Malaysia’s first professional violin maker carves out a rare craft

SELANGOR Malaysia AP Hunched over his workbench Tan Chin Seng shaves the wooden top plate of a violin removing thin layers with slow deliberate strokes The work is meditative out of the society eye For Tan transforming raw wood into a violin is a labor of artistry and love The -year-old is Malaysia s first professional violin luthier or maker of string instruments like violins cellos and guitars Over the past decade he has earned international accolades Now he mentors a new generation of makers in a field still little-known in Southeast Asia Traditionally violin luthiers are associated with Europe where masters like Antonio Stradivari and Giuseppe Guarneri shaped the modern violin The craft has spread globally with thriving communities now in China Japan South Korea and Taiwan Tan s path to violin-making was unconventional A computer science graduate who doesn t play the violin he was helping in his family s food business and co-owned a music school In a trip to China to restore an aging violin sparked a deeper fascination with the instrument s construction Curiosity led him to apprentice with Chinese luthier Han Zhao Sheng and he built his first violin After completing the first violin I knew this craft was for me Tan revealed There s woodworking carpentry artistic design There s chemistry acoustics physics everything about violin-making I like it Turning wood into music is just amazing What followed was in Tan s words a crazy devotion He flew back and forth to Beijing for more training then traveled to Italy to inquiry under other luthiers In the early days he would spend up to hours a day hunched over wood perfecting every curve and contour In he committed to violin-making full time The process is painstaking often taking hundreds of hours to create a single violin and requiring intense focus His studio Deciso located in a suburb near Kuala Lumpur is cluttered with chunks of aged wood chisels and jars of hand-mixed varnishes Tan crafts up to instruments a year using spruce for the top plate the wood is prized for its resonance and maple for the back sides and neck Sourced from Europe and at an annual wood fair in Shanghai they are aged for years to ensure tonal quality and prevent warping and cracking Each violin begins with carving and smoothing the wooden boards to precise dimensions Tan declared the top and back plates are shaped to exact thicknesses that affect resonance The ribs are bent and assembled and the scroll is hand-carved at the neck Varnish often a luthier s secret blend is applied in thin layers for protection and tonal influence The last initiatives include cutting the bridge and stringing the instrument Tan s early years were challenging Specific Malaysian clients compared his handmade work to mass-produced instruments But business grew after he won international awards in Italy and beyond This day he builds violins and occasionally violas and cellos mainly on commission Half of his clients come from abroad including France Germany and Hong Kong Each violin sells for euros Tan s journey has inspired others While the greater part of his students are musicians and young people scant pursue it as a transaction due to the demands of the craft Still selected have followed in his footsteps including Chan Song Jie Malaysia s first female violin luthier Nowadays there are two other full-time violin luthiers in the country both trained by him Tan notes that the domestic territory is still too small to promotion several more I would say passion is not enough Tan announced We re all crazy Everyone in this workshop you see they re all crazy We just love the work too much Source