Strings, blackbirds serenade my summer days

HERE IN my Tower of Light in Oxford, I am lucky enough to back onto Oxford Violins.  When it’s a warm summer day, the guys open their windows and you can hear them tuning and playing the beautiful instruments they make.

A couple of weeks ago, one of the chaps, Bruno Guastalla, came across the back garden to introduce himself. He’d heard me whistling a refrain to the blackbird that hangs around the yard, and joined me for a glass of white wine.

Later, he invited me into the workshop, and it was wonderful to see the tools and equipment they use to create the instruments.

If you go to Oxford Violins’ website, there’s a video showing a violinist playing one of the instruments Bruno made and different stages in the creation of a violin.  It’s all rather magical, really this little area.

They play themselves – I heard them jamming earlier this week, most beautiful.

2 responses to “Strings, blackbirds serenade my summer days

  1. thomasxstewart

    Violins Manufacture has moved to China. for $85, shop can buy violin & case w/bow & acc, thatt sells from few hundreds to thousand $. Violin has Steep pitch rise that forms in sound chamber into harmony of powerful clarity.

    However, real money is in Stand Up BASS. Many more stand up basses make money, take much more resources to build & are fun to play. Reccomend making 20 of them, then Shop really made product of note.

    vondrashek

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