#385: Gregg Alf (Luthier) (pt. 1 of 2)

Today we released part one of our interview with luthier Gregg Alf on June 29.  After training at the Cremona Violinmaking School, he founded Alf Studios, where his work has won highest honors at numerous international competitions and exhibitions.

Gregg has built instruments for some of the most distinguished violinists and violists of our time, and in 2013 one of his violins sold at auction for $132,000—then, a world record price for living violin makers.

Join us for this fascinating conversation as Gregg shares the artistry that goes into making world class instruments! https://www.alfstudios.com/

Transcript

Welcome And Guest Introduction

Announcer 0:18

Welcome to the Arts Entrepreneurship Podcast, Making Art Work. We highlight how entrepreneurs align their artistry, passion, and vision to create and pursue opportunities to capture value in the arts. The views expressed by guests on the Arts Entrepreneurship Podcast are solely their own, and do not necessarily represent the views of the podcast or its hosts. The appearance of a guest on the podcast, the venture they represent, or reference to any product or service does not imply an endorsement or recommendation by the podcast or its hosts. The content provided is for entertainment and informational purposes only and does not constitute business advice. Here are your hosts, Andy Heise and Nick Petrella.

Andy Heise 1:00

Hi Arts Entrepreneurship Podcast listeners. My name is Andy Heise.

Nick Petrella 1:04

And I'm Nick Petrella. In this episode, we're speaking with Greggg Alf. He's a highly respected violin maker and founder of Alf Studios. Gregg has built instruments for some of the most distinguished violinists and violists of our time, including Ruggiero Ricci and Don McGuinness. Gregg's work has won highest honors at numerous international competitions and exhibitions. In 2013, one of his violins sold at auction for $132,000, then a world record price for living violin makers. We'll link to Gregg's website in the show notes so you can read more about his work and see his beautiful instruments. We'd like to thank past guest Ada Vichik for helping to arrange this interview. Gregg, thanks for taking time to speak with us today.

Gregg Alf 1:48

Well, thank you, Nick, and thank you, Andy. Thank you for having me on your podcast.

Falling For The Violin’s Mystery

Nick Petrella 1:54

What first attracted you to violin making, and when did you realize you could make a living at it?

Gregg Alf 2:00

I think what attracted me first was the mystery of it all. I played the violin as a child, and I wanted to become a concert violinist, actually. So early on I was fascinated by the sound of violins and how they worked. You take a few pieces of wood and and you can make like people cry, literally cry tears centuries later. So that was my introduction to it all. I don't think really it came into it as a business idea. Um if I had, I probably would have thought twice about uh going to Cremona, Italy at 18 years of age with $300 in my pocket. But um the res realization that I could make a living of it came um shortly, it came later as musicians began um trusting me with their musical problems and uh and began coming back.

Nick Petrella 2:55

And how long did that take for you to stabilize your income?

Gregg Alf 3:01

As a violin player, my original instruments sounded really good. I mean, I think my first instruments sounded sounded well, and I was able to sell them from the beginning. And which was a a real big difference for me. So life in Italy was relatively inexpensive, and I had uh, I wasn't making a lot for an instrument, but it was a lot in Italy, and so I was very lucky to get off to a good start.

Andy Heise 3:29

That's what I you know, that's I I love the mystery piece that you said, because you know, uh I have a former a former colleague and great friend of mine um talks about it this way like as long as human beings can take pieces of wood and metal strings and put them together and and create the sound that is move that you you you illustrated it perfectly. He said that that is like humanity at its at its finest. Like, and as long as human beings are still doing that, everything's okay.

Gregg Alf 3:59

Right? I agree.

Andy Heise 4:00

Okay, good. But but it's not just violins, right? It's guitars and banjos and like it's it's it's these these acoustic instruments. And I I you know I'm an upright bass player, so I have a a great appreciation for for the types of type of work that that um that you like you said with your hands and two pieces of wood um are able to create these amazing instruments. I'm also thinking about there must have been other students in that class with you when you were learning how to make violins. And could you was could you tell that like, oh, I think I'm actually a little bit better at this than maybe some of the other other people? Or was was there was there sort of an innate ability in there that that you came to making violins with?

Gregg Alf 4:45

Well, um honestly speaking, yes, I did notice some difference, but it wasn't the thing that most people would say it makes a great violin maker. Um I I don't think I was particularly you know technically skilled. Um I, you know, if you ask what was my inner, my inner uh, you know, we all have this guy that sits on our shoulder and comments in our ear, right? Yeah, so it wasn't always positive because there were other makers that I felt were more um technically prepared. They, you know, there were wood work woodworkers from that their background and whatnot. But I played the violin. I knew what sound was. And I remember, I distinctly remember at one point, you know, being given a violin plate. I was to graduate, and they gave us numbers everywhere, what we should take them to. And I asked the question, well, what if the wood was stiffer on one side? Would I change the thickness on that side? I mean, that's a technical question, you know, for but um, it just showed that I was actually thinking of the sound. I wasn't thinking of the the numbers, and I had a different outlook. And that I was aware of the difference, that I was in just in a different marching to a different you know, drum a little bit.

Andy Heise 5:58

Yeah, that that makes that makes perfect sense. It's not it's not every musician you come across has the that the that technical ability or even desire to you know get their hands on a piece of wood and make something. So I think yeah, that that sort of complimentary uh approach was certainly obviously distinctive for you.

Gregg Alf 6:18

Also for violin makers, is most violin makers probably do not play the violin.

Nick Petrella 6:25

Yeah. So And you could probably feel a difference just in how it vibrates, I would imagine.

Gregg Alf 6:31

Oh yes. Uh-huh. Absolutely.

Andy Heise 6:33

Yeah.

Choosing A Slower Artistic Life

Andy Heise 6:35

So this this notion that you said earlier, um, maybe if you had uh set out to do this uh with more of a business mindset, uh I plays right into this next question that I have for you. Uh and on your website, you describe your work as an alternative way of living, something that's slower and more intentional. Uh has that always been your philosophy, or did it, did you sort of come to that over time?

Gregg Alf 7:01

No, actually, I think early on survival was my philosophy. Okay. You try to learn, you try to pay the bills, you try to make something good enough that serious musicians will take it seriously. And then over time, I begin to realize that speed, the noise, constant expansion are not necessarily signs of success. And um the violin making itself taught me some things about quietness and things about an alternative way of living. I, you know, I come, you know, when I teach, I I always ask the students, you know, are what we're doing a work? Uh is it a work of art or is it a craft? Is this a work or craft, you know, art or craft? And um, you know, initially I'd say, well, it's a craft, really. We're we're craftsmen. But um the extent to which we're artists, we can't choose that. History will see later if we were artistic in what we did. What we can choose is to live an artistic way of life, to make our our life itself artistic, be so that we are sort of nourishing ourselves with art so it just ekes out into what we do that we can do. And um, so the workshop for me has been like my dojo in a way for for spiritual growth as well as economic survival.

Andy Heise 8:24

I love that. And could you just maybe make it more explicit for us? What are the practical implications for for your work um when you say slower, more intentional, and artistic way of life? What does that actually look like for you?

Gregg Alf 8:41

Well, on one level, it's to appreciate um that I mean I I really feel that I've been given, I've been entrusted with an amazing profession. And um, I think it's really um, I mean, the human mind to access the human mind, there's this potential in the human mind that that is awesome, but you have to harness it in a way and you have to bring it to your work that you know you can have uh all the computer setups, and a lot of makers, including myself, will use computers and like that. But the the the the human mind that what it can bring to it, you know, requires nourishment itself. So, you know, a moment for your work to either, you know, eat not a prayer or a meditation or whatever you call it, but to collect your thoughts and and to bring to your work a reverence. And um, this is the alternative way of life uh of the workshop. You know, it's for a violin maker, it's almost as like a second family. Yeah. I think our partners have to be very, you know, very courageous sometimes.

Nick Petrella 9:50

Yeah. That's beautiful. Yeah.

What Stradivarius Really Represents

Nick Petrella 9:53

Gregg, so this next question, it's it's a multi-part question. So I'll say it, I'll speak it all at once, and then I'll I'll divide it up. Um so as a percussionist, we kind of have a similar background in a way. Uh you do a lot more design than I did, but I've designed a few dozen percussion instruments and accessories over the years. And I've read papers by Thomas Rosting uh about the acoustics of various instruments, and I find that fascinating. You're nodding, so obviously you know who that is, and I'll put uh his name and links to the things he's written in the show notes for those who don't. Uh so this whole thing just fascinates me because the shape, the material, the everything, it it all impacts it. So I'll state the three questions and then we can unpack them. Why are the Stradivarius and Guernary instruments so highly sought after for their sound? The second is are luthers today able to match their designs and coatings? And the third part is which wood species do you prefer and how does the age of the wood impact the sound? So I mean we're getting into the weeds, but you know, the violinists will love this. So, first question why are the Stradivarius and Guarneri instruments so highly sought after for their sound?

Gregg Alf 11:09

Well, that's a great question. First of all, put to a violin maker, right? Um I think that um these instruments are icons of human the majesty of human create creativity. They come from a uh a time in history where which was very creative, and they're they're works of art that took, you know, um a month of work from a craftsman. So um they deservedly have a place in our culture for for being, you know, uh for being icons in a way. Um and their function is to be musical instruments, their function is to be to create music, to create sound. That said, we know that um uh their sound of that their sound is not unique. New violins can sound like an old one. They they new violins are chosen just as likely by a trained musician looking for the sound of an instrument. In in blind tests, they will not uh choose um a great old Italian violin for its sound alone. What makes them um magical is that what they represent for humankind, for the history. There are there are a few things that are in um existence today that are 300 years old and still used in the same essential form that they were created in, you know, three centuries ago, without much change. So the they they are pretty special. But what's special about them is not just the sound. It's something else.

Nick Petrella 12:46

And so what what makes that sound? So it's almost as if there's a little nostalgic piece. It's like getting a mechanical watch and then looking at it for the beauty. It's it's kind of what it feels like. But I mean, based on what you said, but is it is it the wood? Is it the lacquer? Is it the age of the what is it that makes them so special and and revered? I guess historical.

Gregg Alf 13:09

I think it's like winning to, I mean, for the well, revered for their sound or revered, you know, revered as as as art objects. For the um for the art objects, it's like I I believe that they those makers were beautiful people. They were, you know, they were even today in Italy, you know, there's a reverence for your bread, for how long many minutes you cook a pasta. I mean, the sense of use of raw materials and even the way of life. I mean, that's why I moved to Venice um uh, you know, uh about 15 years ago from the United States. I wanted to live in a place where just the visual, the the daily life was more nourishing to myself as a as a you know, as a as a violin maker, as an artist. So um, you know, the the parts that that that are special about uh violin making from from the uh music from the violin making point of view, from the artistic part of view, is what we've described before. Um just the the fact that in fact they were amazing people living in an amazing time. They paid attention to their materials, they had really good wood back then. I believe they worked with intuition. Um people in those ages, they weren't scientifically, you know, um nimwits either. There was a lot of technical, you know, technical and things that were really well done. And the success of those makers was built on four or five generations of you know of um father-to-son teaching. So they they shared with each other and they passed down a craft in one little city that was like an incubator. So um, you know, they did come up with a beautiful product. A Stradivari is a really beautiful instrument, but to understand it is not to love it for its precision. There's it's uh that would be a big mistake to think of Stradivari as an icon of perfection. That's the icon it's used as, and it's that it's not that. The most beautiful um strativari that we know have little human things in them. It's an icon of humanness in a really beautiful time of Italian history. And the sound, of course, it follows it. Um they do sound better than than any other instruments of different schools that were made there. There's a net improvement because of the intuition they brought to their work. But it's the same sound that good violin makers today can get if they'll work that way.

Nick Petrella 15:39

And that that's the next question. Are the Luthers today able to mesh their designs and codings or or even surpass?

Gregg Alf 15:47

Yeah, technically, technically, we can reverse engineer and study with science. We can know what was on the on the instruments. That is known. Uh it's not um to like to know what they did is not the you know it's the thing is the the challenge is to work in the same the same how they worked. Um I do not believe that if Stradivari was alive today, he would be blindly copying his own work. He would, you know, he would be uh on the cutting edge as he was then. Yeah um doing really uh modern things with modern times. And the best makers today are doing that. I I fully believe there are there are makers today that are working just as beautifully. Just certainly just as beautiful work is available, and some some are working just as uh just as intuitively, just as they're they as people they are just as beautiful. That's the greater challenge though today, because there's a you know, we're we're we're teased into mediocrity if we're not careful. We're literally mediocrity.

Building For A Player’s Sound

Nick Petrella 16:56

Yeah. As a maker, can you hear a difference in the tone quality, the sound quality when different uh violinists are playing your instruments? Yes.

Gregg Alf 17:09

Yeah, yeah. Um, I can hear my own instruments uh, you know, in a in a trial, and certainly you can hear the difference of the different players. Players have a real strong concept of sound, a real clear concept of sound, and a good instrument allows them to make that. And I think that's actually part of why a Strativari sounds so good. Um, because usually Strativari being played by great artists, and so you know, if you're a great artist, of course the violin will sound better, but not just that, it's that the great artists have a real concept of sound, it's very specific, and they also are very faithful to that sound so they don't mess around when they're playing. They they produce that sound, and so the violin over centuries begins to play more easily in that way. Think of folding a map open and shut, open and shut in a specific way, in a you know, uh that that you know that the wood begins to know the way it wants to bend and it plays for them. That's why the relationship that a concert artist has with their with their instrument is so so um intimate to them.

Nick Petrella 18:17

So and and I'm I'm sorry, Andy, for monopolizing this, but this just fascinates me. Do you so knowing that are you able to refine an instrument for a specific player to enhance what they want to do? Like so if Andy commissions you to create a violin and it's gonna be good, but are you able to say, okay, in your hands, I think we need more weight here, I think it needs to be thinner here, or there.

Gregg Alf 18:50

Yeah, that is what the art of violin making is about. To to read the player. I I just over the last weekend I was in in uh Poland and posen on the violin making school there. And um, I had three days with them, but I invited a concert artist onto the stage with me the first day, and I wanted to show them, you know, that this is what we are really doing. In fact, someone said something about the color of the violin. They were talking about the color, and um, and the audience, the the makers were thinking, oh, red or orange, and and this artist said, No, no, I mean the color, the sound, guys. And so, you know, um, what I hear from my customers is that their motivation is like going to a fine tailor, for example. You don't go to a fine tailor for, you know, pay a lot of money for fancy silk or straight sewing. You go to them because they you want them to make you look good. And I think it was the same way. People don't come to me for fancy wood or good craftsmanship. They assume it.

Andy Heise 19:53

Right.

Gregg Alf 19:53

They come to me because they want to sound great and because it's really scary going out onto a stage with an instrument you can't trust, with it, you need a tool, it's really there. So there's this, you know, there's a there's a need, there's a um to make them look good, to hear them, to see them, get what they are. I've learned a lot just watching players rehearse, you know, that um I don't think you can make a better violin than the quality of player that you are uh surround yourself with. That was another message of the past weekend to to the makers there. Get out there and see these players see what they're doing and just let it soak in of what you need to do.

Spruce Maple And The Hunt For Wood

Nick Petrella 20:35

Yeah. And then the third part, so which wood species do you prefer? And how does the age of the wood impact the sound?

Gregg Alf 20:45

Violins are mostly made of uh maple and spruce. Those are the primary materials. Um, there are a lot of other incidental woods in the pegs and the fittings and whatnot. And um the spruce is really the sound, the core of the sound is the spruce. And the beauty comes from the maple, the backs and the ribs, and mostly it's mostly maple. So uh spruce and maple are uh some materials I've had a relationship with for 50 years now. And I I source my my uh wood in the mountains. Part of what makes violent making neat is that you get to go up and walk in the forest and look at trees as an as a real naturalist um part to it. Um and at the same time, you know, the um the the fight for finding good wood is hard. The the really really lightweight, you know, um I'm going for lightweight and strong wood and at the same time beautiful. I'm I'm bound to artistic um uh laws um and the chance to do something beautiful, but I'm also bound to acoustic laws, the laws of of science. And we have To work with it with both. And so I search for search for trees. You spend days, hours just going through, finding one piece and checking it and the density and all those things. And then once in a while you get lucky and you find a big uh a big load of it. And you ask about old wood. And um, you know, it is true. If I don't know if you've noticed, but um I'm not really drinking wine anymore, but um old wine, as it gets old, you know, it gets mellow, it gets soft, and good old wine keeps this clarity that keeps this edge. And I think in a way, even people do that. As we get old as as we as we age, right? I think maybe I'm older than you two, but as we age, you know, we tend to get softer and more mellow as we age. But some people retain their spark and their clarity, and that's what old old wood does as well. Old wood as it ages can just become punky and soft and fade out. And the sound will follow that. The sound is exactly the same way. And um, great old violins, the best ones, they do sound more mellow, they sound more soft and more velvety, but they keep keep this edge. And the wood follows that it mirrors that exactly. I can almost tell what kind of violin I'm gonna make by the quality of the wood that I have. It certainly will limit me. When you're a new maker, you're having great wood, but you could just waste it because you don't want to do with it. But the more you learn about your craft, then the more having good wood will allow you to make a better violin.

Andy Heise 23:39

Yeah. Great. What what does a tree that is that that is strong and lightweight, what does that what's the what are the qualities of that tree that you're looking for that are going to provide that material that you want?

Gregg Alf 23:55

Strong and lightweight is like everything high performance. What I'm making is a high performance musical instrument. So it's strong and lightweight is how you build an airplane or a racing car or everything. It's like um we don't want the energy uh of the sound to be you know used up in in friction in the instrument, it has to be going through the system. Now, I still have to build a system that doesn't have internal damping, also. But if your material has internal damping, it's like trying to build a racing bicycle out of lead and then filling it up with sand. You know, you don't do that, and yet unless you really search for wood, that's exactly the kind of wood we get. If you get old um wood that's cut in the wrong season with the moon in the wrong place and it's full of sap, uh, you know, that's like a racing bike full of lead you know full of sand in the tubes or something. So we're looking for very lightweight wood cut in the right way. And um, I have a wood treatment process that's sort of proprietary that's helped me um you know sort of reproduce some of the qualities of age in the wood. Gotcha.

Andy Heise 25:01

Is that a uh is that a a trade secret or a patented process that you have?

Gregg Alf 25:06

Or it's not patented because then you have to give it away.

Andy Heise 25:09

Well, you have to tell people, yeah.

Gregg Alf 25:10

Well, you and actually to tell you the truth, I don't have secrets. I just in the last weekend I shared with my the colleagues there, I showed exactly what I do. I'm just not um I just want um dialogue and reciprocation and um you know, and better that makers get it than factories like that. But um I don't believe in secrets at all. I think we should share.

Andy Heise 25:35

Yeah.

Gregg Alf 25:35

And the secrets I share that give my um competitors an advantage only makes me pull my socks up. Right.

Andy Heise 25:44

And and that's that's their tradition, that's the apprenticeship model of of instrument making as well, probably, right?

Gregg Alf 25:51

Right. Exactly.

Andy Heise 25:52

Yeah. Any more technical questions, Nick?

Nick Petrella 26:00

Uh I guess, but you go ahead. No, we'll bring it back. Yeah, I could do this all day.

Starting A Shop With Joseph Curtin

Andy Heise 26:06

Well, I'm gonna come back to um before we started the call, you had mentioned you were in Ann Arbor, uh, you had started a shop with um uh a colleague by the last name of Curtin. And so would you tell us so from school in um Italy, kind of starting to make some violins, selling some violins, to s opening up that shop in was that your first shop that you had opened? My first shop wasn't in in Cremona. Oh, it was in Cremona. Okay, very good. But then you made the move to the US. Uh so was the Curtin and Alf studio, was that your first US-based studio? Okay. Would you tell us um you know the starting of that and um sort of how that evolved?

Gregg Alf 26:49

Yes, well, Joseph Curtin and I um met in in Kremona. We first worked together there, and we sort of we came to to the United States together. We were originally heading to Chicago to uh uh a big uh big company there that was looking to make violence in a more industrial way, but we um stopped en route in Ann Arbor. And uh Roger Orici was there on the faculty, and we were encouraged to um to it was a beautiful town, and uh we we we we we pulled over midstream and we set up shop together, and um it was you know violin making can be a little lonely in some of its nature, some of its it's a long, uh quiet, a lot of quiet work, but it's also really exciting to explore things with a friend. So, you know, we as we would get we we would get Stradivari violins brought in. Um Ruggiero had a um had a guineri that he brought over for us. So this learning and and exploring and developing our our our vision of violin making together was was really um beautiful thing together. We're still good friends, and um and I still have wonderful memories of those times. Um and at first people wondered, you know, how could you work together? I mean, the violin makers didn't usually do that. So, you know, how would you but then over time we we'd always sort of um thought of the possibility of using you know our shop or using our the sort of the the reputations we had built to support our our making our own workshops? If we kept working together, we would have become institutional, we'd become like a big firm. So the artistic that in the uniqueness of your your journey, you know, would have been you know hampered. But when we sort of cloned our shops and separate shops, then people were confused. Well, how how could you have let go of such something that would work so well? So, you know, it was it would be a beautiful um days, a beautiful way to start my career. Yeah, and we were doing mostly doing replica work. So we we got these great old instruments in, and we'd make you know replicas of them, or at least very close copies, and then about a dozen different instruments we made go for broke, you know, a cop uh replicas that you can't tell. That was at least the goal.

Closing Thanks And Subscribe

Announcer 29:18

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