Despite gorgeous spring weather on Saturday, April 23, Toadstool Books in Milford hosted a small, but enthusiastic, and very in-depth discussion about fiddles, musical acoustics and the female violinmaker who changed nearly every paradigm in the violin world—one fiddle at a time—Carleen Hutchins.
Tom Knatt, a luthier who studied with Hutchins and now primarily makes guitars, joined booksmith Toni Syrmopoulos and John Scott, a string bass and bass guitar player, both of Lyndeborough, for an detailed talk about science, Chladni patterns and the violin octet—eight fiddles across the range of written music, from an 11-inch treble to a seven-foot contrabass.
