About Pernambuco today
Tomorrow the list will be longer!
This is a newsletter about Violoncello da Spalla. Usually, Violoncello da Spalla bows are not made of pernambuco. Still, I want to write about it anyway because it’s a crucial matter today that will affect every musician and violin or bow maker, music schools and festivals, and everyone in the music industry.
I will try to make it short. The violin family's modern bows are traditionally made of pernambuco. Even if, since 2007, the trade of pernambuco has been strictly regulated, the situation didn’t change direction and is getting worse, seeing more and more pernambuco harvested illegally and traded anyway. How is this possible?
1. What is forbidden is the illegally harvested trade of raw material, of timber, but not the domestic use and the trade of finished products. This way, Brazilian bow factories made extensive use of pernambuco to sell finished bows abroad. With the consequence that wood was used anyway, but to make (sorry) lower-quality bows.
2. Factories worldwide (not only in China!) are making millions of disposable bows in Pau Brazil, which was marketed as a cheaper and legal version of pernambuco. A disposable bow is a bow so poorly made that a rehair is not convenient, often not even possible. And Pau Brazil is a timber coming from the same pernambuco tree. It is only a different part of the same tree. To harvest Pau Brazil wood, you are harvesting a pernambuco tree. Pau Brazil is not an alternative wood to pernambuco!!
So, Brazil is now asking the CITES commission, which regulates the trade of endangered species, to include pernambuco in the first list, the most protected one. The CITES convention that will decide upon this will be from 14 to 28 of November. So close!
This will provoke two main consequences:
1. anything made of pernambuco, no matter when, no matter sourced legally or not, can be traded or passed across a custom. It means that no bow, not even an original Sartory, can travel safely. It could be confiscated. Any musician, even the top soloist, if they want to travel with their bow, they have to acquire a sort of passport, a certification, to present to customs, and that has to be issued by CITES, has a limited time validity, and it is valid for that day and that custom. If tomorrow you have a concert in another nation, well, you need another certificate, and the same on the next day. In other words, all musicians will have to leave at home their treasured bows and when on tour use something else, made of acacia, bamboo, carbon fibre, and soon maybe sugar fibres. Modern alternative materials. No more old French bows.
2. Bow makers will disappear. Most of the bow makers in the world will cease their activity, and their knowledge will be lost anyway because the surviving ones will have to make bows in carbon fibre or, at best, in bamboo or acacia.
3. What about the value of your old French bow? Don’t be so sure it will increase… a value is high when you can sell, and someone is willing to buy and pay for it…
What can you do?
Being informed and supporting the people who are working hard to have reasonable regulations that will allow the use of legally harvested material, the travel of old certificates bows, and (more important) to plan new forests of pernambuco. Read the website of the International Alliance of Violin and Bow Makers for Endangered Species and support them if you can.
Here is an abstract from their news:
What can you do to help?
The Alliance is urgently requesting all who rely on pernambuco for their work or pleasure to join forces at this time. The livelihoods and futures of musicians, orchestras, collectors, distributors and music stores are all at risk.
1. Get informed and help us spread the word.
Write to your CITES national management authority today.
Explain who you are, and what you do for a living. Urge them to oppose Brazil’s proposal and, instead, to create a policy that will protect the future of both pernambuco and stringed instrument music.
Learn more about the international and national laws applying to endangered species and how you can remain compliant.
Follow the Alliance online and on social media (Facebook: International Alliance of Violin and Bow Makers for Endangered Species; Instagram: violinallianceusa)
2. Join the Alliance
It is not enough to rest on the accomplishments of the IPCI. We must all join this urgent call to action to save pernambuco. The Alliance has different membership levels for educational institutions, businesses, as well as a musicians and music lovers “give what you can” membership. Every membership is crucial to the continuation of our mission. A donation will get you recognition on the members page on the website. Join us like your career depends on it – because it does!3. Make music!
Do what musicians do best. Make music! Give a benefit “Concert for Conservation” with proceeds supporting the Alliance. A recent live-streamed recital raised over $500. A growing number of concerts and recitals would send a powerful message to Brazilian and CITES officials that musicians around the world are joining in the effort to save pernambuco!Written by Alliance President, Lynn Hannings
What we can all do and have to do, with no excuses, is never ever buy or sell a disposable bow.
if you sell it, it doesn’t do any good to your business because your customers will not be happy not to have anything good to make music from. If you are a parent buying it, you are not doing anything good to your children, as you saved some money, but their tools are not good enough to do anything they are supposed to, so you are spoiling that little money and their big efforts and enthusiasm for making music. And you are doing harm to our planet and our culture.
Please, avoid buying disposable bows.
Consider buying an old pernambuco bow and having it restored by a bow maker. You will have something valuable for little money.
Look at this super cool business, and get inspired by it: buy from them if you can.
Ps: today we spoke about pernambuco, but ebony is following close. With ivory and mother of pearl already in the Cites list, the only parts of a bow that can travel safely are the metal fittings: button, screw, and ferrule. We definitely need to look into alternative materials.
By the way, ebony is typically used on Violoncello da Spalla too: fingerboard, tailpiece, and nuts.
Updates from our workshop
I settled my new Violoncello da Spalla in white! We are much pleased with the sound and character.
I am still working to obtain the most comfortable set up and I will share a video next week. There is already a little snippet on our Instagram!
Featured video of the week
