Contact Us
hello@earlymusicshop.com
hello@earlymusicshop.com
Meet the Makers: Celebrating Handmade Day
To mark National Handmade Day (4th April), we’re celebrating the makers behind the instruments we offer at the Early Music Shop.
We’re delighted to work with a range of specialist craftspeople, including Matias Crom, known for his beautifully made plucked string instruments; Paris Andrew, whose work is inspired by medieval sources and historical iconography; and Tony Millyard, a highly respected maker of early wind instruments. Each brings their own approach, experience, and personality to the instruments they create — shaping not just how they look, but how they sound and feel to play.
We spoke to them about how they began, what goes into their work, and why handmade instruments continue to hold such an important place for players today.
––––––––––––––––
1. What first drew you to making early instruments?
Matias Crom:
My love for the SOUND of Renaissance and Baroque. I make tools for musicians that are beautiful, that can interact with other instruments and create the best invention of humanity, the music. But what i really craft is that "sound", and i do it with the sensibility earned after many years of experience and study of instrument making and design.
Paris Andrew:
Medieval manuscripts! During the years I spent researching English medieval minstrels and their instruments I got to see incredible amounts of surviving manuscripts with their weird and wonderful art depicting not just musical instruments, but also so many strange characters – rabbits jousting on snails and monsters playing citole! This research ultimately led me to start recreating the instruments found painted in these fascinating documents.
Tony Millyard:
Well, back in the 1990s, in my early 30s, I discovered Early Music and decided I wanted to start playing music again after a spell as a teenager playing clarinet in youth orchestras. So, I went on a 9-day course to learn how to make a Curtal on a course at West Dean College being tutored by Eric Moulder. (It was cheaper to go on the course to make the instrument than to buy one from Eric.) It combined my hand skills learned as an apprentice in the aerospace industry with the possibility of playing some Early Music on the course.
2. Why should someone choose a handmade instrument over a factory-made one?
Tony Millyard:
Factory made instruments are great if they come from a good factory, but with handmade instruments, you will have an instrument made after considerable research and development to get an end result which is unique to the maker. And being able to go back to the maker for modifications or repairs if necessary in the future is a big benefit.
Matias Crom:
It has to do with this sensibility and character that the maker puts into his instrument, which gives it that distinctive voice and playability which is all a good musician needs.
Paris Andrew:
These days, there are some great factory instruments on the market and I think the quality has improved massively making them great for accessibility – however a handmade, hand carved instrument takes into consideration so many delicate factors that affect the sound, timbre and playability such as high quality wood, thickness of the plates and the fact that each handmade instrument is unique and carries the hands of the maker.
3. Do you have a favourite wood to make an instrument with? Why?
Paris Andrew:
For the belly, I always use spruce that I hand select and collect from Val di Fiemme in the north of Italy, a community that has been sustainably producing the highest quality tonewood for centuries. For the back, I love maple for a brilliance and power for smaller instruments but am also incredibly fond of pear wood and willow for larger instruments.
Matias Crom:
Yes, Pearwood! Also I use high mountain spruce Austrian Alps as I find it the best for lute tops.
Tony Millyard:
English Boxwood is my favourite wood. Going to the old ancestral estates to select trees and then seasoning it for 5 years gives you a great connection to the wood. It is just lovely to work with, has a fantastic sound and looks great. It can be really frustrating when you are halfway through making an instrument and you find a fault in the wood, or even sometimes a shotgun pellet, but the end result is always worth the risk.
4. Is there a detail in your instruments that players might overlook, but you consider essential?
Matias Crom:
What I see in musicians is that they go for playability first, then sound, and finally looks.
So, if I want them to stop on my elegant carving of the rose, I have to make it easy to play and with a great voice.
Tony Millyard:
On the oboes and flutes I make, the thing that makes the instrument come alive at the end of the process is making sure the bottom of the finger holes have a smooth transition into the bore. No whiskers of wood or sharp edges which set up tiny vortices of air which take power from the notes.
Paris Andrew:
I think one of the fun things about being a maker is knowing how much is going on inside an instrument! Especially for violin family and viola da gamba family instruments there's a whole world of work inside the body that a lot of musicians aren't necessarily aware of! And I always write a small secret message on the front plate where no one can see it...
5. Do you have a favourite instrument to make, and why?
Paris Andrew:
I think at the end of the day I will always be a violin kind of woman! Though I adore my very early babies like vielle and rebec, and of course the magnificent bass viola da gamba, I always return to making violins – even the new ones feel like old friends somehow!
Matias Crom:
My favourite is the lute family just because it has been so kind and noble to the Crom Family.
Tony Millyard:
Of the instruments I make, I think the oboe da caccia is my favourite. It is just crazy to make the bend in the body work well. I love the transition from the rough bent body covered in saw cuts and glue, to it being covered in black leather ready to go off to its new owner. It’s a bit like making sausages; you don’t want to see how it’s made, but the end result is great.
6. What advice would you give to someone choosing a handmade early instrument for the first time?
Matias Crom:
Be careful with early music, it’s a VIRUS!
Paris Andrew:
Go with your gut impression. Trying new instruments is very difficult because a freshly made instrument may need about 6 months to open up and reach its full potential in terms of volume, so when you're trying the instrument it's important that you love the tone and playability and are ready to get to know it and grow with it together which is such an exciting journey.
Tony Millyard:
Talk to other people who know about the instrument you are planning to buy.
––––––––––––––––
What comes through clearly is that no two handmade instruments are ever quite the same. Each reflects the choices, experience, and character of its maker – from the selection of wood to the smallest hidden details inside.
For players, that means more than just an instrument – it’s a connection to the craft behind the sound, and to a long tradition of making and music-making that continues today.
A big thank you to Matias, Paris and Tony for sharing their insights with us!