ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (KRQE) – Over at the University of New Mexico (UNM), a select number of students each semester have the opportunity to learn how to handcraft a violin using tools and methods. The process takes about five semesters and hundreds of hours, but students walk away with more than an instrument at the end.
Over the course of several semesters, students make one violin, a process that takes about 400 hours. The work is almost entirely done by hand.
“While you do get more and more proficient with tools, every step of making a violin that’s a different skill. That’s what I think is very challenging about this process,” explained third-year violin student at UNM Kedar Patwary.
The class launched back in 2008 with just a handful of students, quickly growing in size and popularity. It has a growing wait-list of over two years. “A lot of people would like to take the class. I waited about two and a half years,” said student and UNM Professor Scott McIndol.
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Klarissa Albrecht is a student turned class instructor. She came to UNM exclusively for this class as an undergrad, “Well, I knew from the first moment in the violin making shop that this is what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. And that has not changed,” she explained. “To make anything with your hands is just so incredibly satisfying, and then something like this, which is hundreds of hours and so intricate, and then, you know, to look back and say, ‘I’ve made that,’ and then that someone can also play it.”…