Don Rickert Musical Instruments

Tattooed Fiddles by Don Rickert Design

Please visit the Don Rickert Musician Shop. Do you want a "full body suit"...not on you, but for your violin or fiddle? We have not figured out fiddle body piercing yet, but we are working on it. Read on... The decoration of musical instruments has been done for hundreds of years. Such decoration has included inlay work of various types, painting, etching, carving, application of gold leaf and "rosing", the Norwegian nickname for "rosemaling", which is the tattoo-like inkwork one sees on Hardanger Fiddles. Some Historic and Recent Examples Giovanni Paolo Maggini (c. 1580 - c. 1630), while making violins without special decoration, is best best known for his later instruments that two rows of purfling on the top and back. Many of Maggini's instruments are ornamented on the back with decorations such as Saint Andrew's Cross, clover leaves, crests and other motifs. His most famous decorations are designs accomplished by extending the inner of the two purfling rows onto the backs of the instruments to form various designs, as illustrated. You can see more Maggini designs, as well as other historic and recent decorated violins and fiddles in our photo gallery: Historic and New Rosed and Inlaid Instruments Antonio Stradivari (1644 – 1737) is not generally known for elaborate violin decoration. He did, however, produce a number of instruments with complex and beautiful decorations. Many of Strad's decorations look like inkwork, but they are, in fact, inlays. The photo of a quartet of inlaid instruments shows some of Stradivari's... Read more →

A Brief History of Flatiron-Type Mandolins (UPDATE)

Please visit the Don Rickert Musician Shop. Flat-Top Flatiron-Style Mandolin by Don Rickert Design (now Don Rickert Lutherie) and available from the Adventurous Muse Store is of the general type known as either "pancake" or "flariron". It has that mellow, yet still loud and powerful sound sought by Celtic (both Irish and Scottish) players, as well as many Old-Time mandolin players. The ancestor of the Flatiron was a mandolin made by Gibson during the WWI years, known as the Army-Navy (or simply A-N) mandolin. A soldier or sailor could purchase one for $12 and the general public paid $15. This was considerably less than the A1, which sold for about $50, the A4 about $80, F2 about $100 and F4 about $125. The F5 (the original Lloyd Loar model that Bill Monroe played during most of his career in Bluegrass) came out in 1922 for $250, which was a lot of money back then. The A-Ns were durable instruments made to withstand the rigors of trench warfare and the sounded pretty good, to boot. They were suitable, and indeed used, to play all genres of music. The World War I Gibson Army-Navy models became the basic design for the late Flatiron "pancake" mandolins later built in Bozeman MT during the period when Flatiron was an independent manufacturer, and later when Gibson bought Flatiron. Gibson Flatiron mandolins were made well into the 1980s, after which they were owned by Weber Mandolins for a period of time extending into the 1990s. The... Read more →

The William Sidney Mount Historic 1852 “Cradle of Harmony” Violin

The 1852 guitar shaped version of the "Cradle of Harmony" violin by American artist and inventor, William Sidney Mount, is very significant to Don Rickert Lutherie. The shape, bent-plate convex top and bent concave back of this unique violin became important design elements in our first product offerings (then under the name Rickert & Ringholz), our octave violins (also known as baritone violins or fiddles). We now have two versions, each with its own distinct sound: Octave Violin, Rickert-Fiddarci, Darci Jones Model Octave Violin, Rickert-Fiddarci, W.S. Mount Model In the 1840s, the artist, inventor and musician, William Sidney Mount, invented a new type of violin. He received a U.S. Patent in 1852. The violins came in both a trapezoidal and a 'guitar-shaped' form. Both types, instead of having a carved top and back, utilized bent flat plates, the top being convex and the back concave. For this reason, Mount's instruments are sometimes called "hollow-back" violins. There were other differences from regular violins, such as the reverse sound holes on the guitar-shaped version of his instrument. An interesting note is that Mount wrote quite a few fiddle tunes, familiar to Old-Time fiddlers in the Northeast of the U.S. This genre is often called “Down East” style. One of his most famous tunes is ‘Shep Jones' Hornpipe’...the owner of Fiddarci Lutherie, which builds our octave violins under contract, is also named Shep Jones...it kind of gave us goose bumps. Mount's painting, 'Dance of the Haymakers' used Mount's friend Shep Jones' barn as... Read more →