Tyler Langdon shaves hair-width pieces from a piece of wood using a razor blade to form the bridge of a violin. The craft requires hand tools to maintain a connection with the wood as Langdon shapes it.
Concertos fill the air in Tyler Langdon's studio, providing the inspiration behind his handcrafted string instruments.
A violin and viola player since childhood, Langdon developed an interest in the creating the instruments himself. After attending the Violin Making School of America in Salt Lake City, UT, he returned home to Calgary nine years go to take up the practice.
His work in Okotoks began when he helped Don Barnes, who owned the site of Langdon Strings on North Railway Street until his death three months ago. Barnes sold wood for instrument-making out of his shop, and the small turn-of-the-century home was filled with blocks and pieces of maple and spruce, said Langdon.
“When I first got in here you couldn't even open this door because there was just so much wood,” he said.
Langdon Strings took up residence at the shop in June, after Barnes passed. The transition from wood sales to shop and showroom is an ongoing process, said Langdon.
He still sells wood for instrument makers, though Langdon focuses mainly on building his own violins, violas, cellos and double basses. He also does repairs and service on all string instruments.
What he loves most about the craft is its traditional nature.
“It's mostly hand tools,” said Langdon. “You'll find that to make a good instrument, you need that close relationship with the wood. Using power tolls and electronic tools with the noise and the dust they create you can't quite feel and figure out how it's going to respond.”
While some technological advances come in handy in the shop, such as the bandsaw and drill press, Langdon said most of the work is done with knives and chisels.
Doing the work by hand means a considerable time commitment goes into his instruments. Each violin or viola requires on average about 250 hours of labour, while significantly larger cellos and basses can take up to two years to complete, he said.
The instruments are made from Canadian wood – Engelmann or Sitka spruce for the top, or belly, and Big Leaf or sugar maple for the sides and bottom. Different types of wood can affect the finished product, but Langdon said it's difficult to predict the outcome.
“Sometimes it's an experiment and you may never know until you hear the violin for the first time how much the wood you chose has affected the sound, but you get better at knowing each time you do that,” said Langdon.
ost of his instruments incorporate maple because it's one of his favourite woods to work with.
“Maple is fun to carve,” said Langdon. “It's probably the most enjoyable to carve. You have to know what you're going to do. It's not a whittler's wood, you have to have a definitive plan of what type of shape you're going to make with it.”
Choosing the shape of the violin is the first of many steps in turning raw wood into an instrument fit to play Beethoven's 5th. After cutting the back and front from pieces of spruce and maple, he bends the strips of wood, which have been planed down to 1.8 mm thick, to make of the sides of the instrument body and then fit them to a mould.
“I work in a fairly traditional style,” said Langdon. “I have a lot of the Strattavarian moulds and patterns and I look for a certain symmetry in my work.”
Once the top and back have been cut to fit the mould, the shape of the violin is carved out before hollowing the inside of the instruments.
“That can be called the graduating or the tuning, because this is where you start to see flexibility and the strength of the wood and how it's going to move and react,” said Langdon.
The last steps on the body are to add purfling, an inlay that goes around the instrument, and to carve out the signature F-holes of the string instrument and fit a bass bar to the top. The bass bar transfers vibrations along the length of the top of the violin as it's being played, helping to create sound.
When the body is complete, he carves out the neck and scroll – or top end – of the instrument and attaches the two parts together before adding the strings, fingerboards, pegs, tail pieces and bridges. These are all pieces Langdon does not make himself.
His favourite part comes at the very end.
“There's no feeling quite like it when you string up a violin for the first time and you finally hear somebody else play it,” said Langdon. “That's definitely the real joy of the craft, seeing other people enjoy what I make.”
Besides the promise of seeing someone enjoy his creations, Langdon said his passion is also driven by a sheer love for music and history. Having played the violin since he was five years old, the 28-year-old pursued his career as a luthier to incorporate his favourite interests.
“I've also always had a love of art, and that as well as I've always just loved working with my hands, and it's just one of those trades that allows me to do that,” said Langdon. “I still get to be surrounded by art and music and history, but during the day I'm getting nice and dirty.
“I'm man creating something, something beautiful.”
