a certificate of authenticity before the sale of instruments.
Musical instrument makers find employment
The salary level for Musical Instrument Maker (University) in Germany is: from 3782 up to 4897 EUR per month
Musical instrument makers design, build and repair high-quality, artistically designed musical instruments. They also restore them and prepare expert reports, e.g. for insurance.
Musical instrument makers are familiar with the different models and designs of instruments such as violins, violas, cellos, double basses and viols and have the theoretical knowledge and working techniques to be able to design and build musical instruments with skill. You choose materials, e.g. Resonance woods, taking into account age, wood structure and wood structure and prepare woods using special drying and painting processes before they manufacture the instruments in individual parts and then assemble them. For example, a violin consists of a snail, peg, peg box, top saddle, fingerboard, top, strings and bridge. For the individual parts, musical instrument makers work the wood by hand and with machines, especially by sawing, cutting, planing and filing. They pickle, paint, polish, grind and wind strings. Special attention is also paid to the paintwork, because this should not only preserve the instrument for as long as possible, but also decisively shapes the sound of the instrument. The tasks of musical instrument makers also include voicing, tempering and tuning the new instruments. They also discontinue and repair finished and older / damaged instruments and advise customers on the purchase of new or used instruments.
Most of them specialize in certain instruments and may work with experts from other areas. In violin making, they carve, bend and glue spruce wood and rosewood and create artistically designed string instruments with turned snails and pegs. In string and plucked instrument making, they may also use special varnishes to further refine the sound of the instruments. In addition to the technical and design skills, musical instrument makers also need very good musical hearing.
Musical instrument makers can also focus on the restoration of historical musical instruments. To do this, they examine the instruments, determine their condition and decide on the type and extent of the required treatment: depending on the type of instrument, missing or defective parts are replaced or exchanged according to the material, cracks repaired or broken parts soldered. If the originally used materials are no longer available, use acoustic tests to select the most diverse materials that come closest to the original substance. Sometimes reproductions of instruments are made, the original of which may no longer be made playable for reasons of conservation. The original instruments are analyzed, measured and documented during the replica. Finally, an instrument is created using materials that are as identical as possible, and whose tonal properties come very close to the original.
With appropriate experience, musical instrument makers can also work as experts. On the basis of musicological, scientific, artistic and historical knowledge and methods, they analyze and evaluate the quality of historical musical instruments and prepare expert reports on them, e.g. as a valuation report for insurance companies or as a certificate of authenticity before the sale of instruments. They also do research on manufacturers, individual history, origin or parallel pieces of instruments.
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