Don Rickert Musical Instruments

Take-Apart Travel Violin by Don Rickert Design

Sometimes you just need to have a travel violin or backpacker fiddle that can be quickly assembled and disassembled and packed into a small box (15" x 9" x 3" deep). By quickly, we mean less than 5 minutes. Well, here it is, the new Take-Apart Travel Violin by Don Rickert Design. And there is more: this fiddle DOES NOT need to be de-tuned and re-tuned every time it is taken apart and later put back together. The instrument actually sounds very good, considering the removable neck and the various mechanisms not found on a regular violin or fiddle. Click on the image below or its caption to see a slide show of how it works. Don Rickert Take-Apart Travel Violin The photos pretty much speak for themselves, though it should be noted that this instrument stays amazingly close to being in tune after being disassembled and then reassembled. The first prototype of this instrument several years ago was Don Rickert's first experiment with a violin without a sound post, as the sound post staying in place was a vexing problem for an instrument that is repeatedly being taken apart and put back together again. Instead of a sound post, this instrument utilizes a "tone bar" or small bassbar under the treble side of the bridge foot. There is, of course, a full-size bassbar under the G-side bridge foot. If anyone would be interested in purchasing this instrument, it will soon be available at: The Adventurous Muse online store The... Read more →

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 →

Tatooed Violins and Fiddles (New Photo Albums)

Please visit the Don Rickert Musician Shop. Don Rickert Lutherie is gearing up to offer custom "tatooing", more properly called "rosing" or inkwork decoration for a number of our musical instruments. This service will be available via our Adventurous Muse Store. We will have a proper article about what we are doing and the history behind it in the next few days. In the mean time, you may enjoy taking a look at four new photo albums on our Facebook site. The New Albums to Check Out Historic and New Rosed and Inlaid Instruments Old Hardanger Fiddle with Elaborate Rosing (Inkwork) Rickert Pochette with Celtic Rosing (Inkwork) Don Rickert Tattooed Fiddles 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 →