Sustainable Luthierie: A Pioneer's Guide The luthier has for many centuries striven to improve, hone and evolve

the musician's tool. The search for improvements has led to experimentation with every conceivable resource, often from far afield. This is the reason why great ports of international trade became during the Renaissance and Baroque eras the heart of European luthierie. Thus adua and !enice for example were good places for luthiers to settle" near enough to the coniferous forests for the fir for bellies but also plenty of trade in the more exotic# ivory$ %frican and &ndian, and later 'outh %merican timber. 'o it was that luthiers such as (rei, )ahler and *nverdoben settled in +orthern &taly.

Jost Amman, a 16th century wood-engraver carved this drawing der Lautenmacher

)any of the innovations in material use are now considered traditional. &n fact, & argue, innovation itself is traditional, and the ,conservation- of a particular tradition or choice of wood threatens the survival of our trade, and of course our environment, not to mention ta.ing away our ability to evaluate for ourselves. (irst, let's examine some of the main species, wood and animal, with a long history of use by luthiers and consider their various impacts and the properties that ma.e them desirable. Ivory &vory derives from mammoth, elephant, rhinoceros and walrus tus.. /umans have recogni0ed its qualities of durability, wor.ability, resonance and beauty for over 12,222 years. The oldest surviving musical instruments are ivory flutes from the stone age. )ost sources are either extinct or endangered. /uman predation was li.ely a contributing factor in the extinction of the mammoth. Elephant ivory was once plentiful enough to be used for ma.ing lute ribs, typically alternated with ebony. %s a nut and saddle material it is unsurpassed. &n 3454, 6&TE' banned the trade in ivory# the trade in Europe and *'% was outlawed and the global price thereby crashed. oaching continues, and any trade in elephant ivory products, even material from before the ban, effectively increases ivory's mar.et value and thereby supports further exploitation. )ammoth ivory can be distinguised by its distinctive herring bone"li.e end"grain figure and is a costly but viable alternative for restoration wor.. (or new ma.ing, bone or wood 7eg hornbeam, carpinus betulus, or holly, ilex pauci lora8 are useable alternatives.

!vory theorbo, "ichael #auche, 1$6%, & ' A

Ebony, Diospyros The timber is as beautiful as a polished stone, durable, even grained, easily wor.ed, and the heartwood is very dar. brown or blac.. The dar.ness and uniformity of colour ma.e it the obvious choice of material for fingerboards, where it will wear slowly and not discolour from the sweat and dirt of the player's hands. &t will contrast with any varnish colour and can be invisibly filled with superglue and charcoal or ebony dust. &t is now the ,traditional- material for pegs, tailpiece, endbutton and chinrest. &t was sometimes used for lute ribs, providing a clear and powerful contrast to ivory. There are about 9:2 species of ebony globally, all but a handful in the tropics. )ost are endangered and species reach extinction before the life"cycle has been understood. ;iospyros are important in their native ecosystems in /awaii, 'outh %merica, %frica, )adagascar and %sia, supporting large numbers of endangered insects and mammals. 'ome bear fruits eaten by humans# persimmon or sharron fruit. 6ase study 3# )pingo, %frican blac.wood, dalbergia meloanoxylon( Technically this is a rosewood not an ebony, though blac. in colour. The natives of Tan0ania and <enya eat its fruit and an estimated =2"52,222 woodcarvers in <enya depend upon it for their economic survival. >ocals use it to ma.e tools, charcoal, medicine, and animal fodder. <enya has begun importing ebony from Tan0ania, but it is estimated that supplies will run out in ?2"12 years. @oodwind ma.ers particularly pri0e mpingo. The timber fetches A3?,222 per cubic metre# the most expensive timber from that continent. @hilst some of the high revenue is put into schemes to replant, inevitably the high price ensures over"exploitation. Economic expedience meant that mpingo failed to get protected by 6&TE' when discussed in 3449. %ttempts to grow it in (lorida are meeting with success but it will be a long time before there is a commercial yield. 6ase study ?# /a0omainty, diospyrus gracilipes. This is a species often

used for violin family fingerboards and fittings. Extreme poverty and the government's corruption in )adagasgar fuel the massive illegal logging operations for this timber and rosewood. )uch of this timber is exported to 6hina whose advance payments are very persuasive. &t is then wor.ed into fingerboard blan.s and pegs and sold to Europe and %merica. &t has been explicitly banned since ?222, but cyclone timber is a legal loophole. )usical instrument fingerboards and fittings create a constant high demand. *nless demand alters through public pressure and a 6&TE' ban, the future for )adagasgar ebony is blea..

!llegal ebony and rosewood logged in "adagasgar

Pernambuco, Brasilwood, Pau-Brasil, Caesalpinia echinata. +ote# in the world of archetierie, the name Brasilwood is used to denote any of a number of other %ma0on species used as dyewoods which are not caesalpinia echinata, which is distinguised as pernambuco.

)utting *rasilwood, rom Andre +hevet, Les singularite, de la -rance Antarti.ue, 1//$

&t was first and devastatingly harvested by the ortuguese and (rench for the red dye which can be extracted from it. /eavy and rot"resistant, it was also a perfect material for ship ballast. Exploitation of the wood and the native Tupinamba people began in 3:22. The 3Bth century saw a sharp decline due to over"harvesting and the decimation of the Tupinamba through disease and mistreatment. 6ochineal too. its place as a red dye. ernambuco is endangered, and its harvesting and trade restricted by law. The &nternational ernambuco 6onservation &nitiative is wor.ing to replant this species, but is hampered by the fact that it is a ,climax community species-$ this means it only develops well when planted amongst secondary forest vegetation. Through the process of ecological succession this ta.es a very long time. This wood from which Bra0il ta.es its name has a dense orange"red heartwood and ta.es a fine shine. &t is the wood par excellence for violin bows$ since (rancois Tourte the standard. % violin bow needs to be dense and elastic, durable, wor.able and easily bent. )ass, stiffness and mechanical damping properties are three of the main physical criteria for good bow"wood. % density over 3222.gCm1 is desirable. >ighter stic.s are dubbed ,floaters-. &t should be heavy enough that the lowest bow forces can be achieved by self"weight of bow with only nominal player effort. &t must be stiff to reach hair"tension without over"straightening. The spring stiffness of hair must be high for bow"dynamic control, and the stic. must be laterally stiff for playability. ernambuco has an exceptionally high Doung's modulus for its density and an extremely low loss co"efficient. % few other species represent alternatives, namely sna.ewood, brosimum guianense0 and massaranduba, manil1ara elata( *nfortunately these are also endangered due to habitat loss. 6arbon fibre and bamboo are the most viable contenders for violin bows of the future. Bo wood, buxus sempervirens. Beautiful, dense and stable with low damping, this wood was used extensively in luthierie before the availability of new, exotic tropical hardwoods. Ence much more plentiful, it has been greatly over"harvested, though still relatively common in the yrenees. &t stains beautifully with nitric acid fuming. !astelo bo , lemonwood, calycophyllum multiflorum, is not a true box, but an %ma0onian timber. *nsustainably forested causing much habitat loss, it is available in large .not"free boards, ma.ing it ideal for mass production of

violin fittings. &f a peg costs only A1, it will be tropical, not European box. %s soon as the peg goes in the peg"shaper, the inferiority of this timber is obvious. A Scienti"ic System "or evaluation o" alternative materials Ef the woods used in the construction of violins, the spruce and maplin of the belly and bac. are the only ones sustainably forested. Endangered ebony for fingerboards and fittings, and rosewood for fittings have become the industry standard. Tony )ason of %lexander %ssessories notes that the number of fine violins fitted with rosewood pegs, ebony tailpiece and boxwood chinrest is too great to be without foundation. /e states that rosewood simply wor.s better than ebony for pegs, whilst box has the least damping for a chinrest. >ucchi expressly states that ebony should be used as a fingerboard material because it does not need to vibrate, whereas its high damping ma.e it unsuitable for pegs, tailpieces and chinrests, for which box with its high density but low damping should always be used. Ene can't help but notice the anomaly here# >ucchi clearly does not rate ebony as a tonewood, yet is happy to use it for fingerboards. &s this merely a case of its other desirable qualities, 7colour, durability and it's association as exotic and valuable8, over"riding its unsuitability acousticallyF &'m aware that this assertion constitutes heresy in the violin world. Baroque fingerboards with their light"weight willow or poplar core, veneered in denser ebony add credence to this belief. Thomas )ace tal.s of the acoustic unsuitability of ebony in his )usic.'s )onument, >ondon 3=B=# ,The %ir"wood is absolutely the Best. %nd next to that, Eur English )aple. But there are very Good >utes of several @oods$ as lum"Tree, ear"Tree, Dew, Rosemary"%ir, %sh, 2bony, and !vory, 'c( +he two last 3though most )ostly, and +a1ing to a common 2ye4 are the worst(- Hmy italicsI. 6learly )ace is implying that the use of ebony and ivory is financial and visual in motivation. /earsay and anecdotal speculation are as common as mystification in the world of luthierie. @hat is clearly necessary is a scientific means to test potential materials. The results can then be compared with the more subJective evaluations. The four main obJective criteria for identifying the acoustic suitability of a

proposed material are# 3. ?. 1. 9. the speed of sound within the material the characteristic impedance the sound radiation coefficient the loss coefficient

+he speed o sound5 The speed, c, with which sound travels through a material, is defined as the root of the materialKs DoungKs modulus, E, divided by the materialKs density,d#

c L M ECd
+he characteristic impedance5 This means how much sound pressure is generated by the vibration of molecules at a given frequency. This is related to a material's speed of sound and it's density#

0 L cd L M Ed
+he sound radiation coe icient5 The average loudness. This is a ratio of a material's speed of sound to its density#

R L cCd L M ECd1
+he loss coe icient5 This is the degree to which a material dissipates vibrational energy due to internal friction$ in other words damping#

N L 3CO L PCQ L tanR

/ere O is the quality factor, P is the logarithmic decrement, and R the loss angle. %s we can see the first three equations can all be expressed in terms of speed of sound and density. The density can be easily calculated by dividing the volume by the mass. &n 3451 a luthier and archetier called >ucchi designed a device for measuring the time ta.en for a soundwave to travel through a material. The internal damping of a material is much more complex. The following graphs reproduced from *lri.e G. <. @egst's illuminating paper ,@ood for 'ound- provides a useful visual representation of tonewood properties#

The above graph demonstrates that DoungKs modulus and density are almost linearly correlated. Below we can see how some tonewoods compare in speed of sound and density#

%nd finally a comparison of elasticity and damping#

Possible alternatives to ebony "in#erboards *lri.e G. <. @egst does not discuss fingerboard materials. The properties of ebony most closely correlate however with the woods in these charts labelled as ,woods for wind instruments-, which she ennumerates as ebony, dyospyrus celebica0 Bra0ilian rosewood, dalbergia nigra0 %frican blac.wood, dalbergia melanoxylon0 plum, prunus domestica0 pear, pyrus communis0 and box, buxus sempervirens( lum and pear have historically been used for fingerboards and pegs, ta.ing a stain well and being stable, finely grained and resonant. +owadays, they are considered ,cheap-. % more reasonable obJection is that the additional wear from metal rather than gut strings means they are perhaps not adequately durable for modern demands. Boxwood fits most criteria, but is so white it would quic.ly become unsightly. +itric acid fuming is a possibility, though less simple than for pegs. The fingerboard must be glued, shaped and blended to the nec., then removed and fumed and re"glued. @hen reshot after a few years of

wear, it will require colouring again.

6itric acid umed boxwood ingerboard

*oxwood ingerboard on inished iddle % local timber worthy of consideration is laburnum. @idely planted for

its beautiful yellow flowers, it grows all over Europe and through the Bal.ans. /istorically it was used for /ighland bagpipes and recorders before availability of tropical hardwoods. The heartwood is dar. brown, and dar.ens considerably more with age. +ot requiring staining ma.es it much more desirable from the luthier's perspective. !onclusion There are many possible alternative materials at the disposal of a luthier concerned about the future of his planet and craft. @e must continue to experiment and innovate, and to question which ,traditions- to conserve and which to reJect given current .nowledge and dwindling supply. )any species have been harvested to extinction. @e are players in this game and our decisions will have implications for future generations. Eften luthiers shift the responsibility on the client# ,&'m only delivering what the client demands.- 'upply ends only with extinction, so we simply cannot wait until we are no longer able to obtain the ,traditional- materials, then start loo.ing for the alternatives. @e must present the alternatives so that the clients, better informed, demand them. Ac1nowledgement5 ! am greatly indebted to the ollowing paper or the graphs and e.uations5 American Journal o *otany 7831945 1:87;1::<( %996( =>>? -># @>A6?- AL#!B2 C( B( =2C@+