¡Colores!; 2304; Ann Cole, Disc 1

Right, normally. So, when you're walking in the... I'll see you just to tell. You do? Let me back up. Let's just move that thing. There you go. Yeah. Go. Okay. So walking in the forest or being around trees, do you see instruments in your wood? Not unless I'm in the Pacific Northwest or in the mountains of Europe. Because... Can you start that over one more time and give context? Because you're like... Because my question... Oh! I see... Yeah, I get it. I see violins in the trees of the Pacific Northwest and also, if I'm in Europe, somewhere in the mountains there. Since violin wood is so rare and so picky about where it grows, you can only imagine it

if you're in a pinion forest, for instance. It wouldn't work in a pinion forest, but you know you can only imagine it. Because pinion trees can't be used for violin wood. So... So what are the qualities of a violin wood for a cellar wood? And you're not looking at the camera, are you? I'm looking at you. The qualities for a good violin are... The qualities of wood? The qualities of wood for a good violin are only found in a few forests in the whole world, such as those that grow in Oregon or Washington State and up into Canada. But at very little, you could maybe find one in Alaska, but you certainly couldn't find one in the Southwest. Is that a hard wood? You use hard wood for the top of the violin and more of a...

Oh, I made a mistake. You use the conifer, which is a softer wood, for the top of a violin. But you use a hard wood, such as maple, for the back of a violin. And maple trees grow really well in Oregon, in the rain, that happens there, and they don't grow well in the Southwest. Why wouldn't it? The pinion tree has too many knots. It doesn't have a uniformly straight grain, partly because it's in dry conditions a lot, and it's suffering. And we need wood that's been happy its entire life. So tell me what's the quality of the perfect wood for playing this game? Straight grain, conifer wood for the top, and naturally curly maple wood for the back.

Can you tell by looking at a lot of what it's going to sound like? Actually, people really do go up into the mountains and bunk on trees to find out what they might sound like. Also, we have a core taker that you can drill into a tree with, which gives you a sample of what the grain looks like in the entirety of the tree. So you don't run into knots and things like that. So how long do you take to make an instrument from a log? From log to finish instrument, how long is that process? How much time do you take? Okay. To make an instrument from a log, you first have to spend,

I would say, two weeks in the woods looking for your log, then you have to cut it down. You have to leave it in situ for about 18 months at least so it can dry out naturally. Then you have to ship it to wherever you live. And ideally, you would let it age for about 20 to 40 years before you actually make a violin out of that log. So it probably takes about 50 years from a log to finish violin if you use the best possible wood. Right, which is important. It is very important to use the best possible wood to start out with, the wood that has the best natural tap tone, the most beautiful figure. So naturally, your violin would turn out to be better sounding and better looking due to being patient about.

When you use your wood, what kind of wood do you use? Do you get excited when you know that you have a good piece of wood for a violin? Does it study? It's always exciting to look at a trunk of a maple tree and see the actual bark curving as the ripples form of the growth rings. And you just know I'll write there in front of your eyes is a good tree, which only happens. Maybe if you're lucky, it happens one out of every 200 trees you look at. Can you make a lot of instruments from one tree if you find that tree? Oh, sure. One tree could easily probably last me a lifetime if it's a good tree. Wonderful. When my wood from my very special tree ends up in my shop, then I can start counting the days and the months

until it's a finished instrument, which will probably be around 18 months from start to finish. Just because you have to let the instrument get accustomed to being glued together, you also have to let it sit in between coats ofarnish and not to mention the fact that there's a lot of work in one instrument, especially if you're doing it all yourself. How many different kinds of instruments? Now I specialize in violins, violas, and cellos. Could you describe to me how an instrument attains its soul? Right after an instrument is finished, the sound post is placed inside the instrument through the opening in the F holes,

and it's sort of like a post that stands up by pressure between the top and the back. And this post becomes what I like to call the soul of the violin, because it is what transfers the vibrations of the top, which occur when you bow the string to the back, which then reflects the sound waves out through the F holes and into the ears of the audience. Without this sound post, your instrument is dull and has no power to carry to the back of the auditorium. So it's like a... Yes. The sound post allows for the transfer of vibrations in the instrument to the outside world, and that's the only thing that creates that. So how are you trying to make instrument?

In the old days, you were trained to make an instrument by apprenticeship to an established maker, and you'd start when you were about 13 with this maker, and maybe by the time you were 20s, you could start out and start your own shop. Now, you can still apprentice with someone, but you can also go to various violin-making schools all around the world. And how did you learn? I learned when I was... I started learning when I was in seventh grade, and for my school teacher, I asked him if I could take my school-issued cello home to practice over Christmas vacation, but I had a secret plan.

I decided I was going to re-varnish this instrument because it had graffiti carved in it, and it had been mistreated, and it was all banged up and scratched, and I just thought it should look nicer. So I proceeded to take it all apart, and then I put a sander disk into my dad's drill driver, and sanded it all down with a circular electric sander, until it looked all white and beautiful to my eye. Then I told my mom that we had to go to the hardware store because I needed some orange varnish, because file ends are orange. And so we did. And finally, I found the orange varnish that I needed. I thought you said it was a cello. It is a cello. For the cello, I found some orange varnish

that would do the trick. Turns out it was Sherwin Williams' fence paint, which apparently didn't matter to me when I was in seventh grade. So I re-varnished this instrument, and to me it looked like the most marvelous thing I'd ever seen, and in my memory, it's still the most marvelous instrument that I've ever worked on. And I did have a bit of a shock about 20, 30 years later. I was teaching in my studio, and the student walked in, and lo and behold, she pulled out this kind of ugly yellowish orange cello, and I figured, well, that's okay. It's a school instrument. And then I suddenly realized it was the instrument that I had re-varnished 30 years ago in my dad's basement. And I was shocked. How did it sound?

It sounded okay. Actually, I helped the sound, because the instrument was a mass-produced instrument that they had left too much wood in, and I inadvertently took wood off, which made it sound better. Man, you had some confidence. A lot of times kids have confidence because they don't understand the consequences. And there was no one around to stop me, so I just went for it. That's about how you started learning how to play. Yes, and then let your passion for thickening. That's what really started it. And then I finally found, in the library, a book called Violin Making as It Was And Yes by Heron Allen, and I read it from over and over many times. It starts to finish. And finally, when I was in ninth grade, I got enough wood together that I could start my own violin, which I did.

But then I kept being advised that, come on, Anne, you've got to find something that you can actually make a living with. So I went to college and became a musician and gradually finished the instrument so that when I was twenty-one, I finished my first instrument, and I've been doing it ever since. That's so amazing. I don't know how it happened or why it happened. I just know that it grabbed the violin-making idea just grabbed me from the very first time I realized that someone actually had made this instrument. Mm-hmm. Right, yeah. Yeah, somebody's going to make it. And you know how to play it too, so you need something about your sound quality. A lot of makers don't know how to play, so they can't judge as to whether or not the soul of the instrument is in the right place. They don't have a feeling for, if the instrument is too thick or too thin

or not constructed in a way that would be conducive to producing a beautiful tone. And so they have to go by complete measurements alone. But each piece of wood is different. So if you've cultivated your instinct for this over many years, you can go along with each change in the type of wood that comes along just because trees are individuals as well as we are. Have you ever had a problematic instrument or like a really hard thing that you've had to, you've put it together and you've had to take it apart and you've had to like, like what's the hardest part? Like what's the most heartbreaking part that you've had an experience that kind of just made you want to quit? I've never had a heartbreaking experience making an instrument. I've had hurdles, and I've had problems, but every instrument I've made has turned out okay.

But perhaps, I mean, some of my instruments are better than others. That's for sure. And perhaps it's just my love of everything I create which allows me to keep doing it because I never have a setback with it. It's sort of like your children. You can't really choose. So you like them all. Right. Yeah, I can't play with it. I guess I was going to ask you how you achieve the perfect sound. Nobody can ever achieve the perfect sound. But you get closer and closer as you go along and make more and more instruments and find out more little hidden secrets within the process. But if you have the idea that someday you're going to make the perfect instrument,

you shouldn't start making instruments because we can never get there. It's more of a soul thing rather than like a brittle kind of... It's a subjective... Making an instrument is always a subjective process. You know, so you know, one of the things that I think is really fascinating about yours is that they have kind of an unconventional beauty. You know, like the painting and you kind of give them a name and that way. You're not just a standard blue beard. You kind of have a... Now, how would you tell us about it? My instruments are a reflection of myself. And so I put within them visions from my own life, which usually turn out to be paintings or sometimes inscriptions, various poets or inscriptions that the person has asked me to put in

that I'm making the instrument for. I put in something that makes each instrument unique, which is completely different than label with a number, which, to my mind, makes the instrument into just another thing instead of an individual with its own soul just as the tree in the forest was before we cut it down. There's kind of an unconventional beauty in that. It took some guts, maybe, to do that. Or did you just do it? The guts part of making an instrument has never occurred to me possibly because I started when I was so young. I never realized the complexity of it because I learned so gradually

and because it made sense to me right from the very beginning. I think I've striven for individuality in my work because not just because I want to create something with a unique soul, but because so many things in our life are mass-produced to be direct copies of the one that was just made, and I find that so depressing. So I'm trying to do my little part to convince people that you could go to me, for instance, and say, I want a blue violin and I want one that has an ocean on the inside or a mermaid head or something like that because that's symbolic to my life. And I feel that it's a much different process

than going to a car showroom and picking out yet another mass-produced car in the same way that you would do if you were buying a car, only you're buying an instrument, but I'm trying to say that you can get an instrument that was made just for you with your own personality embedded in it so that it will be part of a partnership that you can develop for the rest of your life as a musician. Could you tell me about that, you know, currently I'm working on a cello called The Autumn Leaves and in the inside I'm going to have a pile of autumn leaves that someone is just raked up there in their yard with the words to a song in the inside called The Autumn Leaves and on the outside it's going to be varnished into an autumn brown

with gold leaf maple leaves sprinkling down the back. Why did you decide on that? I decided on the maple leaf cello because I love trees and plants and ummm, violins are made with maple wood so I think I'll make a maple leaf cello. What is the beauty of a well-used instrument? The beauty of a really well-made instrument is its ability to project and magnify the musical instinct of the performer who's using it

and without a live vibrant instrument the musician won't be able to connect with the audience in the same way that he could if he or she if they were playing on an instrument with its own soul in the beginning. It has to be breath for a second. What do you want to read that for that? When I die I hope I leave instruments to the rest of civilization that will be treasured for it. Maybe a hundred years if we're lucky. If we're really, really lucky I could be like this man named Dassallo who was an Italian and he made instruments very, very similar to the ones in fact his instruments are still played today.

He started making instruments in the 1500s and his instruments are still being played not just as museum pieces but really working instruments. The instruments last for hundreds of years if they're loved and taken care of. Why is it important to you to make this work? The importance of this work to me is not so much what I leave behind but it's an instinct I have almost to make things. I latched on to violin. Violins are various kinds early on in my life and somehow it's just kept its hold over me ever since. I have no explanation. Other than I'm a human who can't leave

anything without me altering it. That's true. I can see that about you for sure. It's wonderful that you know that about yourself. What makes you get up every day? I get up every day wondering what's going to hit me next. I know I'm going to go to the shop but I probably will also at some point work on the latest rock tower that I'm making or the latest plant I'm trying to nurse along into good health etc etc not to mention a myriad of things that could hit me without me even knowing it. So do you thrive on inspiration? Do you thrive on inspiration? I don't call it inspiration. It's just more what drives me is

just really the fact that I'm a human and I think all of us have this starting from when we were caved dwelling people and the only way we could survive was if we could manipulate a piece of flint into a blade twirl a piece of twig into a wood producing fire producing situation. It being human means that you have to alter your environment in order to survive and I think that's what drives me is just that instinct that we all have to alter our environment to make it better hopefully we've gone sort of in the opposite direction lately but hopefully we can turn it around because we are so talented in that regard. So I think I just

I go with my basic instincts which is making things. But it's so not basic. Music is like the, you know, something that I think is embedded in all of us. I think probably we were singing apes before we were speaking apes and I think music is one of our most basic instincts and the instruments that I make partly why I grew to like them so much is that number one, they're an object of great beauty and I think music is one of our most basic instincts so you don't have to listen to them. You can look at them and feel aesthetic joy but they have the added benefit that someone else can pick up this object which has inherent beauty just to look at it and then oh my god they can make a noise out of it

and inspire lots of other people at the same time. You know kind of coming to an ending, you know, I like to read people thinking about something that's important, like not necessarily a lesson or not some kind of wisdom that you want, something that... The wisdom that I've picked up along this journey is patience. Everyone tells me, oh you must have such talent. Oh it must be so much joy for you to do this. It's actually a combination of patience and the willingness to just keep plugging away and working at something until you get to the place where you feel you've really done it this time. So when my words to everyone is that don't think that you have to have talent to do something.

Don't think you have to have it born within you to create something. If you have the desire to have it happen and the patience and the willingness to work on it, it will happen. That's wonderful. What do you hate about it? The hardest part about making instruments or making anything that you hope that someone else will also love is the thought that perhaps it won't be loved. Maybe no one will like it. Maybe no one will take it home. It's almost the feeling you get when you see a litter of starving kittens you want to find a home. So my worst fear is that I'll make instruments that have no home. But so far most of them have been lucky and they found them.

So it's just a fleeting sense of, ooh, what if it doesn't find a home? Right? That's the hardest part. Is there anything you hate about me? There is absolutely nothing I hate about making instruments. It's a joy to me every single day. What do you love most about me? I love most about making instruments and I love the actual process, the actual feeling of the wood under your hands and then looking at the fact that on my maple leaf cello just recently I've gotten the leaves to stand out on the scroll in a way that, ah, that's it. You're great in here, though. That was great. I think we can wrap it. Is there anything we...

All right, and I'm recording. Back all the way back down. Do your leg down. And not looking at us. Now what do you want to do? I'm ready. Hi. So, ready. Freeze.

And ready. Good, and hold on, don't go down yet. That looks pretty. It's a wood from this area or in there. Not really. That's other kind of stuff. And did you show that room that he's in at all? No. That's the main one.

He's joking. Push it in. If... Since I'm like lighter, can I hold the camera? If she's on the... I can use the tripod. The tripod? Yeah. Because the tripod is not very heavy, I can just set the camera on the tripod here and then I can go up without having to hold the camera. Oh. Wait. Just come down. Does the red light not come on, Anthony? It does on the back. Okay, it's on. It's going to be pretty while we shot.

I don't think I can hold it too much steadier with my weight. I wonder if I can. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. All right. Finally, did you find a friend?

She thinks of music. She's such a flirty little thing. Oh, she loves you. She's really cool cat. Tell me when you want me to try to get her to... What is it about now? Can you come over here to the corner? I'm out of the shot. Nothing like the perfect star.

Why don't you go ahead and come up and start putting the cat? Do I turn on the light? I don't know.

Move the lamp away from your face. There you go. Turn it towards you. There you go. Turn it towards you.

Turn it towards you. Turn it towards you. Turn it towards you. Turn it towards you. Turn it towards you.

Turn it towards you. Turn it towards you. Turn it towards you. Turn it towards you. Turn it towards you.

Turn it towards you. Turn it towards you. Turn it towards you. Turn it towards you.

Turn it towards you. Turn it towards you. Turn it towards you. Turn it towards you.

Turn it towards you. Turn it towards you. Turn it towards you. Turn it towards you. Turn it towards you.

Turn it towards you. Turn it towards you. Turn it towards you. Turn it towards you.

Turn it towards you. Turn it towards you. Turn it towards you. Turn it towards you.

Turn it towards you. Turn it towards you. Turn it towards you. I'm working on a quartet of instruments, a cello, two violins and a viola.

This cello right here will be for this scroll that I just cut out. The next step would be to chip out the inside of the cello just as if I was making a canoe. This is how I made the first five cellos that I made. Now in the day of mechanization, I'm going to use a fancy router. Turn it towards you.

Turn it towards you. Turn it towards you. Turn it towards you. Turn it towards you. Turn it towards you.

Turn it towards you. Turn it towards you. Turn it towards you. Turn it towards you. Turn it towards you.

Turn it towards you. Turn it towards you. Turn it towards you. Turn it towards you. Turn it towards you. Turn it towards you.

Turn it towards you. Turn it towards you. Turn it towards you. Turn it towards you. Turn it towards you.

Turn it towards you. Turn it towards you. Turn it towards you. Turn it towards you. Turn it towards you. This file is getting its ribs placed onto the instrument. That way I can also make each instrument an individual.

Then when it's all glued together with these blocks, the instrument will look like this. Turn it towards you. Turn it towards you. Turn it towards you. Turn it towards you.

Turn it towards you. Turn it towards you. After each rib is glued in place, it looks like it's becoming a real instrument. Now I will glue in what's called the linings, which reinforce the rib structure so that it has a gluing surface for the top and the back. Can you just do that part again with the green? Let me show you. The linings are glued in next,

in parts of reinforcing and also a gluing surface for the top and the back. It's attached with high glue and close pins. You know, we better stop this disc because it's about to go out.