Interview Transcript from Illawarra Stories Wollongong City Libraries Oral History Project – Roland Stefen
Interviewer: Jo Oliver
Interview Date: Unknown
Jo: Now I’m speaking with Roland Stefen. Thank you, Roland, for being willing to come in and have a bit of a chat. So, can you tell me what your involvement in the Illawarra Folk Festival is?
Roland: You’re welcome. Um, well I’m, I’m a violin, a luthier, I mainly make these days, make violins, violas and cellos. And, ah, so I’ve got the pleasure of having donated the first prize which is the violin that’s in the, ah – it’s not a raffle, it’s a guessing competition, I believe. So, ah, yeah, that’s… And I also do, display my, my instruments here as well.
Jo: Right. And how long have you been making instruments?
Roland: Um, I’ve been making for about 15 years. So, I’ve got to bowed instruments. I used to make guitars first and, ah, I’ve got a little, tiny workshop and I thought ah, those guitars are starting to get a bit too large because you turn around and you, you clonk this and you clonk that. So, and I thought, I’ll, I’ll make a violin. And, ah, I started researching and said, yeah, it should be okay. So, I got some bits and pieces together and started to make a violin. And, ah, sort of halfway through I sort of shook my head and said, “Why the hell did you open this Pandora’s Box!” No, truly, actually there was a moment, because you can make a reasonably good guitar with, y’know, reasonably little effort, but to make a good violin there’s so much more involved, there really is, there’s so much into it. No wonder it took, ah, 550 years, ‘cos the original shape of the violin is about 550 years old now. It’s sort of evolved a little bit but not a great deal. You’re trying, you’re trying to live up to what has already existed from the Golden Period when Stradivari, Guarneri, and Demacis and Bergonzis and all the others were around. And you’re just trying to live up to and it’s, it’s one of those goals you never get to. [laughs]
Jo: No, no. And are you, do you play the violin yourself? Do you know how it should sound?
Roland: No! Oh, no, well, everybody knows like what a dodgy sound sounds like. I mean, you listen to classical music on the radio and all that and sort of admire the sound that comes from them. And just playing the open strings tells you. But I, I tune everything as I go along. Before, like when I carve a piece of wood, I’ll tap it and I’ll listen to it. And like for instance, in a violin, I want the top to be an F. If it’s, if it’s a little bit more than an F, then I know my plate is still too thick in certain places and I’ve got to thin it out a bit. And the back is tuned to an F sharp. Yes, so, so that’s a ratio. And there’s other checks that you do as you go along, as well. And if it doesn’t meet the, my criteria y’know, after two weeks of making say the top, I just discard it and make another one.
Jo: Start again…
Roland: In, in the end my name is on it, so, ah, so you’ve got to be sort of, ah…
Jo: It needs to be right. Yeah. And did you learn this craft from anyone, or…?
Roland: No, no, no. I, it started off, um, I was made redundant from work many years ago now. And, um, I was pretty upset at the time ‘cos redundancy isn’t always a pleasant thing to go through. But I thought, um, I’ll learn the guitar. Went to Dapto Markets and picked up a $50.00 guitar and I thought, oh, that’ll be okay. So, I took it home and I, I, looked at it and I blurted out, “Oh, I could make one better than that!” And that Christmas the family bought me a book on guitar making [laughs]. It sort of ticked over from then I started, started making guitars. And I’ve never learned to play the guitar. Never learnt to play the violin. My interest is, um, is making, you know, I mean I, when people ask me, “You’ve got a lot of patience and all that for making these things.” I said, “Yeah, I’ve got a lot of patience. Patience is a very selective thing. Wife asked me to hang out the washing when I’ve got no patience whatsoever! But, ah, yeah, I, I just, you know, I can make nice ornaments, you know, they, they look nice you can hang them on the wall and admire them. But, ah, I just shake my head at the people that can pick these things up and, and actually do something with it. And then sometimes I truly I just shake my head and think, Did I really make that! [laughs] It’s sort of weird but, ah, it’s different talents, but, ah, yea.
Jo: Yeah. So, do you, do you get to hear then the instruments that you make?
Roland: Oh, yeah, yeah. People come here and play and try ’em out and you go and see them play at concerts that people play in as well, so. And it’s, it’s sort of, you know, nice to know that people can actually can make a living with those instruments as well. So, it’s, ah, it’s nice if someone actually buys one of these and you know, travel worldwide to play, so it’s good.
Jo: And the folk festival here, do you particularly like folk music?
Roland: Ah, I like all music. Ah, probably classical music, you know. Some, some of the diversity that we’ve got of folk music is great. I mean I, I couldn’t listen just to, to one type of folk music all day long. I like the variety of the Scottish, some of the Irish, some of the American and some of the other folk music as well.
Jo: And you, all those different music’s are represented here, are they, all those different types?
Roland: They are, they are. I mean I was listening to, to, to four people in the main, just down here, main ?? they were Spanish or South Americans and they were singing in their native language.
Jo: Yeah.
Roland: People come from far and wide.
Jo: Yeah. I think that’s very linked to culture.
Roland: That’s right, yeah, yeah.
Jo: Yeah, yeah. So, you have, you’ve made this violin that, one of the prizes here.
Roland: That’s right, yes.
Jo: And are there are other instruments here being played today that you’ve made?
Roland: Oh yeah, there’s quite a few violins in the ‘Con Artist’ [laughs] people that come from, ah, from Canberra who’s got, have got some of mine. Some people from Brisbane. Emma Nixon isn’t here this time. Ah, she, she’s not well at the moment and she’s got several of mine. It’s funny that people sometimes buy more than one. [laughs]
Jo: And you sort of keep track of them in a sense.
Roland: Oh, absolutely! They will always remain my babies [laughs] truly.
Jo: Lovely.
Roland: Sometimes people complain they sort of feel you know guilty that he’s got a scratch on it. I say, “Well it’s a fact of life, if it didn’t have a scratch, I don’t think you would have been using it.” [laughs] [sound of phone ringing]. Every, every little…
Jo: And Roland how many instruments would you have made?
Roland: Well not counting guitars, I main-, started off mainly making Gypsy Jazz style guitars. One of the, ah, really good Australian players was Ewan McKenzie’s ??place, that’s from Brisbane and, ah, really like them as well so I’ve got a few of them out there as well. Violins, oh, bowed instruments, it’s the violins, the violas, the cello, yeah, I’ve made about, oh, more than a 160 of them, so it’s been a fair few. Out of the total there I’ve got about 7 cellos, or celli actually, but, ah, yeah. And not many more violas but, ah, the majority’s, ah, violins. But compare that to Stradivari, he made about 1,600 of those and, ah, of those, ah, about 600 still survive.
Jo: Yeah, wow.
Roland: He also made guitars, and harps!
Jo: He probably had some help though, did he?
Roland: Absolutely.
Jo: I think he did. I think that’s amazing that you’ve made so many.
Roland: His workshop did that.
Jo: Yes, that you’ve made so many.
Roland: That’s right, yeah.
Jo: And, um, how long would it take you to make one instrument?
Roland: It takes 6 weeks to make one instrument. So, I carve everything out of solid pieces of wood with small planes, so, yeah, it’s, ah, time consuming.
Jo: Yes.
Roland: And it also depends on the weather. When it’s really humid, you know, timber, ah, the wood has got a habit of sucking up a lot of moisture and then it swells up and you can’t glue anything together while it’s, ah, while, while, while it’s still too moist. Because then later on when it shrinks it’s got a habit of cracking. So, you’ve got to mind the humidity as well when you’re doing things like that, but, ah.
Jo: And do you, where do you source your timber from?
Roland: Oh, it all comes from the, um, from Europe, the traditional timbers. I don’t make anything out of, ah, Australian timbers. Some people do, but they don’t seem to have the same resonance. They’re good instruments but they just don’t have the same resonance and, ah, a lot of good players prefer the traditional, they know what they like and any slight deviation from, from what it looks like to be a violin, they, they won’t have any part of it so. Most of the top is made of Spruce that comes from the European Alps, the Bavarian Alps, ah, Austrian Alps, the Swiss Alps or the Italian. I use mainly Italian and, um, the reason for that is because the, the pine, it’s always a pine tree. And, ah, it’s a, per weight, it’s a very light weight and it’s a very resonant wood. Most guitars, the tops are made of Spruce, same as bowed instruments are made of spruce. And the, ah, it grows nice and slow up in the Alps. So, if, if you look at the growth rings, they’re very, very close together. You’ve got about 10 years with one in within one centimetre of growth. So, so if that same tree would, got to grow here in Australia you, you’d get about 5 or 7 mms in one year so the environment has to be right for that. And the back and sides and the neck are made of Maple. I, I get that from the Balkans or from the Carpathians so I source it all from overseas, so it’s all interesting.
Jo: Very interesting, yeah. Oh, Roland it’s wonderful that they’re, they’re here locally and being used locally and, um…
Roland: Yeah, that’s good, but, ah, you know, people sometimes ask me, “Do women make instruments?” My first book that I ever got was from Juliet Barker and she, she taught actually violin making in Cambridge. And she actually studied it in Mittenwald in the area. I don’t know if you’ve heard of Mittenwald. No, No. It’s an area where they, oh, for hundreds of years they’ve been making instruments like, like Cremona in Italy where Stradivari, Guarneri and Amati worked. So, it’s in one of those areas that she studied there. And she wrote a book that was one of my first books.
Jo: Oh, really.
Roland: Yeah. And there was another woman called, um, Hutchinson who was an American, she’s passed since. And she did a lot of studies because universities used to sponsor people like scientists and, and they threw a lot of money, still do, a lot of money to find out what makes a Stradivarius a Stradivarius. [laughs] So, so, it’s… Those, yeah, the, I reference those books a lot. And other people have made a lot of contribution. There’s a lot of information on the Internet that you can get to. But the days where you’ve got the, the master-apprentice relationship, you know, back in the 1600’s and 1700’s, that doesn’t exist anymore. But people used to guard their information. You know, the only way you could get that was to be an apprentice. And, um, these days, everybody shares their information which is great [laughs], so it’s fantastic, yeah.
Jo: Well, that’s been very interesting. And it’s wonderful that, um, you’re part of this festival and there’s some of your instruments, um, here. So, thank you so much for, for sharing all that today.
Roland: You’re welcome, all the time – you’re welcome any time.
Jo: Okay.
Roland: I mean I could most of the time just rattle on for hours. And sometimes I think I might bore people [laughs]
Jo: Maybe we need to do another longer interview some time. [laughter] But thank you for today, thank you.