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Welcome
Since I began building instruments, I have made more than 431 instruments for professional musicians and serious amateurs alike. Most of these harpsichords, clavichords, violins, guitars, and fortepianos continue to serve music as I intended them so to do when I made them. My chiefest aim has always been to build sounds which inspire a way of playing that deeply moves and excites listeners. This aim can be realized only by acoustical work of the highest quality. I define quality as anything which makes my instruments more like the antique instruments.
Click here for a Sound Sample of one of my Taskin Harpsichords*
Click here for a Sound Sample of one of my more recent Taskin Harpsichords*
Now that I have achieved my personal goal of a reliable mastery over sound, I am able to produce the kind of sound I could only dream of 35 years ago. It is that skill and understanding that I am able to bring to each and every instrument I make. It is this skill and understanding which makes my instruments unique in our time. That is what I have to offer.
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The cardinal signs of a Hill instrument are: powerful tone, gorgeously vocal trebles, solid and resonant basses, beauty of tone color, intensely musical behavior of sound, flexibility of touch and color, and a singing and affectively "loaded" tone.
Click here for a Sound Sample Bach's Fugue from his solo concerto in a minor played on one of my most recent 16' Harpsichord*
Why are these traits necessary? It is obvious that players and composers in the 18th century demanded instruments possessing these qualities to be made so that they would aesthetically support their musical conceptions and intentions. How do we know this? CPE Bach states explicitly in his Versuch to "Play from the Soul, not like a trained bird...endeavor to avoid everything mechanical and slavish". J.J.Quantz in his treatise, On Playing the Flute, explains to musicians that "musical execution may be compared with the delivery of an orator..." and that musicians and orators should aim "to make themselves masters of the hearts of their listeners, to arouse or still their passions, and to transport them now to this sentiment, now to that".
Click here for a Sound Sample of my most recent Italian Harpsichord- a copy of the de Zentis of 1658*
Click here for a Sound Sample of my Lute*
I understand that they meant these things literally, rather than hopefully. Therefore, I build my instruments with the sole aim of creating sounds which enhance and support (meaning: to make reasonable, logical, and beautiful) a highly expressive, highly flexible, highly affective, highly inflected, powerfully communicative, yet balanced style of playing. Playing that is, in a word, soulful.
Click here for a Sound Sample of one of my Cristofori inspired Fortepianos*
My goal now is to do everything in my power to encourage a return again to a sane, meaningful, highly expressive, masterful way of playing great music and creating great art. It is to this end that my instrument making is dedicated.
Click here for a Sound Sample of one of my Guarneri inspired Violins*
Indeed, it is also to this end that my decorations and canvas paintings are dedicated. So I hope you will take the opportunity to visit those sites as well while you are at this site. Just click on the Art Gallery Button to the left or the Decorations Button for the instrument decorations.
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Click here to hear Robert Hill performing the great Chaconne in d minor, from Bach's Partita in d for solo violin, one of my Taskin Harpsichords*
Click here for a performance on two of my Taskin Harpsichords of the Couperin Allemand for two harpsichords played by Robert Hill and one of his students at the Hochschule für Musik in Freiburg, Germany.*
(I consider these last two above recordings to be the best recordings of Baroque music I have heard. They represent for us a playing style which I believe was very close to the way this music was played by the composers themselves. Nothing precious, mechanical, "slavish", artificial, or sterile, all what I detest in musical performances, is present. In the Bach, Robert Hill has made an outstanding arrangement of the Chaconne and plays it in the manner similar to that described by F. Griepenkerl, late in his life, in a letter from 1840 in which he related: "Bach himself, his sons, and Forkel played the masterpieces with such a profound declamation that they sounded like polyphonic songs sung by individual great artist singers. All means of good singing were brought into use. No Cercare, No Portamento was missing...even breathing was is all the right places. Bach's music wants to be sung with the maximum of Art." No better description of anyone's playing exists and Hill fulfills the letter and the spirit of Griepenkerl's description.
In the Couperin, the many descriptions we have from letters by astute observers of the French courtesan behavior and manners from the 18th century suggest that their elan and attitude of "sans souci" has been audibly captured in this marvelous recording on two of my harpsichords. The sumptuous, relaxed, rumpled, elegant, untidy, almost wilted, and unselfconscious appearance and manners of many of the fine ladies of the court come alive in this charming performance of the Allemande. Creating the effects in these performances requires extreme sophistication in conception and execution.
If you are interested in this style and wish to know more about it, you can click on my Articles on Music button in the column on the left and read the articles that my wife and I wrote about it.)
The Broadwood piano that you see below belongs to a friend who needs to sell it. I have offered to help by posting it here on my website.
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FOR SALE - AN 1805 BROADWOOD PIANOFORTE
Broadwood “Grand Pianoforte” - Nr. 3378. Made in 1805 and first rented out for 3 months on Jan.14, 1806, returned and immediately sold and delivered on April 22nd 1806 (according to the records of the Broadwood company as confirmed in a letter dated Feb. 7th 2009). Apparently, this business of renting out new instruments was rather common. This is the first instrument I know of which can be traced to the time it first left the maker's workshop.
This particular piano is in excellent condition, having been fully restored to sound playing condition. Miraculously, almost all the Iron strings are original, the bass brass strings having been replaced when the original bass hitchpin rail was recently replaced due to the original hitchpin rail having been split. Other than a good thorough cleaning and a careful regulation, not much has been done to this instrument to alter its original state. The case has virtually no twist to it indicating that the internal structure is not only sound but in superior condition. It stays well in tune, changing only with the drop in humidity in the Fall and again in the Spring with the rise in humidity in the Spring.
The compass is 5 and 1/2 octaves: FF - c’’’’, the keys are Ivory with ebony sharps and moulded boxwood keyfronts, there are three pedals-one for una chorda, and two for the dampers: one for the bass dampers and one for the treble dampers.
Anyone interested in purchasing this instrument, please contact me at: pictagoras@aol.com and use Broadwood Piano in the subject line.
Here are some more photos of this instrument.



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View of the pinblock on this 1805 Broadwood piano
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View of the Keywell in the Treble
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WHAT'S NEW
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ANNOUNCEMENT
Last year, my wife, Marianne Ploger, accepted a new position at Vanderbilt University's Blair School of Music, as director of their Musicianship Program. This means that I will be eventually moving my workshop to Nashville to join her there, hopefully sooner rather than later. In anticipation of this move, I must reduce the size of my personal collection of harpsichords and pianos that I have amassed over the years, because we will not have nearly as much room in the house in which we will be living in Nashville. For this reason, I am prepared to sell all but one of my harpsichords, all but one of my pianos, including my two lautenwerks, my clavichords and some of my larger bowed stringed instruments. To speed up this process, I will be pricing these instruments at prices consistent with the year that they were made. So, for example, my clavichord, made in 1999, will be priced at my 1999 prices adjusted for inflation. If any of my readers is interested in acquiring one of these instruments, you can contact me using the information at the bottom of this page. If you email me about this, use the phrase: Hill Collection, so that I don't delete your email automatically. I also plan to offer these instruments through Glen Guitarri's harpsichord clearing house, at harpsichord.com
AN ARTICLE ON HOW TO JUDGE A HARPSICHORD OR FORTEPIANO
I am posting for my readers an article which I wrote more than 25 years ago, titled: How to Judge a Harpsichord. This article was published in the Continuo Magazine back then. Since my views about how to judge musical instruments has not changed much since then, I thought my readers would find the article useful for learning to evaluate the acoustical and musical aspects of musical instruments. I have revised the article to include fortepianos, for those who are interested in Fortepianos. You can read this article by clicking on the WHAT'S NEW button and scrolling down until you find the article
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AN IMPORTANT OFFER
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What follows is my offer of a new opportunity, which is two fold and should merit your close attention.. One, if you are young and passionate about making musical instruments, the following offer might interest you. Two, if you are a player who has been interested in having one of my harpsichords, but have not been able to afford one, I will be offering instruments from my shop at a significantly lower price to be made under my close supervision by those young makers who qualify for my offer below. To see those lower prices, click on the Harpsichords, Clavichords, and Fortepianos buttons above and to the left.
Acoustical Technology Training
When I began building harpsichords, this business was, as it still is, dominated by the idea that if you make an exact physical copy of an antique harpsichord or violin (the model having been selected because its musical and acoustical properties were generally accepted as being musically superior), then the resulting instrument should sound exactly like the original would have sounded.
Everyone seemed to think that this was a good idea. Yet, when the results of such instrument making were compared to the original instruments, the antiques sounded so much better as to make the copies of them appear acoustically inept, musically incompetent and on the whole, aesthetically mediocre. Apparently, this vast discrepancy didn’t seem to bother anyone but me. A few, not instrument makers but players, knew the difference but still had to play on the new instruments. The reason why this chasm failed to dampen almost everyone’s enthusiasm is that they accepted the conventional wisdom.
That conventional wisdom was that antique instruments were thought to sound better because they are old. Modern instruments were and still are generally acknowledged by connoisseurs to be radically inferior to the antiques…like a faded photograph compared to the real thing. Yet, so many of the ancient instruments are clearly better sounding in every possible way than modern made instruments. The easiest answer as to why is that the antique instruments have had 200 years of aging to improve their sound.
Click here for a Sound Sample of my Blanchet inspired French Harpsichord made in 2008*
Click here for a Sound Sample of my Lautenwerk finished in 2007*
Here, the aging metaphor was being misappropriated, even by famous musicians, from the wine making industry. It is an “explanation of convenience” which seems, as far as I can tell, to have absolved musical instrument makers since the 19th century of the obligation to do anything more than making their instruments by first taking careful measurements of a famous antique “master” instrument and then reproducing those measurements using as similar materials as possible to the original instrument. When the sounds of their instruments didn’t turn out as good as the originals, they rested on the hope, no, the expectation that in 200 years their instruments were going to somehow magically sound absolutely fabulous, like the great antiques sound today. I actually heard this being spouted by several harpsichord makers and violin makers. One even said: “I make as exact a copy of the original as I can. If it doesn’t turn out (sounding as good), it is not my fault.”
This arrogant attitude presumes that the best makers of previous centuries were content with making an instrument, just like instrument makers do today, in the hopes that it would show over time to improve with age until it became a great sounding instrument. What astonished me at the time is how many of my colleagues swallowed this way of thinking hook, line, and sinker. At the time, I instinctively rejected this notion but had no evidence to substantiate my radical view.
Fortunately, a visit to the Russell collection in Edinburgh in 1972 provided me with ample evidence that this notion was false. There, where harpsichords from every period and country could be heard and played, is also where that conventional “wisdom” may be observed to be glaringly wrong. If age is what made a musical instrument good, then instruments made in 1585, clearly, should be that much better sounding than instruments made in 1668…after all, they had over 80 years more to improve…but they are not better! The harpsichord made in 1720 should, by that false reasoning, be better than the one made in 1769. But it is not! Logically, any exception to that notion meant to me that the notion was totally false. That has proved to be the case. And if this notion is totally false, then it makes thinking that it is true to be exceedingly arrogant, because it assumes, without any proof, that the best ancient makers were as clueless and ignorant as most instrument makers since the 18th century.
My visit to the Russell collection revealed to me the following fundamental truth; makers who built the best sounding instruments did so because they knew exactly what they were doing and did everything in their power to make their instruments to sound as wonderful as possible right from the moment the instrument was made. It was nothing magical, nothing having to do with the aging process of wood, no "mini iceage", no "holy" varnish, no mystical intuitive talent of some blessed makers that they were able to build instrument after instrument of exceedingly high quality. Those makers who built the best sounding instruments did so because they mastered acoustics. It is as simple as that.
Click here for a Sound Sample to of a recent Taskin harpsichord*
The consequence of this realization for me was that I understood that there was a body of knowledge and techniques (what I now call Acoustical Technology) which was being applied by those great makers, and which, for whatever reason, was lost. Indeed, that lost knowledge had to be something so ordinary that anyone back then could apply it with more or less success, and that it would have been taken for granted and eventually disappeared; as all that we take for granted wanes and eventually disappears in our cultural "march to progress". This Acoustical Technology was the “common denominator” connecting all musical instrument-making for 400 years prior to 1800…including the making of violins, lutes, guitars, brass and woodwind instruments, harpsichords, organs, clavichords, and pianos. Indeed, those makers whose instruments we most revere today, like Ruckers, Stradivari, Guarneri, Blanchet, Taskin, Cristofori, Amati, Schnitger, Stein, and Graf, were merely the most clever in figuring out and applying what they learned to the making of their instruments. Their less clever associates and colleagues built merely good instruments. Important about this realization is that it also meant that that body of knowledge was learnable. And, it meant that anyone who bothered to look for it in a focused, unsentimental, and mindful manner would have some success in recovering that knowledge.
Click here for a Sound Sample of a my first fortepiano after Cristofori*
So the question I forced myself to answer was: What exactly were the makers of the great musical instruments of the past doing to make their instruments sound so good? Answering this question as completely as possible, thus far, has taken me 36 years and has required making more than 500 instruments of all kinds, mostly keyboard and bowed stringed instruments. The method I have used for my investigations was not unlike techniques used in Forensic Science.
Forensic Science takes fragments of carefully collected evidence, then analyzes that evidence in order to reconstruct the answers to who did what and when, how they did it, and, in some cases, why. Anyone who studies the antique instruments notices the obvious stuff like layout, materials, dimensions, etc. A forensic science type approach goes several steps further. With this approach one notices, as in hand writing analysis, the human traces of workmanship, aesthetic decisions, and methodologies, and seeks thereby to understand the behavior of the ancient makers. My approach added to these yet one more dimension. It began with one observation about human nature. That is, everything we do is an answer to a question of some kind. Further, every question we pose, either explicitly, implicitly, or covertly, either verbally or nonverbally, arises from an attitude we possess. By starting with that observation, I began with the simplest pieces of evidence to analyze and reconstruct the questions behind that evidence and then to intuit the attitudes that are the cause behind the questions.
From simple observations, working backward, it is possible to deduce the attitudes of those ancient makers. Then, working forwards, from that point, by adopting their attitudes, it is possible to reproduce work that appears and sounds like "brand new antique", as one of my patrons dubbed it. When my results were not exactly like those of the antiques, then I knew that I had not succeeded in rightly deducing the precise attitude behind the phenomenon. Using this method, it took me years of research and experimentation to figure out how the best of the ancient makers thought that resulted in the outstanding quality of sound they were able to produce, instrument after instrument after instrument.
Click here for a Sound Sample of my Violin Opus 424 *
Click here for a Sound Sample of my Violin Opus 425 *
Click here for a Sound Sample of my Violin Opus 426 *
Click here for another Sound Sample of my Violin Opus 426 *
Realizing the value of what I have learned thus far, I feel compelled to make sure that the knowledge that I have gained, at significant personal sacrifice, does not again get lost. For this reason, I am inviting qualified persons to work with me to learn how to apply the Acoustical Technology I have developed and mastered.
Click here for another Sound Sample of that same Blanchet harpsichord*
Now, finding, identifying and training qualified young makers who want to learn and master musical instrument making from an exclusively acoustical point of view is my goal. This is easier said than done. My experience over the last 36 years has made me realize that few musical instrument makers value sound as much as I do, fewer still are willing to pay the price themselves, as I have, to master acoustics. So naturally, I don’t assume that there are actually all that many musical instrument makers who are willing to subject themselves to learning what is required to be able to build great sounding musical instruments.
Nevertheless, I hold that what I do acoustically can be done by anyone willing to learn the techniques and attitudes necessary to apply this Acoustical Technology masterfully. This offer is open to anyone interested in learning this sophisticated yet simple way of realizing a high degree of enhancement in the sound of any musical instrument. However, only those who qualify technically, artistically, musically, and personally will be accepted for instruction. Whomever I undertake to teach the Art and Science of Acoustical Enhancement must be able to successfully apply my acoustical technology to their instruments once they have completed my course of instruction.
Since first making this offer two years ago, I have taught my acoustical technology to 4 young men, 2 of whom are violin makers and 2 of whom are instrument makers who are making harpsichords and fortepianos as well as violins, violas and cellos. The following sound samples are of their first works created following their work learning my acoustical technology. These saples demonstrate definitively that anyone interested to learn my acoustical technology can do so and do so extremely well.
Here are some sound samples made of a harpsichord made by my fourth Acoustical Technology Trainee, Devin Thomas, his Opus 1, a single manual harpsichord made after the Colmar Ruckers double of 1624. This instrument was recently sold. However, Devin is building a Taskin double at the moment which will be for sale at the end of the summer.
The violin sound samples here are of the first violins made by my first violin making Acoustical Technology Trainee, Artiom Sinelnikov, his Opuses 1 and 2, recorded using his mp3 recorder. He began designating opus numbers to his violins following the completion of his acoustical training with me. Interestingly, both of these instruments sold within the first week during which they became available.
Click here for a Sound Sample of my fourth Acoustical Technology Trainee's harpsichord Opus 1*
Click here for a different Sound Sample of my fourth Acoustical Technology Trainee's harpsichord Opus 1 *
Click here for another Sound Sample of my fourth Acoustical Technology Trainee's harpsichord Opus 1 *
Click here for the sound sample of a violin made in 2009 by Acoustical Trainee Artiom Sinelnikov his Opus 1*
Click here for another sound sample of a violin made in 2009 by Acoustical Trainee Artiom Sinelnikov his Opus 2*
Click here for a sound sample of a violin made in 2010 by Acoustical Trainee Artiom Sinelnikov" his Opus 4*
Technical qualifications involve a little experience making musical instruments, skill in use of tools, and skill in drawing or sculpting. Artistic qualifications relate to conceptual abilities, natural cognitive abilities, imaginative skills, and ability to think clearly and cogently about ideas. Musical qualifications have to do with how musical, how technically proficient on an instrument, and how much understanding of music one has. And personal qualifications have to do with age, attitudes, philosophy, intellectual aptitude, and habits, etc. The ability to speak English is also really helpful.
Anyone interested is welcome to contact me by email at pictagoras@aol.com. Use “Interested in Acoustics” in the subject line.
My contact information is: Keith Hill - Instrument Maker, 10332 - M52, Manchester, MI 48158
My land line phone number is 734-322-3331
A TREATISE ON: THE TRUE ART OF MAKING MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS
A few years ago,I wrote a 250 page book on the subject of the science of enhancing sound, titled "The True Art of Making Musical Instruments, a Guide to the Forgotten Craft of Enhancing Sound". In it I express my views without consideration of how they might be received, because most that I have learned over the last 33 years about acoustics conflicts with almost everything currently understood as being important concerning the subject of Acoustics. To my knowledge, no other book has ever been written on precisely this subject, though many other instrument makers have been more qualified than myself to offer incontrovertable testimony concerning the Craft of Enhancing Sound, I refer to makers such as Antonio Stradivari, Giuseppi Guarneri, Hans Ruckers, Arp Schnitger, Bartolomeo Cristofori, Pascal Taskin, Francois Blanchet, Johann Stein, Nanette Streicher, and Conrad Graf to name a few. Its contents have been largely rediscovered, reintuited, reinvented, or understood anew by me during the course of making more that 406 harpsichords, clavichords, fortepianos, and violins. Where I owe these makers and other clever researchers a debt of gratitude, I have been quick to acknowledge their contributions. However, to one musical scientist, Marianne Ploger of Ann Arbor, Michigan, I owe far more than a mere acknowledgment. Her discoveries in the area of basic acoustics and hearing perceptions made possible a clear understanding of how the ancient instrument makers thought about dimensioning their soundboards and violin plates. You will find a Table of Contents and accompanying descriptions of the various chapters if you click on the "True Art" button. I was offering this text to anyone willing to pay the price, however, it is now available only to those whom I choose to train to use my acoustical technology.
Click here for a Sound Sample to hear a Chopin Etude on my new 6 octave Cristofori piano
Click here for a Sound Sample of my 6 and one half octave Graf piano*
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A Recent Recording of a New Violin
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Click here for a Sound Sample of my Opus 409*
The violinist in this sound sample of the Vieuxtemps Violin Concerto is Laura Johnson, winner of the Denver Young Artists Orchestra competition in 2009, playing with the DYA Orchestra for this performance on my violin, Opus 409, made in late 2008 and finished in early 2009.
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SOME OLD NEW STUFF
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Last year, I posted some photos and sound samples on this page and continued to add to the postings. The material I posted garnered some positive feedback, which is why I continued to leave the stuff posted. Recently, my provider did a program upgrade which deleted all that material. My apologies to my readers.
I am now reposting that material for your pleasure.
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Couchet Decoration
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I did this decoration in 2008 on the Blanchet Copy which I made for Elizabeth Farr. Here are some sound samples of that instrument, all of which appear on the CD Ms. Farr made of the music of D'Anglebert on Naxos.
Click here for the first Sound Sample*
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Click here for a Sound Sample of one of my Guarneri inspired Violins*
KEITH HILL - Instrument Maker
I wish to acknowledge the fine playing of the many players whose playing you hear on all my websites. They are: Tim Burris-Lute, Robert Hill-Harpsichord, Cristorfori Pianoforte, Graf Fortepiano, Clavichord and Lautenwerk, Marianne Ploger-Cristorfori Pianoforte, Graf Fortepiano, Elizabeth Farr-Harpsichord and 16' Harpsichord, Mitzi Meyerson-Harpsichord, Shigetoshi Yamada-Violins, Michael Behringer-Harpsichord, and Mauricio Aguiar-Violin
My contact information is: Keith Hill - Instrument Maker, 10332 - M52, Manchester, MI 48158
My land line phone number is 734-322-3331
My email address is: pictagoras@aol.com
Click here for a Sound Sample of one of my Lautenwerks, or Lute Harpsichords*
Click here for another Sound Sample of my Lautenwerk, or Lute Harpsichords*
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Click here for a Sound Sample of one of my Friederici inspired Clavichords*
*(Here's a trick to hear the sound sample and view the site at the same time. 1.Click on the sound sample to download it. 2.Then, download one of my other sites on your browser, in effect, opening a new window. 3.Click on the SITE button, at that site, relating to this site. 4. Once you have this site accessed from the new page and window, you can to view the site and listen to the downloading sound sample for it.)
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