{"id":1017,"date":"2012-11-09T07:00:56","date_gmt":"2012-11-09T15:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.kqed.org\/makingof\/?p=1017"},"modified":"2012-11-09T07:00:56","modified_gmt":"2012-11-09T15:00:56","slug":"the-making-of-a-violin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/makingof\/2012\/11\/09\/the-making-of-a-violin\/","title":{"rendered":"The Making Of&#8230; a Violin"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Remo del Tredici began making violins in his 70s. Inspired by his neighbor, a volunteer for AmVets, and the memory of his brother who was killed during WWII, he began giving away his violins to vets.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/w.soundcloud.com\/player\/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F66667583&amp;show_artwork=true\" frameborder=\"no\" scrolling=\"no\" width=\"100%\" height=\"166\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>LISTEN ABOVE<\/strong> to full radio story featuring Remo del Tredici, Bill Roberts, Robert Martin, &amp; and Earl Annecston heard on The California Report, KQED<br \/>\n<strong>Produced by The Kitchen Sisters &amp; Lisa Morehouse with Nathan Dalton<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/makingof\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/61\/2012\/11\/remo-in-shop.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-large wp-image-1019\" title=\"remo-in-shop\" src=\"http:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/makingof\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/61\/2012\/11\/remo-in-shop-620x413.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"620\" height=\"413\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u201cSee my name in there? It says Remo Del Tredici, San Francisco, 2009.\u201d In a workshop, set behind a modest stucco house in San Francisco\u2019s Sunset district, 92-year-old Del Tredici points at his signature, written on the inside of a violin. &#8220;See those necks hanging up there? Out of a block of wood that&#8217;s what I carve, no nails, no screws.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Remo picks a violin up off his workbench. \u201cThis is curly maple,\u201d he says tapping on the belly. \u201cI can make one in a week if I work eight to ten hours a day. Then the varnishing will take another week.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Bill Roberts used to live down the street from Del Tredici. \u201cI saw Remo loading up someone\u2019s trunk with a bunch of violins,\u201d Bill says,\u00a0\u201cand I wondered, what&#8217;s this guy doing? Where did all those violins come from?\u201d The two men became friends and Bill soon found out.\u00a0Over the last fifteen or so Remo has been making violins &#8212; more than 100 of them. And giving them away.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/makingof\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/61\/2012\/11\/remoplayingviolin.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-large wp-image-1020\" title=\"remoplayingviolin\" src=\"http:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/makingof\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/61\/2012\/11\/remoplayingviolin-620x347.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"620\" height=\"347\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou walk into Remo\u2019s practice room and you see 30, 40 violins that he\u2019s made.\u201d Bill volunteers with AmVets at the War Memorial Building in San Francisco. &#8220;This light bulb goes off in my head,\u201d he remembers. \u201cViolins for Vets.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Born in Italy in 1920, Remo came to San Francisco with his family when he was two. His parents gave him a violin when he was a boy, and he took lessons and started to learn to play.\u00a0When he was fifteen his father died.\u00a0It was the Depression, and his mother couldn\u2019t afford lessons. But\u00a0Remo kept playing throughout high school in a Western band. \u201cTwo violins, a guitar and a guy on washboard,\u201d he laughs. They performed at Veterans Hospitals around the Bay Area, like the one on Clement Street in the Richmond district. &#8220;One night in 1937,&#8221; Remo remembers, &#8220;we were playing at a Vet&#8217;s Hospital in Palo Alto. Coming back home we were riding in a four door sedan with no top on it. And there was a car stalled and the driver ran into the back. We all flew out. I woke up in the hospital. One fellow got killed.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s when Remo quit. \u201cI didn\u2019t touch the violin again until I reached my 70s.\u201d After high school, Remo worked in a bakery and a market. \u201cI learned how to clean chickens and fillet a fish!\u201d Then, for 45 years, he worked on automobiles, specializing in electrical carburation and fuel injection. \u201cIt\u2019s in my genes, I guess. My father used to make homemade root beer, resoled out shoes, maybe I took after him. I guess everyone is born to do something, somewhere. I always liked to tinker.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In 1996, Remo pulled his old violin out of the closet and tried to play. \u201cI was terrible, terrible!\u201d he laughs, so he started taking lessons. \u201cBoy I really wanted to learn and see what I could do at my age.\u201d It came into his mind one day while he was playing, \u201cGee I wonder if I could make one? I&#8217;ve always been making a lot of things, let&#8217;s try a violin.\u201d He taught himself with books, and by ordering violins off of eBay, taking them apart and studying the minute variations in wood thickness. He built so many that he started giving them away to schools and other students at the Community Music Center in San Francisco where he takes classes.<\/p>\n<p>In August 2012, Bill invited Remo to an AmVets luncheon at the War Memorial Building to share his story and craft. Remo brought along eleven violins. \u201cBill Roberts is the one who instigated it,\u201d remembers Remo, \u201cand I said, \u2018Sure!\u2019 Let\u2019s take these violins here and bring them down there and give them to any veteran that would like to play around with it or learn it sincerely.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere were thirty-five or so veterans in the room and they were enthralled,\u201d says Bill. \u201cSome of these vets hadn\u2019t touched a violin since high school. Everybody wanted a violin.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Earl B. Annecston, an 86-year-old vet who served in the Navy during World War II and the Korean War was at the meeting and received one of Remo&#8217;s violins. \u201cI always wanted one, don\u2019t ask me why. It was just something that was in the back of my mind, and here he was giving them away and I thought \u2018Gee it would be nice, you know.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/makingof\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/61\/2012\/11\/walterdeltredici1.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-1073\" title=\"walterdeltredici\" src=\"http:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/makingof\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/61\/2012\/11\/walterdeltredici1-300x169.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\" \/><\/a>Remo was in the Coast Guard, and his brother Walter was in the Air Force, stationed in Italy during WWII. \u201cFrom there he went on bombing missions across the Adriatic Sea,\u201d Remo remembers, \u201cand the plane was hit. It caught on fire. He and two others were the only ones to get out of the plane. To this day we don&#8217;t know how he died. Whether he made it all the way down with his parachute or was executed. I don&#8217;t know how he died.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>At his workshop, Del Tredici shares a fine point of violin construction, as he fishes for a tiny piece of wood rolling inside a violin. \u201cThe sound post is a little piece of wood inside,\u201d he says. \u201cThe French call it the ame, the soul. It\u2019s the soul of the violin.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/makingof\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/61\/2012\/11\/Screen-shot-2012-11-06-at-10.46.20-AM.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-large wp-image-1021\" title=\"remohand\" src=\"http:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/makingof\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/61\/2012\/11\/Screen-shot-2012-11-06-at-10.46.20-AM-620x350.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"620\" height=\"350\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Robert Martin also received a violin that day and is visiting Remo in his workshop. \u201cIs this incredible or what? Every one of them made from scratch.\u201d Martin, who served in the Air Force from 1959 to 1963, plans to start lessons soon. \u201cI got to know Bob Martin, one swell of a guy,\u201d Remo says. \u201cHe\u2019s very happy to get a violin. And that\u2019s what it\u2019s all about. I\u2019m glad to make them, so I give them away, donate them.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Earl Annecston takes his violin off the wall and plucks the strings. \u201cAnybody that can make something like that,&#8221; Earl says, &#8220;I think it\u2019s just a piece of himself that he gave. He wanted to give them to people that have served. What else can you ask from a person? When they give a present, they give a piece of themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>SPECIAL THANKS<\/strong><br \/>\nRemo del Tredici, Bob Martin, Bill Roberts, Earl B. Annecston, Helen Wong at AmVets, Community Music Center San Francisco, Julia McEvoy, Victoria Mauleon, Ceil Muller.<\/p>\n<p><strong>MUSIC<\/strong><br \/>\nMegragjak A Tuzet, by Csokolom<br \/>\nThe Fate of Ellen Smith, by Green Baily<br \/>\nRigoletto, Act III, by Giuseppe Verdi, performed by Thomas Harper, Michael Halasz, Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra<br \/>\nPrelude and Yodel, by Penguin Cafe Orchestra<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Remo del Tredici began making violins in his 70s. Inspired by his neighbor, a volunteer for AmVets, and the memory of his brother who was killed during WWII, he began giving away his violins to vets. LISTEN ABOVE to full radio story featuring Remo del Tredici, Bill Roberts, Robert Martin, &amp; and Earl Annecston heard &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/makingof\/2012\/11\/09\/the-making-of-a-violin\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">The Making Of&#8230; a Violin<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11456,"featured_media":1021,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[27,139,386,559,666,667,673,699],"coauthors":[],"series":[],"affiliates":[],"programs":[],"collections":[],"interests":[],"class_list":["post-1017","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-amvets","tag-community-music-center","tag-korean-war","tag-san-francisco","tag-veterans","tag-veterans-day","tag-violins","tag-world-war-ii"],"acf":{"template_type":"standard","featured_image_type":"standard","is_audio_post":false},"template_type":null,"featured_image_type":null,"is_audio_post":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/makingof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1017","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/makingof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/makingof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/makingof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11456"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/makingof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1017"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/makingof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1017\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/makingof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1021"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/makingof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/makingof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/makingof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1017"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/makingof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=1017"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/makingof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/series?post=1017"},{"taxonomy":"affiliates","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/makingof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/affiliates?post=1017"},{"taxonomy":"programs","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/makingof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/programs?post=1017"},{"taxonomy":"collections","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/makingof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/collections?post=1017"},{"taxonomy":"interests","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/makingof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/interests?post=1017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}