Hitting the right musical note. From The Times. August 2 1994.

IT COULD be Baker Street as the sounds of a violin float soothingly from an upstairs window. But this is Neasden, some miles north-west of the Marylebone haunt associated with Sherlock Holmes. The man with the violin is Jed Murphy, and he has just finished making it. Mr Murphy has been making violins, violas and cellos for nine years. Before that, he was a freelance musician, playing for several years with a blue grass band. He has performed on radio and television.
When he set up his own business, he was able to call on his training in science and woodwork at technical college as well as his musical prowess. He says: “Making instruments brings together all the things I like: science, wood, art and music. It is not, as many people think, a craft as much as it is a science.”
The violin begins life as a log. The back, sides and neck are made from maple and the front from spruce. He says: “The wood has got to be selected very carefully. It should be at least 20 years old, but I prefer to use 40-year-old wood.’
His supplies of maple come from central Europe rather than Canada because European maple grows more slowly and is, therefore, of better quality. Unfortunately, supplies have been disrupted by the fighting in Bosnia.
The work is painstaking and requires tools such as small planes and metal scrapers from a specialist supplier. Varnish is mixed carefully, the product of years of research. The type sold in shops would ruin the sound of the instruments, he says. A violin can take four weeks to make, a cello five.
"It is very satisfying when it all comes together and produces a good sound after you have been labouring over the wood for four weeks," he says. Most buyers are professionals or amateur musicians playing in orchestras, who usually find Mr Murphy through word of mouth. About 70 per cent of his work is in carrying out repairs.
He says: “The sound from a good violin will improve with age because the wood crystallises and that is ideal for resonance. However, we have a way of speeding up the ageing process by using ultraviolet rays. In two days you can age a violin 200 years. But a poor violin will never improve with age.”
Mr Murphy was trained by two prominent violin makers. He says: “At first, I was very concerned about getting the measurements right, but over the years I have learnt to work by feel and eye. So many people get bogged down in getting the measurements exactly right and end up making indifferent instruments. They approach violin making as if they were making a table or a chair. I can go to an auction and look at the proportions of a violin and I can tell by looking at it how it is going to sound.”
By Rodney Hobson.