Indeed, thousands of stringed
instruments on the U.S. market now hail from a country far removed geographically
and culturally from the European tradition of string music, and this
Asian nation has become a major lutherie center.
As recently
as five years ago, there was little love for Chinese-made violins among
American instrument buyers and sellers. Since then, however, those instruments
have taken the market by storm—especially at the introductory
student level—thanks to a combination of improvements in quality
and low prices made possible by cheap labor costs. 
Yet it's impossible to say
how many workshops and factories in China are making and manufacturing
stringed instruments. "I've been to dozens of them, and I don't
think I've even scratched the surface," reports Stephen Sheppard,
president and owner of Tucson, Arizona-based retailer Southwest Strings.
"It's a big country."
What's In a Name?
Like many domestic manufacturers,
distributors, and retailers, Southwest Strings has become an active
partner with the Chinese violin industry, selling both factory-produced
instruments under the Klaus Mueller label and workshop-made instruments
in the Yuan Qin line.
Even the stores that carry
these instruments don't always know who has made them. "We don't
know where the workshop is unless our suppliers tell us," explains
Matt Zeller, an apprentice violin maker at Donley Violins in Charlotte,
North Carolina. "We have suppliers who have family-owned workshops
and others who will deal with anyone."
That confusion is widespread.
"It’s laughable how much rebranding and mismatching and criss-crossing
is going on," adds Jason Torreano, product manager for the string
brand of the Music Group (formerly Boosey & Hawkes Musical Instruments),
which sells its Chinese instruments under the Andrew Schroetter brand.
"I wouldn't be surprised if [a single] instrument workshop in China
was producing instruments that in the U.S. are being sold under ten
or 20 names."
In fact, the import and
sale of Chinese stringed instruments has become so widespread that there's
literally no way to tell all the names under which they're being sold
here. Many of the instruments come to the United States unlabeled, and
wholesalers and individual shops attach labels to them that give no
suggestion of their provenance. "They'll take an Italian-sounding
last name and stick a first name on it, like Medici Alfredo," Zeller
observes.
"Different
shops do varying levels of additions," Torreano elaborates. "Some
will buy instruments in the white and then do varnish and setups. Others
will regraduate tops, put in the bass bar. Others are buying them completely
made and just putting in a label and adding strings. Once they put their
own shop label on it, you won't be able to track a lot of Chinese instruments,
because at a certain point they lose their original identity."
To complicate the question
of instrument origin further, violin makers in other countries also
are importing Chinese-made instrument bodies in the white and finishing
them in their shops. This practice allows luthiers in Germany, for example,
to claim that the instruments are German-made, since 40 percent of the
work (the legal minimum) is performed there.
For consumers and dealers
intent on identifying the origin of their instrument, the profusion—and
confusion—of names and labels for Chinese-made instruments poses
a dilemma. Fortunately, by all accounts the quality of many of these
instruments is good, especially by the standards of the beginner level
at which they're having the greatest impact.
It wasn't always so.
A Dramatic Change
Not long ago, Chinese stringed
instruments were maligned as not much better than firewood. The great
improvement in their quality is one example of how the advent of a free-market
economy and globalism in China has changed both Chinese industry and
Western commerce.
In the past, according to
Sheppard, Chinese instrument making was done under the control of the
Communist Party, which put political bosses in charge of manufacturing.
"The bosses didn't know anything about violin making," he
says. "That's why the violins had such poor quality. It didn't
matter if you made a good instrument or not. With the recent political
reforms, [manufacturing operations] now have to make a profit. Therefore,
they need to let the free-enterprise system take over, and they have
to make good-quality instruments."
The results of that change—prompted
by a Chinese government edict that all national industries must eliminate
graft, switch to a free-market model, and turn a profit by 2003—have
proved impressive. "Generally, they're pretty good," Zeller
says of the Chinese-made stringed instruments he's seen since the political
reforms took effect. "I've got to say I'm impressed with the quality
of the instrument you can get at a low price. They've brought the low
end of the market way up in quality while still keeping the price at
a low point.
"For the beginning
student they're the absolute best out there, because you can get a better
quality instrument than a European instrument for several hundred dollars."
Finely Crafted
Zeller also admires the
overall workmanship of the Chinese instruments he sells, particularly
the graduation on the tops and backs and the Strad-model f-hole placement.
Although varnishes on instruments below the $600 range tend towards
what he calls "shiny lacquer stuff," past that point instruments
typically come with a good-quality spirit varnish. The most common problem
he encounters is necks set at the wrong angles, which Zeller says is
typical of all instrument makers in the lower price range.
And because China is home
to some of the planet's last great stands of old-growth forests, the
tonewoods used in the instruments also get good reviews both for durability—Zeller
admires the tight grain of the spruce tops, the flame of the maple backs,
and the warp-free necks on the instruments he's seen and for sound.
Eastman Strings has captured the lionshare of the stringed instrument
market in China, and is now the largest U.S. manufacturer producing
violins there.
"Tonally, the Chinese
woods are usually regarded as providing a warmer, less penetrating sound,"
says Joel Becktell, vice president of Eastman Strings, whose Samuel
Eastman, Andreas Eastman, and Mark Moreland instrument lines all are
handmade in China by expert craftsmen. "The European tonewoods
have a reputation of being more brilliantly focused in their sound."
Thanks to this improved
workmanship and the availability of high-quality hardwoods, there is
an abundance of excellent Chinese violins, violas, cellos, and double
basses available in the United States. In particular, many of the people
interviewed for this article singled out the instruments made in China
under the supervision of renowned California luthier Scott Cao for praise.
The Johannes Köhr line of instruments distributed by Alabama's
Howard Core Company is also highly regarded by industry peers as are
the Eastman and Jay Haide lines.
On the other hand, observers
also warn that China continues to be a source of some terrible violins,
particularly the low-price models sold over the Internet. "When
you get down to the $200 ones, there should be a law against selling
those things," complains Bill McClain of Atlanta Street Violins
in Roswell, Georgia. "They're just selling objects, not real instruments."
He says many of these cheap
Chinese violins come with warped fingerboards and poorly fitted bridges
and soundposts.
"The setup on them
is so horrible that they're virtually unplayable," concurs Richard
Ward of Ifshin Violins in Berkeley, California. "The bridges are
not even fitted, they're just thrown out there." Ifshin sells its
highly regarded Jay Haide line of stringed instruments, which are handmade
in Chinese workshops but set up in the States.
Ward also warns of Chinese
instrument makers who cut corners during construction by leaving out
interior parts, or who use painted white wood, which wears out quickly,
instead of ebony or rosewood for the fingerboard and pegs.
Consumers must rely on retailers
to steer them toward the better instruments because of this variance
in quality, the difficulty of distinguishing between good and bad violins
by name, and the fact that most Chinese instruments are made and priced
for student players (or their parents) who have no knowledge of what
to look for in an instrument. "You have to be sure you’re
at a reputable shop that knows what they're doing," Matt Zeller
recommends. "You get a lot of people on the Internet who are really
just selling trash."
Despite
the presence of junk instruments, many Chinese-made student-level violins
offer exceptional value at relatively inexpensive prices, which generally
range from about $400 to $800 at the retail level (although they can
go much higher and lower). As a result, they've quickly taken over a
commanding share of the market for new string-music students. By some
estimates, Chinese instruments now hold between 50 and 80 percent of
the market for novice violinists.
What's all the more remarkable
about this market penetration is how quickly it happened. "About
three years ago was when it really started to take off," says Alex
Weidner, managing partner of the Howard Core Company. "You go back
five years, and if you came in with a Chinese violin, people were really
skeptical. It has been a dramatic change."
China vs. Europe
That change has come largely
at the expense of European violin manufacturers, whose labor costs prevent
them from competing with Chinese instruments on price and whose reliance
on machine manufacturing now sometimes leaves them behind in quality
as well. Michael Becker, co-owner of Becker Fine Stringed Instruments
in Des Moines (which sells Eastman Strings violins), recalls that for
years the standby instruments for beginners came from such manufacturers
as Glaesel, Knilling, and Scherl & Roth. "Those were the names
that you ran into constantly for entry-level students, and I think the
Chinese instruments have given those instruments competition.
"Today, young players
have infinitely more options than I had," adds Becker, who in addition
to running his music store is a teacher, chamber musician, and violinist
for the Des Moines Symphony.
Yet, European violin makers
still reign supreme at the higher levels of the violin market. "You
don't find [many] high-class instruments [in China], with few exceptions,
and those few exceptions will have difficulty being recognized as such,"
says master violin maker and dealer Fritz Reuter, owner of Fritz Reuter
& Sons in Lincolnwood, Illinois, who sells the Snow line of Chinese
workshop violins.
For
students who have reached the intermediate to advanced level, let alone
professionals, the attention to detail found in European and American
hand-crafted violins makes them the instruments of choice. "You've
got the experienced makers making the high-quality product," acknowledges
Weidner. "They've been doing it for generations. To make a superb
instrument, they've got the knowledge. To make a student-quality instrument,
you can train some workers [to accomplish the task with minimal skills].
To get the detail you need as you move up the ladder, experience is
needed."
Pockets of resistance to
Chinese instruments still remain on the student level, as well. In some
cases, schools have had such bad luck with inferior Chinese instruments
in the past that they have discouraged their students from renting them.
In others, cultural biases remain an obstacle. "Some people will
always want a European instrument, they'll always want a German violin,"
notes H. R. Core, marketing manager for Howard Core Company. 
For the most part, though,
acceptance of Chinese-made instruments has been growing steadily, a
trend that not only is affecting violin manufacturing and sales, but
also is having beneficial effects on an entire generation of aspiring
string musicians. There's little doubt that over the long run the increasing
accessibility and affordability of higher-quality Chinese instruments
will benefit buyers and sellers alike.
"Because
there are so many inexpensive instruments out there," Jason Torreano
says, "the number of kids who are starting on stringed instruments
is multiplying."
Photos (from top to bottom):
ROUGH
CUT: Before the f-holes are hand-trimmed with a knife,
this worker at Eastman Strings' Beijing workshop uses a jeweler's saw
to rough them in.
FINE
TUNING: An Eastman Strings luthier uses heat and moisture
to bend a cello rib in the traditional manner
FINE
TOLERANCES:
When carving tops and backs by hand, luthiers at Eastman Strings' Beijing
workshop use finely calibrated calipers to check thicknesses frequently.
CHUNXIAN
NI: President of Eastman Strings' Beijing operations,
selects seasoned maple for a cello back.
TOOLS
OF THE TRADE: The workbench of a scroll carver at Eastman
Strings' Beijing workshop demonstrates the hand tools used exclusively
in the workshop.
ON
THE CORNER: A luthier at Eastman Strings' Beijing workshop
prepares a cello rib mold by fitting corner and end blocks into their
mortises.
STEP
BY STEP: A luthier at Eastman Strings' Beijing workshop
removes a completed set of ribs from its mold by breaking the glue seam
temporarily holding the corner block in place.
SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME: A luthier
in Eastman Strings' Beijing workshop shapes corner blocks prior to rib
bending.
