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Accepted Paper:
Sounding mountains: on the entanglements of mountain ecologies and violin making heritage
Edda Starck
(University of Aberdeen)
Violins are made from mountain wood. Discussing the ecological knowledges, practices, and industries that surround the sourcing of mountain “tonewood” trees as building materials for violins, this paper addresses how Alpine ecologies play an integral part of musical experiences around the world.
Paper Abstract:
To make violins, we need mountains. The “tonewood” (coming from European spruce and Sycamore maple trees) that the instruments are carved from requires a range of highly specific qualities that cannot be found in lowland plantation trees but rather exist only in mountain trees from niche Alpine habitats: good spruce tonewood, for instance, usually comes from trees growing at over 2000 meters altitude on a South-facing slope with many ravines, where environmental conditions cause trees to grow slowly, making a dense wood with low resin content. In the German Alps, a world-renowed hub for lutherie, the heritage practice of violin making is thus deeply entangled with various ecological knowledges, practices, and industries that revolve around the local mountains and their sonorous trees.
This paper explores the interconnections between instrument making heritage in Germany and the mountain ecologies that have shaped, and that have been shaped by and for the crafting of violins. Through the circulation of instruments and musical practices around the world, these mountain ecologies play integral parts in global musical industries. Furthermore, the extraction of other construction materials, such as the threatened Pernambuco wood endemic to Brazil’s tropical forests that is used to make violin bows ties the violin making industry to colonial ecologies and landscapes facing immediate pressure from climate change. This paper provides an early insight into ongoing research, which pursues multispecies methods to address how the lives of European Alpine trees are integral part of musical experiences around the world.