Paper short abstract:

Actors, whose professional work is to produce musical instruments out of wood, operate in a field of tension between norms and creativity, incorporated craft knowledge and increasing digitalization. To what extent do their actions and attitudes confirm or break the rules of their crafts:wo:manship?

Paper long abstract:

The demands on the production of wooden musical instruments are reflected in conflicting ideals: Is the perfect violin the one that comes closest to a Stradivari? Or is it necessary to get over traditional rules and develop new models? The making of wooden musical instruments is oriented towards a perfect sound and form. As a result, the canonized standards and one's own creativity mark two poles of the crafts:wo:menship which become even sharper in face of an increasing competition between hand-made and CNC-made products – a tendency that applies to the woodworking crafts in general, but is particularly evident in regard to musical instrument making in which the incorporated knowledge is shaped as an interaction of hand, brain, eye and ear.

This paper focuses on the everyday practices and self-interpretations of violin and recorder makers and follows the questions: How do craftspersons in pursuit of their (own) ideal position themselves in the field of tension between traditional norms and own creativity, between incorporated craft knowledge and increasing digitalization? To what extent do they hereby break or confirm the rules of crafts:wo:menship in making wooden musical instrument? To answer these questions, the paper deciphers practices, interpretations, risks, and (individual) ideals of actors in the contrasting fields of professional making of violins (where competition among the craftspersons is particularly high) and recorders (where digital-technical standards are widely used) and argues on an empirical basis by analysing observations in craft businesses and interviews with craftspersons.