Inspired by nature

Andrew Carruthers presents the results of his Covid-19 lockdown project, the ‘Off-Beat Violins’ – asynthesis of art, music and the forms of the natural world

Andrew Carruthers’ ‘Off-Beat Violins’: the dimpled viola, turtle fiddle, O-violin, tabolin, and ripple cello

When we carve a violin it goes through many very sculptural stages. These works in progress make favourite subjects for violin makers’ social media posts, but then all traces of the gouge and plane marks are cleaned away, leaving the pure, iconic form of a violin. I’ve often thought that it would be interesting to go straight from gouge to varnish, leaving heavy tool marks in the wood, and trying to capture some of the raw energy and sculptural forms present in some of the early stages. So when the Covid-19 pandemic granted me some spare time, that’s what I did. I had thought that it would just be a one-off exercise, but instead it started a sort of chain reaction that is still fermenting away.

This project, which I call ‘Off-Beat Violins’, has brought some of my life’s interests full circle. I went to art school and then on to a degree in design and ecology, pursuing my interests in both art and the natural world. During my career as a violin maker I had always hoped to get back to painting some day, but somehow it never happened. Then I realised that, rather than trying to relearn how to paint, I could simply use violin making as a medium for exploring the world. Using violins as a sort of painter’s canvas opened a door for me.

IF IT LOOKS LIKE SOMETHING STRANGE THAT YOU MIGHT FIND WASHED UP ON A BEACH, I’M HAPPY

While making these instruments I have (so far) kept to two main guidelines. Firstly, the violins must function as good, playable acoustic instruments. For this reason I’ve preserved the basic underlying form of the classic violin. Secondly, I generally want them to resemble natural organic forms. If it looks like something strange that you might find washed up on a beach, I’m happy.

DIMPLED VIOLA

My initial plan was to take the coarse toolmarks from carving the violin just as they came, and to leave them on the finished instrument. I soon realised this was next to impossible. While I was carving I was constantly making aesthetic decisions: when should I stop? Should I leave the surface with flutes or dimples? Should they align? What size should they be? I settled on a sort of net pattern of roughly equal-sized dimples on a scale that I thought related comfortably to the body size.

Scroll of the dimpled viola

How the instrument looked before varnishing

ALL PHOTOS ANDREW CARRUTHERS

To varnish and then finish the viola I wanted to use some of the antiquing skills that I’ve acquired over the years. I buffed off the high spots and when it came to putting a patina into the lower dimples, I realised I needn’t be constrained to the usual greys and browns. My father was a sculptor and he would often add patina to his bronzes, so as a tribute to him I went with some verdigris colours.

Often when I show one of my normal instruments to people, they say, ‘Oh, that’s beautiful, I’m afraid to touch it!’ With this viola it would be: ‘What on earth is that?’ and they’d reach out and feel it. Another difference was that everyone saw something different in the viola and they’d tell me what it reminded them of. I loved that I’d been able to arouse some of the same feelings of curiosity and excitement that I get myself from looking at certain things, particularly in the natural world.

TURTLE FIDDLE

Parts of the dimpled viola looked quite reptilian to me, and I thought perhaps I could develop that and make a fiddle with a more coherent theme. I fixed on a turtle form because with their domed shells they are already vaguely violin-like. I was really excited about this; I’d get to study turtles and then draw on my violin maker’s carving and finishing skills to see what I could do to create an impression of ‘turtle’.

I took the dimples from the viola, made them larger and symmetrical about the centre line. The violin’s finish has tortoiseshell colours and texture. The f-hole is based on a reptile eye. Lizards (though not turtles) have these incredible notched, slit pupils. So I put that on the f-hole and I enjoyed it so much that I’ve used it again on the subsequent fiddles.

Lizard eye

Turtle fiddle f-hole

Turtle fiddle (left) and dimpled viola (right)

X-AND O-FIDDLES

I put pictures of the viola and the turtle fiddle on social media and people immediately wanted to know how they sound. A very reasonable question but not one that I’d thought of. I’d always assumed that the violins would sound pretty normal, and in fact they do. Any difference in sound seemed to be within the normal range of tonal variation among my regular instruments.

I started to wonder how far I could push this surface carving before it actually did interfere with the normal function of the violin. So I designed a pair of violins based on Chladni patterns. Chladni patterns are shapes that can be revealed when objects are vibrated at different frequencies (see drawings on page 72). Two of them – one shaped like an X and one shaped like an O – have been used by some makers in the course of refining their tops and backs.

Both violins also include variations of what I call ‘cell’ patterns: repeated but varied units. The X-fiddle has nested cells creating a branching or vein pattern, perhaps resembling a tree or an insect or bat wing. In the O-fiddle the cells are simple flutes. There are many varied fluting patterns in nature which I would like to explore further.

Front of the O-fiddle

Preliminary drawings

Backs of the X and O fiddles

The vibration patterns looked pretty normal, except that on the O-fiddle, the O-mode wasn’t able to form properly. I’d apparently done something to disrupt its normal function!

TABOLIN

The next fiddle, the tabolin, was another tonal experiment. My basic concept in violin design is that the instrument should be strong in the middle, so that it doesn’t collapse, and thin in the upper and lower bouts so that they can vibrate freely and produce more sound. My idea was to see how far I could push this concept.

There’s a limit to how thin you can go with wood, but other materials are both thin and strong. I made a violin with drum skin panels in the upper and lower bouts. I made a range of sizes of these panels which can be individually tuned by adding weights (I used magnets) to the panels. These weight-tuned panels resembled the head of a tabla drum, hence the name ‘tabolin’. By changing the weight combinations and placements, the tone of the instrument can quickly be changed. The tabolin sounded best with some weights added, but not too many.

Tabolin front and back

RIPPLE CELLO

My most recent project is also based in acoustics but this time is a visualisation of sound waves. I am fascinated by the thought that there are waves of different sorts passing through us at all times, causing everything around us to vibrate. This ‘ripple cello’ was a commission and creative collaboration with Mia Pixley, a Bay Area songwriter and cellist who wanted an instrument to complement her ‘percussive’ cello playing style. We talked about various themes for the instrument and the idea of waves and ripples resonated with both of us. The easiest waves and ripples us to visualise are those we can actually see on the surface of water. I studied these with slo-mo video, making the personal discovery that as well as the main wave caused by a stone or raindrop displacing water, each wave is preceded by a corona of wrinkles.

Three views of the ripple cello

These wrinkles were placed on the upper bout of the cello making a güiro or washboard area on the cello, and adding a new sound to the world of percussive cello. Some of the main ‘raindrops’ were placed at the points where Mia most often taps the body for specific sounds and these rings float atop a larger series of waves that originate from a point outside the body and ‘pass through’ the instrument.

The ripple cello imagines waves originating somewhere outside the instrument and causing it to undulate as they pass through. The ripples that precede the waves have been used in the upper bout, in the güiro area, and hopefully bringing a new percussive dimension to cello playing! The ‘raindrops’ float above the waves and move through each other unaffected.

THE PROCESS OF MAKING THE OFF-BEAT VIOLINS HAS BEEN OUTWARD-LOOKING AND EXPANSIVE

Essentially these fiddles are about exploration and discovery. I’m simply using the medium of violin making and the skills and techniques that I’ve learnt over the past 30 years to explore anything in the world that I am interested in. Since I’ve been making them I’ve observed nature: reptiles, insects, shells, cacti, water, vibrations. I‘ve been able to think about structural, functional and visual themes: cell patterns, branching and vein patterns, Chladni patterns and Turing patterns. I’ve also considered the aesthetic roles of things like control versus freedom, and randomness versus order.

Whereas regular violins are inspired by older violins, which is a rather inward and backward looking process, the Off-Beat fiddles are inspired by anything at all that I find interesting and would like to explore. This is an outwardlooking, expansive process where each question tackled leads to many more questions. This has affected my daily life where I now constantly see forms, colours and textures that could be incorporated into a violin and I find subjects that could become a theme for a violin-based exploration.

In addition, making the Off-Beat fiddles has rekindled the excitement that I remember when I first started violin making when everything: the shapes, materials, colours and working methods were all new, unfamiliar and uncertain. Conversely, it has made me appreciate the comfort and familiarity of making regular violins again.

To hear some of the Off-Beat violins in action, visit bit.ly/3gXQfUw