Sixteen Years at the Bench
Sixteen years
between wood and sound
Jun Kyungsoo has been making string instruments for sixteen years. The work began with violins, violas and cellos, and one day it reached the violoncello da spalla, the viola d'amore and the viols — instruments that had stood still for three hundred years. Bringing them back has been the centre of the workshop ever since.
Since 2018 he has taken part in China's international instrument exhibition every year. Many of the instruments built here have gone into Chinese early music, and are still being played by historically informed ensembles in Chengdu, Shanghai and Guangzhou. With players who look for these instruments, the instrument came before the border.
He does not thin the plates to make a new instrument sound impressive on its first day. He keeps to the measurements the originals taught him through restoration work — and trusts the instrument that deepens with time.
Measure everything that can be measured
Thickness, weight, arching curvature, tap tone — confirmed in numbers before intuition is trusted. Intuition is only accurate when it stands on measurement.
One pair of hands, start to finish
From choosing the wood to the final set-up, the whole instrument is finished to one person's judgement, without division of labour. That is why the sound has a consistent character.
Study the historical sources
Early instruments cannot be made from imagination. Surviving technical drawings and the documentation of original instruments are brought together into the workshop's own models — instruments that work on today's stages.
Listen to the player first
An instrument is a player's tool before it is a maker's work. The sound they want, the music they play, the way their body sits — the conversation is half of the design.