One thousand to six thousand dollars
Workshop Instruments
THE STEP UP FROM A FIRST INSTRUMENT
Most players know they have outgrown their first instrument before anyone tells them. The notes come out, but the instrument stops giving anything back.
A workshop instrument answers faster under the bow, carries further in a room, and holds up when the technique gets ahead of it.
When it is time
The first sign is usually effort. A passage that used to work needs more bow and more arm, and the sound still comes out flat. The player has developed past what the instrument can do, and no amount of practice closes that gap.
The second sign is the section. In a school orchestra a thin instrument disappears, and a player who cannot hear themselves stops trusting their own intonation. Sitting in the middle of twenty other strings is the test that finds this fastest.
What changes at this level is response and carrying power. The string speaks sooner after the bow moves, there is more colour available when playing quietly, and the sound still arrives at the back of a hall. For most students this is the instrument they keep through high school.
What a workshop instrument is
A workshop instrument comes from a shop working to a specification, not from one maker working alone. Bodies follow a consistent pattern, in tonewoods aged several years, then graduated, assembled and varnished as a batch.
That consistency is the point. Two instruments from the same line will play much alike, which means we can tell you what one will do before you pick it up.
Worth knowing while you compare: several names below are lines rather than people. They are a distributor's mark applied to instruments that meet an agreed standard, not the signature of a luthier who made that one. A line tells you about consistency. A maker's name tells you about a single instrument. Both are useful, and shops are not always straight about which one you are reading.
The lines we carry
Grouped by what each line covers, so you can see at a glance which ones make the instrument you are after.
VIOLIN, VIOLA & CELLO
Paulo Leao
Sandro Luciano
VIOLIN & VIOLA
Camillo Callegari
Dario Giovanni
Aldo Romano
Carl de Luca
VIOLIN
Salvatore Callegari
Ettore Callegari
Ming Jiang Zhu
A MAKER, NOT A MARK
Ming-Jiang Zhu, 1956–2014
Born in Guangzhou, and one of twenty-five students taken into the city's new instrument-making school at twenty, where he trained under Liang Guohui. He opened his own workshop in 1991 and became the first Chinese maker to take a gold medal at the Violin Society of America competition, winning twenty-one awards there across his career, with golds in 1994 and 2006. TIME ran a piece on him in 1997, and in 2008 he was the third Chinese luthier ever elected to the Entente Internationale des Luthiers et Archetiers d'Art. The workshop continues under his cousin.
What we do before you take it
Setup matters more here than at any other level, because there is more in the instrument to release.
The bridge
Shaped to the curve of that top and cut for the string heights you want, which is what governs how hard the instrument is to play fast.
The soundpost
Moved and reset until all four strings speak evenly. Most of the change you hear between two setups of the same instrument is here.
Strings
Chosen for that instrument rather than off a price list, because the wrong set can flatten a good violin.
Played in
We play it, adjust, and play it again until it responds the way it should before anyone else hears it.
Questions we get asked
Are these instruments made by the people they are named after?
Some are and some are not. Several names on our list are lines rather than individual makers, which means a workshop builds them to an agreed standard. Ming-Jiang Zhu is a real maker. We will tell you which is which on any instrument you pick up.
How do I know it is time to move up?
The usual sign is effort. A passage that used to work needs more bow and more arm, and the sound still comes out flat. The other sign is sitting in a section and not being able to hear yourself.
Can I take one home to try?
Yes. Take two or three, play them where you actually perform, and bring them back when you have decided. Nobody should choose at this level in a single afternoon.
Can I put my current instrument toward it?
If you bought it here, it carries credit at its full original price. If you did not, bring it in and we will look at it.
Try several
One instrument on its own tells you very little. Ask to see three or four in the same session and the differences stop being subtle. Bring your bow and your current instrument, and bring your teacher if they will come.