How did you get into instrument making? Could you describe the process a little?
I’ve been fascinated by how instruments work since I was in high school and someone gave me a copy of The Physics of Music, a compilation of articles up to that time from Scientific American. Unfortunately, as exciting as the book was, it was very technical and math-heavy (Scientific American was a very different publication then) and I was intimidated by that aspect of it. After I left music school, I worked as a piano technician, rebuilding antique instruments and player pianos; this was very satisfying on many levels, but I ultimately left that to pursue bread making (which is another story).
Later, I became interested in violin making—especially viola making, not only because it’s my instrument, but because the viola presents some specific acoustic problems, being small for the pitch register in which it operates. I investigated it and how one might become a luthier, but ultimately didn’t pursue it.
Meanwhile, my fascination with timbre and its stepchild, electronic sound design, often led me to imagine how I might make a sound that I had auralized and I began to imagine such instruments and how they might be made. I had learned about people like Lou Harrison and Harry Partch in music school, so I knew there was a precedent. At the time, I was not writing music either, so I felt like I wouldn’t know what to do with a thing if I built it; it wasn’t until about 2010, when I was in my late 40s, that I started writing my own music.
So, my interest remained just that until the COVID-19 pandemic, when I decided, “fuck-it!” I would just build some of the instrument ideas I had. The first of these was a bowed clock chime, which was just a simple soundbox to which I attached the chimes and experimented with bowing them. I’ve made several recordings with this instrument and, simple as it is, it is one I am especially proud and love the sound of. Since then, I’ve put together a workshop/lutherie in my basement and built some instrument kits: a bowed psaltery, a Stratocaster knock-off, and a kalimba.
The most sophisticated instrument I’ve designed and built, so far, I call a rotola. Technically, it is a cylindrical zither with ten strings that can be tuned to the same note or differently and which has a bow that wraps around to contact half the strings at a time. It is sounded by cranking the cylinder so the strings cross the bow, rather than the conventional other way around, and is intended as a resonant drone instrument, although it can arpeggiate, depending on how it’s bowed. I spent about three years designing it and experimenting with different construction methods. My first published use of it will be in the requiem I mentioned above, but I enjoy it as a meditation aid.
For the future, I have plans to expand the bowed clock chime (which, technically, is a close relative of the nail violin), to build an electric cello (which should be easier for me to play than viola), and to make a full-size version of the rotola (the one I’ve built is primarily proof-of—concept). There are other designs in my head as well; we’ll see what I can get to!
There is a stereotype that artists tend to be highly emotional and prone to depression. Do you see any truth to this? If so, why do you think this is the case? Conversely, do you observe any negative impacts to mental health that result from the pursuit of a life in the arts?
Those are important questions and dear to my heart. While the stereotype is not helpful (as they tend not to be), there is research indicating a relationship between creativity and certain mental health challenges. As an example, I would direct you to a wonderful graphic memoir called Marbles by Ellen Forney, in which she shares intimately about her experience as an artist with bipolar disorder.
As I said above, I have a sense (as opposed to empirical research) that neurodiversity among artists is higher than the base rate. Certainly, ADHD is more common in my practice than I see in others, but that may be more of an effect of match than target population. As a person with ADHD myself, I understand and relate to other people with ADHD and so they are more likely to be comfortable with me.
This, however, brings us to an important point: much neurodivergent behavior and experience is incorrectly pathologized. Folks with ADHD or who are on the autism spectrum (some definitions of neurodiversity also include bipolar disorder and schizophrenia) think and experience the world differently from neurotypicals (people with the most common brain structure) but that difference is not a brokenness. Instead, most of the issues arising from these differences are a function of the fact that a world built by neurotypical brains does not automatically account for the needs of non-neurotypicals. Think wheelchair ramps or the square peg and round hole: is the peg wrong because it doesn’t fit the round hole? Is the hole wrong? Neurodiversity asserts that neither is the case: they just don’t match each other.
So, I hold the opinion that at least some of the so-called problems stereotypically associated with creative types are likely to be a function of unrecognized missing support and/or understanding. I am currently looking into research on this topic.
Another implicit facet of this question is the “you gotta suffer to sing the blues” argument, that creativity requires adversity. I reject this premise outright as incorrect, unfair, and injurious, as belief in it leads people, especially young people, to make decisions that not only are, as I say, injurious, but also likely to undermine their creativity. There is a romance about this, public conversations about Jackson Pollack or “The 27 Club” being ready examples. Yet, when you look closely, so-called creative suffering ends up being more prohibitive than inspirational.
Creativity arises from what I call “motion toward,” that is clarity of desire followed by action relevant to that desire. Most of what our culture romanticizes as creative suffering muddies that clarity and inhibits action. As you can see, I feel strongly about this and my experience with my patients supports countering the perspective.
In terms of negative impacts to mental health for a life in the arts, there are pitfalls in this as in any career. That said, there are some that are peculiar to it: most prominent, in my mind, is what I call conservatory culture. There is often a pseudo-Darwinism, a kind of toxic elitism embedded in art conservatories, and its students can spend their lives recovering—or fail to recover—from its abuses. It, too, is romanticized in film and other media, but it is a real thing. I’ve had several patients come to me either specifically because they were attempting to cope with it or having already given up on their studied art because of the pain that became associated with it in art school and hoping to move on to other endeavors, sometimes radically distant from everything they had loved prior to being at conservatory.
I don’t argue that all conservatories are evil or that the system has no redeeming value; conservatory education has an important role in developing mastery. Rather, I think that, first, students seeking a conservatory education should take a caveat emptor approach. It is in a student’s interest to familiarize themselves with the culture of the institution they are applying to (I know that this isn’t always easy) and to consider whether its culture is a fit for how they learn best. Some folks thrive in a competitive environment; many creatives don’t. There are many ways to gain mastery in a creative field. I encourage people to find a path that best fits them.
