Jonathan Cooper... Violinmaker

Amazing Grace. How sweet is the sound. Amazing Grace, recorded in the notable All Hallows Church in the Gospel Oak section of London. Sung by the opera star Renee Flemming, accompanied by world renowned violinist Mark O'Connor. The violin made in Portland, Maine. So, what I'm doing now is I'm cleaning the cross here, to help create that curve. I'm using a very small plane. And I'm swerving across. Almost like lines on a TV set, creating a curve, one line after the other. And I can tell from the sound that the plane makes. Jonathan Cooper is a violin maker and a tradesman. He builds his violins to match the unique needs of musicians like Mark O'Connor. You know, one of the more interesting parts of the trade is that you have to be, you have to be fluent in a number of different things. You have at least have a basic understand of a lot of different things. You have to understand metallurgy to an extent to understand your tools. You have to understand art to understand form, you have to understand sound to certainly deal with what you're creating and what people are telling you. I think that's very, very important, and history to know the context of where these things come from and where they're going. Because certainly the violin is an icon. It's clear what it is. Jonathan is good at what he does. He's created over 325 instruments since the mid-eighties. At 15,000 a piece, they're an investment. Artists like Alex and Tatiana Hargreaves along with recording artist Bruce Molsky use his instruments to perform both classical and Bluegrass music, Playing them as both violin and fiddle. In 1801, taking on. In 1801 taking on. In 1801 You know, they are essentially. It is the same instrument, just a different name. It's the same body shape. The same size. There is no difference. It's just a term. In most people's minds, fiddle has come to mean, you know, maybe more country oriented or folk oriented kind of piece of the instrument. But the really the name is interchangeable. I mean, there are violinists who call it their fiddle, and there are fiddle players who call their violin and so. With all of Jonathan's success. You might expect him to be a little taken with his talent. But he's not. He's grateful for his trade, and he's enthusiastic about the work. I just extremely fortunate that I can, you know, get up every day and do something I'm interested in. I'm thrilled by it. You know, every day for me to work on it is thrilled by it. I don't ever come in here look at it and go, "Oh God, I got to make a violin. Heaven help me." You know, I always look at it like I can't wait to do that. I got this idea I want to try out. I have this varnish thing I want to work on. I still remember how that last thing I did, I want to like see if I can alter that a little bit. All violin makers, we are always, at least everyone I know, is always in pursuit of making a better instrument. And, you know, I just feel grateful to have the time to do it, to have discovered it early enough in my life so that I could do it. But Jonathan not only builds violins, he plays them. Does he think of himself as a fiddler or a violinist? Oh, I'm a fiddle player. I mean, I'm not a trained violist, not a classical violinist at all. I was self taught, I was a guitar player. And you know the odd thing about it is, that a lot of times when we'll get together in some sort of collegial situation where there'll be a whole lot of violin makers who are working for classical players as well. We'll sit around and play fiddle tunes for the most part, or a lot of us will. Some of us will go off and read quartets with other players. But a lot of violin makers are full time fiddle players or Bluegrass fiddle players. I like that fiddle. What was the name of that? That was Booth Shot Lincoln. Oh okay. Yeah. That's a nice part to be able to make something that you can play. From Portland, Maine. This is Scott Bliss.