Luthier Definition

November 17, 2014 at 06:39 AM · Strictly speaking, a luthier is a person who makes string instruments only.

A repair person only repairs instruments. They are two different disciplines, but these days most luthiers repair as well, as they have either been trained in shops that do both or went to school that teaches both disciplines.

In any way a person who only makes will have a harder time surviving than one who also repairs .

My luthier is an excellent maker and also a fantastic repairman

November 17, 2014 at 09:28 AM · Shawn, it's a term which is used rather loosely. I don't actually hear it used very much amongst those in the high-level professional violin-making/violin repair trade, except by the French (it's a French word).

In the US, as a self-description, the term seems to mostly have been adopted by makers and repairers of plucked instruments, and also by amateurs and semi-pros who work on violins. Maybe because it's fancy sounding, and adds an air of hoity-toityness? A humorous side note is that they often mispronounce it. :-)

On violinist.com, it's mostly used in reference to a professional violin/viola/cello maker or technician/repairer/restorer, so that's the way I use it here too. It's a convenient shorthand, compared to all the words with slashes in between that I just typed. LOL

November 17, 2014 at 10:20 AM · Originally, it would have been a maker of lutes ("luth", in French)...

November 19, 2014 at 09:01 PM · Which originally came from the Moorish al Oud. There is a current theory that the origins of the violin came from Spain and spread by the Inquisition of Sephardic Jews to Italy.

November 19, 2014 at 10:46 PM · So we were oudiers before we were luthiers? :-)

November 19, 2014 at 11:31 PM · Now David you and I both know that some of our colleagues can be oudious and a few downright oudiferous.

November 20, 2014 at 10:01 PM · I'm right here, Eric. Not nice to talk about me like that.

November 22, 2014 at 01:47 AM · The Greeks had a word for it: "lyropoios", a maker of lyres.

The Greek lyre was originally a plucked string instrument but by about the 9th century AD there was a bowed version in Byzantium, and as time went by "lyropoios" became a generic word for a maker of a stringed instrument - as today "luthier" is used for both violin makers and guitar makers.

There was also a Greek word for someone who made strings for musical instruments: "chordopoios".

The Romans, who don't seem to have been as musical as the Greeks, had a different word for the lyre: "fides" (not to be confused with "fides" meaning "faith"). "Fides" originally meant a gut string, but by association became the word for an instrument using gut strings. As far as I can determine, Latin, unlike Greek which is a wonderful language for making compound words, didn't have a single word for a maker of lyres, but I think such a person would have been called "fidium fabricator".

The Latin word "fidicen" (fem. "fidicina") was someone who played the "fides", and in later centuries could be used to refer to a violinist.

November 22, 2014 at 06:30 AM · English definition = a nutter who scrapes old pieces of wood. (As opposed to a nutter who scrapes old violins ...)