October 16-22, 2003

cover story

The Craft

BEADS AND BOWS: Omomola Iyabunmi holds up a sekere (left). Elizabeth Shaak fires up another bow (right).

Meet some local musicians who make the instruments they play.

by Mary Armstrong

Chris DiPinto, guitar-maker

If you watch Late Night with Conan O'Brien, you might have already seen a DiPinto guitar -- a number of them, in fact. Frequent Late Night guests Los Straitjackets, the masked men of rock, are quite taken with Chris DiPinto's space-age/toy design, which inspired DiPinto to create a special Los Straitjackets Galaxie line. And since LS is one of O'Brien's favorite bands, he decided he needed one of those stylish axes, which start at $600, for himself. DiPinto, who runs DiPinto Guitars in Northern Liberties, says visiting Late Night was his biggest thrill yet. For a closer look at these guitars, you can see Los Straitjackets backing Eddy Clearwater at The North Star on Oct. 22. Or you can catch DiPinto with his own band, Wastoid, at various watering holes around town.

It was his dissatisfaction with the guitars available to him that led DiPinto to try his (left) hand at construction. Electric guitars present all kinds of problems with knob placement for southpaws, so he decided to custom-make one. I asked everybody, from Bluebond to Zeidler, to take me on as an apprentice. No luck. So he took a guitar apart and put it back together, adding a bit of visual attitude on the way. When I played it on stage people went nuts; they wanted one for themselves. It looked like a Barbie guitar. That was the idea, it should look like a toy. And play like a pro. When he started in '95, the cost of producing the instruments was beyond what his musician buddies could come up with. But trade shows introduced him to Korean manufacturers, and the rest is candy-apple flake history.

DiPinto Guitars, 631 N. Second St., 215-923-2353, www.dipintoguitars.com.

Elizabeth Shaak, bow-maker

If you already have the violin of your dreams, don't you think you'll need a $3,000 handcrafted bow? Go on, you're worth it, and the place to go is the brand-new Mount Airy Violins & Bows music store on Germantown Avenue. Ask for owner/bowmaker Elizabeth Shaak.

Her original dream was to handcraft gorgeous guitars. I sent out queries to all the shops in Boston, New York and Philly. Fred Oster -- yes, the same guy you've seen on The Antiques Roadshow -- at Vintage Instruments was the only one who would even consider me, so I took a bench and started learning.

While studying to become a luthier, she found that bow-restringing offered a source of steady income. That led to apprenticeship with the late Adolph Primavera and a similar turn at a workshop on the Rue de l'Opéra, Paris. Shaak recalls interviewing with one of the masters there, who asserted that women's talent really lay in repair rather than creation. I asked him, ¹Wouldn't I do better repairs if I knew how to make them?' Harrumph was the answer, so Shaak apprenticed elsewhere. She's been a master bow-maker for 16 years. She hopes her store, which focuses on stringed instruments of all sizes, will become a community resource for all types of local players -- classical, jazz, folk, you name it.

Mount Airy Violins & Bows, 6665 Germantown Ave., 215-438-9031,www.shaakbows.com, and coming soon, www.violinsandbows.us.

Michael Copeland, flute-maker

You've heard the sounds of Michael Copeland's world-famous pennywhistles, even if you're not an Irish music lover. Think of the Budweiser commercials, with the whistle-playing and the Clydesdale horses making eyes. Movie fans will remember Eric Rigler playing a Copeland whistle on the soundtrack for The Road to Perdition. Seamus Egan, Paddy Keenan and Liam O'Flynn are all great endorsers of Copeland's work, particularly the low-D whistle. He's renowned for his handmade whistles and for breathing new life into Clarkes, the world's best-known, factory-made whistles, when he redesigned the mouthpiece. But they are not his first love.

Copeland's passion is for handcrafting 19th-century-style Irish wooden flutes. And he's delighted with the 21st-century computer-driven tools he's recently acquired for his Cherry Hill workshop. They can very accurately knock off a lot of the grunt work, leaving him more time for the hand-filing, finishing and voicing of the instruments, he says. Only I can do that. He charges $270 for the brass high D, and $700 for sterling low D. The keyless black wood flute is a little less than $1000.

It's been a long, interesting road for the son of a jazz player who grew up in a family of four sons so close in age that they were their own rock band. Youthful wanderings finally brought him to Philadelphia, where he set up shop with Fred Oster at Vintage Instruments, like Shaak. Like DiPinto, Copeland's whistle-building success came from taking one apart and building his own improved version, altering the mouthpiece to make an instrument always in full voice and always in tune, a modern miracle in whistles. With the whistles now in order, Copeland hopes to redevote himself to flute-making.

Copeland Woodwinds Co., 215 Cuthbert Blvd., Cherry Hill, N.J., 856-486-7729, www.copelandwoodwinds.com.

Omomola Iyabunmi, sekere-maker

For many, many years, Omomola Iyabunmi has been a leader among those retracing/retrieving/reviving their African heritage. Among her projects are the Women's Sekere Ensemble, which spreads African culture in song, accompanying themselves on their namesake bead-covered gourds (pronounced SHAY keh ray).

Iyabunmi recalls going to New York to get her first sekere. It played well enough, but the colors of the beads didn't suit her. I wanted to change it, so I went to a friend of mine who knew how to knit and crochet. She studied [the sekere] a while and said sure, she could show me how to restring it. That was the beginning of Iyabunmi's long career as a sekere-maker, and a highly independent one at that. I have to be in the mood for stringing. I just can't do it every day. But when I do get in the mood, I'll sit down and string maybe 10 at once.

So, yes, you can acquire an Iyabunmi-made sekere -- you can even afford one at the modest $45 and up she charges for these gourds covered in plastic beads (Glass is too loud!). Better yet, Iyabunmi shares the technique in inexpensive classes. For her, the sekere-making is one more way to make traditions live. It's not a skill to be kept for one's own profit, but a joy to sow as widely as possible.

For more information, write omomola@aol.com.

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