Rick:

Hello, and welcome to Northwest Philly Neighbors.

I'm Rick Mohr, and my guest is Elizabeth Vander Veer Shaak.

She runs Mount Airy Violins & Bows, and also makes bows, starting with a plank of wood from a Pernambuco tree.

You'll love her stories even if you've never touched a violin.

Like how the last French bowmaker saved the craft in the 1970s.

How she makes bows for famous players that give the exact sound and feel they need.

How she empowers the workers at her shop and their radical plan to make it a worker-owned co-op.

And as a bonus, we'll hear some great music from her band, Cabriole.

If somebody were sitting in your shop for a day, what kinds of things might they see happening?

Elizabeth Vander Veer Shaak:

They might likely see a family come in to a violin shop for the very first time.

And maybe their kid is five and maybe their kid is fifteen.

But their teacher has recommended that they get a better violin or start a rental with a better violin.

So they come in, they look around the showroom and they say to me, if they say anything, they go, oh, this reminds me of Europe.

And that's not unintentional because I trained in Europe.

So they will also see us at work on the instrument.

So there are violin makers there, there are bow makers there.

So there are sections dedicated to bow making, bow restoration and violin making and violin restoration.

That's that one family.

So another family has already come in and it's a high school student who's applying for college and wants to get a viola for auditions.

Then someone from the Philadelphia Orchestra comes in to get some maintenance done on their bows.

We also have a couple world soloists who, when they are in town, will be sure to stop in.

I think I have someone coming from Cirque du Soleil in a couple weeks.

So, you will hear a variety of sounds from cello, viola and violin.

Rick:

So for people not in the world of violins and bows, why is the bow important?

Elizabeth Vander Veer Shaak:

The bow is important because it is your connection to your instrument, literally.

It's the completion of a circuit between what's in your heart, what's in the box of the violin, which is producing the sound, and the bow is that connection.

So, not only does it affect the sound of an instrument, which I'll get into in a second, but it's really translating what's in your head from your arm into the instrument, so it's crucial.

And I mentioned it changes the sound.

You can have one player with six bows and their violin, and your back turn to them, and they try the six bows.

You'll be able to know their six different bows.

And some will bring out the breadth of the instrument, and some will bring out a more pointed focus.

And it depends what the musician is wanting to do, what their goal is in getting a new bow.

Are they in a quartet?

Do they need to blend?

Are they aiming for first chair in an orchestra?

Do they need to stand out?

Do they play old-time music and want a bow that is going to grab and be great rhythmically?

Those are all different goals, and that's the fun part of pairing up somebody with a bow.

Rick:

And when you hear what somebody's goals are, do you think, oh, I think I know just the right bow?

Or is it really kind of a roll of the dice?

Elizabeth Vander Veer Shaak:

Both.

So let's say it's someone asking about a commission for a bow.

In that case, I'll start thinking about the kind of wood I have.

Its density, what it can bring the person in terms of depth of sound or brilliance of sound.

I may go pick several sticks that have been pre-cut out of planks that I got from Brazil and take them and listen to them by dropping them on the end on a nice concrete floor.

And you can get a sense of the tone of the wood right from there.

Is it textured?

Is it sharp and ringy?

So then, of course, I'll measure the density and look at the end grain to see how beautiful it is and make my choice there.

So then I start planing it.

And once I've planed it to a point where I can bend the bow, then I know a lot about the bow after it's gotten its first bend.

Then towards the end, with the bow that I have, I've also made the frog and the button, and that takes half the time.

And I invite the player in and they play what I have there, knowing it's not finished, I try to leave it a little bit stiff, better than leaving it a little too weak because you can't put wood back on.

At that point, we mess around with the balance.

You can change the balance of the bow with what you are going to put on the grip right in front of where the hand touches the bow.

Rick:

So, commissions is a big part of what you love to do.

Could you maybe think of a particular player that you made a bow for and talk us through what happened with that person and that bow?

Elizabeth Vander Veer Shaak:

Sure.

There's a fellow, a graduate of Curtis Institute.

His name was Camden Shaw, and he was part of a group called the Dover Quartet, and they tour the world.

He had come into the shop and tried one of my bows, and loved it and bought it.

Now, as a result, someone else saw his bow and commissioned that same style bow, the same feel, and his name was John Henry Crawford.

And he had placed well in the Tchaikovsky competition in Russia and was hoping to actually get a win, so he was putting some effort into a better bow and a lusher bow.

Very different sound.

And I had a lot of notes on the other one, including how it felt, the weight, the balance, and the graduation and the kind of wood that I chose.

And by graduations, I mean the thicknesses of the bow, how I was going to plane it.

Rick:

All different places along the length.

Right.

Elizabeth Vander Veer Shaak:

So I chose wood based on that, the same type of wood, and he came in and played for me, so I could see his style and how he interacted with the bow.

Rick:

What did you notice?

Elizabeth Vander Veer Shaak:

He really wanted to be able to get into the string in a deep emotional way.

Rick:

A lot of pressure.

Elizabeth Vander Veer Shaak:

No.

No.

No, very free.

Yeah.

Which is so counterintuitive.

Very lovely.

So I agreed that that kind of bow was going to be a good bow for him.

And then towards the end of the process, it does take me another eight hours to finish the bow after that point.

So some people like David Greeley, a Cajun player, he spent a weekend as I was finishing the bow to adjust it and fine tune it and change maybe the curvature a little bit, what we call camber.

So it's a process.

It's a really fun process because the thing about it is you're really deeply listening to what the player is trying to achieve.

And if it's missing a little bit, they have to articulate that.

And I have to try and solve that riddle.

Rick:

And did that happen with John Henry Crawford?

Do you remember?

Elizabeth Vander Veer Shaak:

Not as much.

Actually, he really liked it right off.

It was the sound that he was looking for, and it was a very cool, happy moment.

But I have some players who can just notice absolutely everything about a bow.

It's remarkable.

Rick:

And you understand what they mean, because it seems so difficult to kind of describe qualities of sound and feel.

Elizabeth Vander Veer Shaak:

I had a really good cello player in the other day, and this didn't happen to me, but he was describing happening to friends of mine at Oberlin last week.

He was like, I really love the sound and I was really excited about it, and then I played it the next day, and I was like, it's just not coming off the string the way I wanted it to.

And he handed it to my friend Evan, and Evan took the bow, took the grip off, and planed a tenth of a millimeter off the bow, right in front of the grip, and put a new grip on, gave it back to him, and it was perfect.

Yeah.

So there are those minute changes that can be made.

Rick:

Well, and the experience to know what to do in that moment, I mean, that must mean there were times when the person said it, and you really had no idea, and you tried something and it didn't do it, and they ended up saying, I guess not.

Elizabeth Vander Veer Shaak:

Yeah, yeah, it is experience.

But really, my goal, and most bowmakers' goal, is to make the bow as responsive as possible.

And it's a tightrope that you walk between taking off wood to make it responsive and having it become out of control from being too flexible.

Rick:

Yeah, so you take a little and test and take a little and test.

Elizabeth Vander Veer Shaak:

Yeah.

I always knew I wanted to work with my hands.

Went to college, got a degree in audiology, because I thought that was the thing I should have a trade that I could depend on.

But I always wanted to work with my hands.

And so I was looking for something that I could do with music.

I thought about violin making.

I thought about bow making.

And I actually intentionally chose bow making.

And this is back in 1980.

Because there weren't that many bow makers, there were many violin makers.

And I was just not very competitive at that time.

It turned out to be a lucky choice, because bow makers were very open to sharing information and sharing their trade.

And at the time, violin makers held their knowledge as a closely guarded secret.

That all changed later on.

Rick:

Which way?

Bow makers being guarding or violin makers being open?

Elizabeth Vander Veer Shaak:

Violin makers followed the bow maker's suit.

And this all happened at a craft institute called Oberlin Workshop, where people meet for two weeks and work together.

Makers from all over Europe and America and Australia and China and Russia come together and make in the same room.

And I think that was a result of bow makers being very open and sharing their information.

So because of that sharing, the level of making is at an all time high.

We've never seen.

It's a golden age.

From that point where I decided to be involved in bows, I went and got myself a week long lesson in how to re-hair a bow, came back and was lucky enough to get a job in a violin shop re-herring bows.

Rick:

After a one week lesson.

Elizabeth Vander Veer Shaak:

Well, he had to completely re-teach me.

One week lesson doesn't cut it.

This was at a shop that no longer exists called House of Primavera on Rittenhouse Square.

He did go out of business about three or four years later.

Rick:

Not as a direct result.

Elizabeth Vander Veer Shaak:

Not at all.

Then after that I went up to New York and worked with a bow maker called Bill Sauco.

Bill Sauco is known as the father of American bow making.

I was trading him a day of rehairs for him teaching me to do bow making.

Then I met some French makers while I was at the shop and they invited me to France.

So I went to France and made a bow with three separate makers.

Rick:

What was that like making your first bow?

Elizabeth Vander Veer Shaak:

Well, it was hard.

There were times I just wanted to go off in the bathroom and cry, which I did not do.

Rick:

Do you remember what the moment was that made you that frustrated?

Elizabeth Vander Veer Shaak:

Yeah, usually those moments of frustration happen when you have very carefully gotten something up to a certain point, even fitting a pearl eye in the frog.

You make it perfectly square, then you make it perfectly octagon, then you cut those sides and make them perfectly 16, and then you make it round, and then you fit it in, and you go too far, one swipe, and you have to start all over again.

And so there goes an hour of your time.

Back when you were learning it, it's more than an hour.

There are so many requirements for making a bow.

You have to be able to file and shape pearl or oyster.

You have to know how to sharpen tools.

You have to make your tools.

You also need silversmithing.

Rick:

What's a tool that you have to make?

Elizabeth Vander Veer Shaak:

Bits for cutting the eyes.

The eye is the part on the frog that is a little circle of pearl.

I actually have a specific design that I use for mine, and I make the cutter for that design.

It's a split eye, like a cat's eye.

Rick:

Okay, and the cutter is out of?

Elizabeth Vander Veer Shaak:

Tool steel, so you have to heat it to a certain red and quench it and hammer it into shape.

Rick:

Like a blacksmith?

Yeah.

Elizabeth Vander Veer Shaak:

It's easier if you have a big old lathe to finish it so that everything's square and the point in the center is square.

So at this time, I do have that.

I have a little lathe.

Rick:

And something to heat it up that hot?

Elizabeth Vander Veer Shaak:

Yeah, yeah, a torch.

And the frog is the part at the end that the person's hand rests on that holds the hair and the button at the back will tighten the frog so you can get the hair at the right tension to play.

Rick:

Do you know why it's called the frog?

Elizabeth Vander Veer Shaak:

I don't.

It's from the German Frosch.

Rick:

Okay.

Maybe it got Americanized along the way.

Elizabeth Vander Veer Shaak:

I think so.

Yeah.

It's not because French people make bows.

Rick:

Even though they do.

Elizabeth Vander Veer Shaak:

Even though the birthplace of bow making was in France.

Yeah.

So, one thing I want to talk about in beginning to learn my trade, one of the realizations I had, I'm working only with guys.

And that's fine, you know, because I can learn skills like they can.

But the thing I noticed was that when they were done working, they almost always had a girlfriend who was going to be cooking them a meal and making sure that their clothes got washed.

And when I worked in Brussels, the girlfriend of the guy who owned the business I was working with, she was in there cleaning the shop.

And I'm like, wow, that's what I need.

I need a wife.

And he's like, wait a second, oh no, that's my job.

So back in the 80s, that was a real realization to me, is that women learning a trade don't have the support system that men do.

And now that I have a daughter who's in her 20s, I kind of see the same thing.

It's not that different.

And men are way better at helping and taking care of cleanup and shopping and cooking.

So there's no stigma against it, but often the expectation is that you got to get home and cook.

This is a trade.

It's like getting a doctorate.

You just sit and study all the time.

Rick:

Right?

Elizabeth Vander Veer Shaak:

You need help for that.

And when you're learning this trade, you need to engross yourself in it.

You figure out ways.

And there are more and more women getting into the trade.

Plenty of women violin makers we have won at the shop.

Rick:

Those were your challenges in life balance.

Were there also challenges in terms of being accepted?

Elizabeth Vander Veer Shaak:

Usually people were quite open.

As I got more and more accomplished, then there was a little pushback.

That it would be assumed that I didn't know my stuff as well as a guy.

That's not true with my customers for sure.

So that's the part of my life that is bow making.

And I have to say over the last five years, most of my life has been spent in helping the shop run.

So it's taken a turn.

Rick:

Totally different skills.

Elizabeth Vander Veer Shaak:

Yes.

I've really enjoyed it.

I haven't, maybe I have some regrets about not making bows as frequently because that's my plan is to start doing that more now.

But it's been wild and wonderful watching the shop grow and be a good home to people who want to practice their skills and have a place that helps support them financially and emotionally and helps support their craft.

I get great people to work for me and they have great ideas.

And so I've had a couple people come in from other shops where their ideas were not listened to and they're mostly in a defensive mode.

And it takes them a month or two to realize they can voice a criticism or if they're getting some feedback, it's not necessarily a criticism either.

We also have an open decision process.

Rick:

Group decision making can be slow.

Elizabeth Vander Veer Shaak:

Well, it's going to say this is not just about group decision making where we get everybody on the same page.

It's like we try to find the expert of this particular area and give them license to act.

Rick:

Can you think of an example?

Elizabeth Vander Veer Shaak:

Sure, so if someone comes in with a complicated repair for an instrument that was their grandfather's, it may not be worth the value of the repair.

That person doesn't have to come back to me and ask me what to do.

They know how to calculate the repairs.

They know how to talk to the person in such a way as to get the information.

You know, is this instrument a family heirloom?

Does it mean something special to you?

It might take this much to repair it.

So what I'm leading up to is that we are actually looking into ways to become employee owned.

Rick:

Nice.

So all your work empowering your employees to make their own decisions will allow them to do a lot of the running so you can make bows.

Elizabeth Vander Veer Shaak:

Exactly.

That is part of the plan.

And people will have a stake in their business.

So we are starting to work with people here from Mount Airy, which is really cool.

We have an advisor who's Alex Moss from Praxis Company.

And what they do is help companies become co-ops or something more complicated called an ESOP.

They've made co-ops out of the most independent people in the world, i.e.

Maine fishermen.

So they have a co-op now to help protect their trade.

But he's also worked with beer companies and many other well-known companies.

And so I'm lucky enough to have him as a friend and he's been helping to advise us.

And so through him, we are working with someone called the Philadelphia Area Co-op Alliance to see what options we may have so that people can have a stake in our business, but have it not be so burdensome.

If we are able to do it, we're sort of documenting our trail as we go through, because it's not really been done in the industry.

This is not the typical form.

It's really quite the master telling the people what to do, and you do it my way or the highway.

So this is definitely a new possibility.

Rick:

Right.

So if you pull it off, a lot of people might be interested.

Elizabeth Vander Veer Shaak:

Right.

We're hoping that I can pull it off and that it can support people.

Rick:

Well, stay tuned.

Elizabeth Vander Veer Shaak:

Yeah.

Rick:

So you said you wanted to talk about modern bows versus older bows.

Elizabeth Vander Veer Shaak:

Yes.

I had a customer come in the shop and she's very socially active and mindful.

And she was looking at a bow from a maker in Vermont.

He's supporting himself solely on his bow making and it's a really good bow maker.

She ended up liking it, but she ended up buying an older bow made in the 1800s.

And it occurred to me, I'm not really making the case for why you should buy modern, because someone like that is the perfect person for understanding what some of the points are.

There's not only the fact that the maker is there to guarantee their work, but you also get connected to this cycle of making.

How many things in your life do you have where you can meet the maker and know that you are actually supporting him?

You're supporting someone in their craft.

It's a very direct way to have a really positive effect on a humane way of making a living.

And there's also the historic nature of it.

People buy old bows because they love the history, but this craft has a history.

And part of that history was at the end of World War II, the French style bow making, which is the intuitive handcraft version of making it, which is what I learned and what a lot of current day makers are now using, pretty much died out.

There was one person left who was able to do this.

And so they started a school and installed him as a teacher, trained 12 people over four years, and those 12 people have taught others.

One of those people was Jean, my teacher.

And so now there are hundreds of people who know how to make bows.

A lot of them are over 60.

So we need to keep this craft going.

And to make people who are doing it feel as though their craft means something, and they can earn a living doing it, to bring young people in.

So you're actually supporting the history of the whole craft by buying modern.

Rick:

Wow.

Yeah, it never occurred to me that the craft could possibly die out.

But it sounds like it almost did, and it still could.

Elizabeth Vander Veer Shaak:

Well, that's because the French government is all about, we must keep these traditions, which is a great thing.

Rick:

Really?

Elizabeth Vander Veer Shaak:

They honored it.

Rick:

Just one person left who knew how to do it?

Elizabeth Vander Veer Shaak:

Yeah, Bernard Houchard.

Rick:

When was that?

Elizabeth Vander Veer Shaak:

This was in the 70s, 1970s.

Rick:

There were so many bows out there that there wasn't a big demand for new bows?

Elizabeth Vander Veer Shaak:

No, it was the World War.

Rick:

People were killed in the war.

Elizabeth Vander Veer Shaak:

Yeah.

So it sort of decimated.

One of the most famous bow makers is a man named Martin.

And a few years ago, a guy, George Martin, walks into the shop with a double bow case, double violin case.

It's an old case.

I know it's going to be good.

It's definitely a century old.

And he opens it up and there's four bows in there and two violins.

And I notice right away that the bows are from this wonderful maker, Martin.

Rick:

How can you tell?

Does it have his stamp on it?

Elizabeth Vander Veer Shaak:

I think one of them did.

But yeah, I can recognize the shape of the head and the frog, just like you recognize your children.

And I'm looking at him and I'm like, oh, you're not George Martin.

You're George Martin.

And he goes, yes, this man was my grandfather.

And he told me this story during the war.

His father traveled to France right before the Germans came in through France.

And he was at his grandfather's workshop, and they gave him this case and the bows and sent him off before the Germans came.

And that week the Germans came in and burnt the shop down.

Rick:

Wow.

Elizabeth Vander Veer Shaak:

So this was what was left of the shop.

Yeah, that was quite a stunning story.

Rick:

So most violin shops are downtown near Rittenhouse Square.

You chose to open on Germantown Avenue in Mount Airy.

Elizabeth Vander Veer Shaak:

Yes.

Rick:

What was the story there?

Elizabeth Vander Veer Shaak:

So my kids went to school down the block at Project Learn, and I saw this building come up for sale.

It was called Maud's Collectibles at the time.

It was a real disadvantage having a shop in my house.

I felt like customers were not taking me seriously.

So they would come for repairs, but they wouldn't come for my bows.

I went ahead in 2003 and bought the building, and six months later it was ready to go.

When I bought it, there was only one functioning business on the entire block.

And when you would see someone walking by, you would just think, maybe they're lost, because there's nothing here.

It's since become a pretty popular place.

There's now apartment buildings and an ice cream shop, Zaz Ice Cream is there.

People moved into apartments and would come over to the shop and say, you know, we moved here because you're here.

Rick:

Really?

Elizabeth Vander Veer Shaak:

Yes.

So I know it's had a positive impact on the community, and that was the calculated part.

So to have a local impact was very important to me.

And now we're having a regional impact because we have customers coming from Allentown, Bethlehem, Harrisburg, New Hope, that whole area north of the city.

So it's worked out really well for us.

Rick:

So handmade violins and bows can be very expensive, but you have customers from all walks of life.

How do you work that?

Elizabeth Vander Veer Shaak:

So it's our mission to make violin accessible to all walks of life.

So we do offer a rental program.

All you need is basically $23 a month, and you can get a nice violin to start playing.

And out of that $23, you're earning $15 of credit towards buying because we want to make it possible for people to own things down the road.

So that speaks to that need.

Rick:

So do a lot of people take advantage of that?

Elizabeth Vander Veer Shaak:

Yes.

There are companies out there that will focus on renting to schools and hire a van, show up at the school and drop off instruments.

And they have about 4,000 rentals, which is mind-boggling to us because there is no way you can make sure all those 4,000 instruments are ready and properly set up.

Without proper set up, you can't turn the pegs to tune your instrument.

When you touch the strings to the fingerboard, if it's not planed properly, it's going to buzz.

The bridge has to be the right curve, or your bow isn't going to be able to play each string separately.

And if it's too curved, there's going to be too much movement in your hand to play each string separately.

If the string length isn't correct, the instrument's not going to sound optimal.

So all those things really help someone learn an instrument, because playing violin is really hard.

I started when I turned 50, and now 14 years later, I'm starting to get a really nice sound.

It didn't stop me from joining a band five years ago and playing, but you have all these things working against you, so your bow and your violin should at least be able to be tuned and played without hindering you.

Rick:

So the people that take your rentals really have no idea of all of the things that went into being able to take it out of the case and play and go, hmm, this is kind of difficult.

Elizabeth Vander Veer Shaak:

Right.

No, they shouldn't have any idea.

Their teacher knows because they have other students who come with horrible things that are not playable, you know, the $200 instruments you get off the Internet.

So the teachers know.

We did just hire a new violin maker to help us specifically with getting Reynolds set up properly.

He's a graduate from the Violin Making School in Utah.

He's great.

His name is Efren.

Rick:

And he likes that work okay?

Elizabeth Vander Veer Shaak:

He likes the work okay.

And so with the extra time, he will also be making.

Rick:

So he'll be busy in late August.

Elizabeth Vander Veer Shaak:

Yeah, in a couple of weeks.

Yep, I just ordered 27 violins and 23 cellos.

I know.

Rick:

Could you share a story of a kid that you've rented to and seen over the years?

Elizabeth Vander Veer Shaak:

Yeah, there's a kid played cello.

Oh, there are a couple kids.

Oh, of course there's so many.

But this kid started cello.

It must have been 11 or 12.

He had already been taking lessons, but he was frustrated with his instrument, rented one from us.

And he's a great player now.

And Thomas, one of our luthiers, has been teaching him weekly.

We get to hear his progress on Saturday mornings.

And it's been really great.

And now I think he's better than Thomas.

Don't tell him I said that.

Rick:

Okay, we'll just edit out that.

Elizabeth Vander Veer Shaak:

No, you don't have to.

Thomas knows.

Rick:

So that's good.

Elizabeth Vander Veer Shaak:

And then there was another kid.

He was our youngest yet.

He might have been four or three.

Usually we don't encourage people to start their kids that young.

But this kid's name was Teddy.

And he was so cute, curls.

And he just loved getting a little violin.

And he is still playing now.

He's getting to be nine or ten.

He really plays.

It's really fun to watch that progression.

Rick:

So how often does somebody walk in with an old violin from their attic?

Elizabeth Vander Veer Shaak:

It happens a lot.

So someone will walk into the shop with something that they found in their attic or somebody else's attic.

That can go so many different ways.

This guy brought a violin in for me to check out because he thought it was a great violin.

It was an okay violin with a lot of damage.

Not worth very much.

But I noticed that the bow in the case, all the silver had turned black.

And I could see even from a distance, it was probably a good French bow.

I picked it up, took a look at it, and immediately knew it was a bow by Eugene Sartori, which is a really sought after bow.

And in perfect condition from a particular period, it can get $38,000, something like that.

So I told him he had a bow of value, and he was like, wow, this is just like Antique's Roadshow.

And he was kind of blown away.

And then we had somebody in the shop.

Three weeks ago, she was a cellist, and she was asking us if we wanted to buy her cello.

And she had given up on playing, but she was crying.

And Liz, our other luthier, went in, and she was like, it's okay.

I'm a therapist.

I'm crying because I just need to come to terms with the fact that I don't think playing is good for me anymore.

It's just not what I'm going to be doing.

So we've just learned to be still and listen and allow those emotions to happen.

But people take music, it's such an emotional, personal thing.

That's why it's so important.

Rick:

So that's what keeps you going into the shop every day.

Elizabeth Vander Veer Shaak:

Oh, those connections.

Music, I think for everyone who plays music, it becomes their community.

And in today's age where you may have your school community when you're young, but after school, after college, if you don't have your community orchestra or your community contra dance group or your old time group that you get together with and jam, it's hard to find community.

Rick:

It is.

And full disclosure, I know Elizabeth because we are both folk musicians and play violins, Swedish music, French music, contra dance music, which is accessible to people in a way that classical music isn't.

In classical music, you need a score and a conductor, but with folk music, you can invite people over and sit around and play tunes and have it be a social time.

And I think that it's invisible to so many people that that other world exists.

Elizabeth Vander Veer Shaak:

Yeah, it shouldn't be a secret.

It's a really wonderful thing.

Rick:

Have you seen people discover that world through your shop, or is it kind of invisible even so?

Elizabeth Vander Veer Shaak:

Oh, no, a lot of people, a lot of adults come in wanting to pick up the violin.

And I always ask, what kind of music are you hoping to play?

And if they say, well, I was listening to this piece by Bach and I need to play that, then I know I'm going to try and get them down the road playing in a community orchestra, which is also really great for amateurs.

And there are plenty of them around.

Some people will say, I don't know, I'd like to play jazz or I'd like to play Irish music.

I always tell them about the world of folk music and folk violin.

And it's learned by ear.

It's a different method.

You can read it in certain circumstances.

Old time music, we have a lot of old time players.

That's almost all an oral tradition.

So it feeds a different part of your brain and your soul.

It's funny, classical players sometimes try and learn this kind of music, as you know.

And it's only a minority of them who really can sort of throw off that other side of the brain and enjoy playing by ear.

Rick:

So you are in a band, Cabriole, that plays French music?

Elizabeth Vander Veer Shaak:

Yes.

Well, we play ball folk music.

Rick:

Okay.

Elizabeth Vander Veer Shaak:

Which is mostly French, dance music, a smattering of Swedish.

If it's in Italy, it's going to have some Italian, Mazurkas, some Spanish.

Rick:

I saw a video that you played at the Rittenhouse Soundworks evenings.

Maybe we'll listen to a tune.

Elizabeth Vander Veer Shaak:

Cool.

Cool.

Rick:

Do you know anything about that tune, that particular tune?

I think it's called La Sans Sonnette by Dominique Forge.

Elizabeth Vander Veer Shaak:

Right.

I learned that, yes.

I learned that tune from a guy named Ludovic Rio, who is a wonderful accordion player at a French workshop up in Vermont.

And separately, Bill found that same piece, Sans Sonnette, brought it to the group, Bill Quirn, our accordion player.

So I'm like, yes, yeah, yeah, let's learn that piece.

Rick:

The worlds of folk and classical are so different.

What's it like to go back and forth between them?

Elizabeth Vander Veer Shaak:

They seem different, but really it's people trying to express themselves musically.

They kind of have the same goals.

They want to find an instrument that speaks to their experience.

And so it's a matter of us listening to them and they're playing, and figure out without too much bias, because we have a ton of bias about like, oh, this instrument sounds this way.

And the fact is there are three parts to what makes an instrument sound the way it does.

It's the violin, it's the bow, and it's the player.

That's the third important part.

So I can pick up an instrument and play it with the bow, and then I can hand that to the other bowmaker in the shop, Adam.

He plays it, it's going to sound completely different.

And we have our own ideas like, oh, this instrument is bright.

And then someone comes in and they say, I want a rich instrument.

I wouldn't think of the thing I think of as bright.

But I've learned to go against my biases, show that instrument anyway, and they'll go, this is perfect.

And it is for them.

It sounds rich in their hands.

We look at each other and say, how is that possible?

But that's the third magic ingredient.

Rick:

And you sometimes do concerts in your shop.

Elizabeth Vander Veer Shaak:

Oh, yes, we have two fun ones coming up in the fall.

Rick:

Yeah.

Elizabeth Vander Veer Shaak:

So it has a couple drawbacks.

It's a very small space and it's on Germantown Avenue, which can have fire engines and police going by.

But there's so many advantages to the place.

The acoustics in that room are awesome.

You don't need any amplification at all.

There's room for about 25 people.

It's a very intimate affair.

Conversations happen between the performer and the audience.

And it's really quite magical.

So we have two people lined up.

Keith Murphy's coming in September and in November, Joelle Savoy will do Cajun.

Rick:

And how could people find out about that?

Elizabeth Vander Veer Shaak:

We will have an announcement on our website, also on Facebook.

Rick:

Your website is Mount Airy?

Elizabeth Vander Veer Shaak:

mountairyviolins.com.

So Mount is spelled out.

Also, you can email the shop to get put on a list for people to be notified.

So that's mountairyviolins.gmail.com.

Also, Mount is spelled out.

Rick:

Great.

And I just wanted to circle back to a couple of things that we didn't talk about before.

Can you talk a little about the materials that go into a bow?

Elizabeth Vander Veer Shaak:

This is one of the fascinating things about bows.

The materials that make up a bow come from all over the world.

So the silver comes from Mexico, the gold comes from Africa, and personally I try not to make gold bows anymore because of the pain and suffering of people mining it.

The pernambuco comes from Brazil.

The wood is called pernambuco that makes up the stick part of the bow.

And it's the national tree of Brazil.

We have a group called IPCI.

It's a worldwide group dedicated to reforestation in general and pernambuco trees within that.

And I'm a member of that organization and most bowmakers are.

And so you are helping to support that organization by buying the new bows.

Rick:

And is that happening?

Are new trees growing?

Elizabeth Vander Veer Shaak:

Oh, yeah, I went there in 2010, 11, and we bought some wood.

But we also planted trees and saw all the trees that they are planting.

Rick:

At different stages of growth.

Elizabeth Vander Veer Shaak:

Yes, yeah.

It's dependent on the political climate because there's so much clear cutting being done so that it's important to have these little sections that are dedicated to this particular tree that is really the only wood that is 100% dependable on making a quality orchestra bow.

So anyway, that's the wood part of the stick.

There's also ivory at the top of the stick.

And at the other end of the bow, you have ebony.

People are experimenting with different woods.

I have some frogs out of maple and beech and boxwood.

But they make some nice looking frogs.

And inside that, there is oyster shell.

Some of that now you cannot use anymore because of the warmth of the ocean and the overfishing of oyster in some Japanese areas.

So the oyster comes from Japan.

The ivory used to come from Africa.

There still are stores of it.

But some of it is also mammoth, which comes from Alaska.

Rick:

Fossils.

Elizabeth Vander Veer Shaak:

Fossils.

So fossils you can supposedly use in Pennsylvania anyway.

Rick:

And are there qualities of the ivory that are important for function or is it more for appearance?

Elizabeth Vander Veer Shaak:

It is important for function.

It does not crack as easily as the synthetics.

There's one synthetic, like basically Corian, like what you would use for a countertop, which won't crack very easily.

But it's horrible to use.

It's really difficult to carve.

And ivory is easier to carve with a knife.

There are other alternatives that are coming out, like ebony and silk combinations, so that we can address environmental issues.

So there's also leather on the silver winding.

There's been some talk about making vegan bows, by the way.

It is possible you can use a synthetic hair.

I am searching for a leather substitute that might work.

Some people have used cork.

I understand that mulberry paper might work.

Rick:

So the hair.

I think many people don't know that a violin bow has horse hair.

Elizabeth Vander Veer Shaak:

Yes.

Rick:

And that is apparently the best thing.

Elizabeth Vander Veer Shaak:

It is the best thing.

Rick:

Does it come from the horse's tail or the mane?

Elizabeth Vander Veer Shaak:

They have certain horses that will grow mane long enough, 30 inches, to provide for violin bows.

The synthetic hair I use is interesting in that it doesn't stretch.

So if you're a festival player, it's kind of fabulous for that.

It has a far rougher sound, edgy and rough, and that's not for everybody.

They haven't really developed something that can replace horse hair, but if you're committed enough, you could be happy with the other.

Rick:

And you hear from time to time about people making bows out of all kinds of things to replace the stick and some people claiming that it's really just fine.

Elizabeth Vander Veer Shaak:

Right.

There's one particular manufacturer that uses a hollow carbon fiber thing that I'm not a fan of.

They sound hollow to me, but there are other synthetic materials now, like Coda bows and John Paul bows.

And those are fine.

They work pretty great.

They're a great alternative and often they're priced under what would, decent wood would cost.

And I think it's a great way to go because you get a better sounding thing in the lower price ranges.

Rick:

Well, Elizabeth, thank you so much for sharing your stories.

Elizabeth Vander Veer Shaak:

Thank you.

Thanks for having me.

Rick:

For more about Elizabeth and her shop, see the show notes or go to our website nwphillipodcast.net.

If you like the show, please subscribe and tell your friends.

And if you want to hear about new episodes every two weeks, just hit the like button on our Facebook page.

I'm Rick Mohr.

Thanks for listening.

See you next time for more stories from Northwest Philly Neighbors.