The Street Symphony: Social Justice and Music Making

Bringing music to Los Angeles’ most disenfranchised people isn’t just a do-good project. It’s about summoning the best in all of us, the core of our beings.

What does it mean that accomplished musicians perform for and even work with the most disenfranchised parts of society in Los Angeles? What do the musicians, music directors and educators expect to achieve when working with the homeless people on Skid Row and inmates in county jails?

It helps to consider how music is fundamental to the human condition. We see it in primitive versions of flutes dating back tens of thousands of years, invariably made from animal bones with holes cut into them, found in archaeological digs from China to Europe to the Middle East, Africa, the Americas and Australia. The didgeridoos of Australian aboriginals look much like alpenhorns of Switzerland and the vuvuzelas of South Africa. And every culture of the world uses the human voice as a musical instrument.

The reason music is so universal is probed by social scientists that observe such things as how music fosters community cooperation and cohesion. One study conducted out of the University of Cambridge (Tai-Chen Rabinowitch, et al. 2012) identified that interaction between individuals in a group (the study was on children) who experience music over the course of an academic year show higher emotional empathy. Other research (U. Nilsson, Orebro University, Sweden 2009) shows heart bypass surgery patients exposed to music have higher levels of serum oxytocin, a beneficial hormone, than those without music.

These studies explain much of what is intuitive. Music is very present in modern life; it’s been a central part of culture and commerce for a thousand years.

But music is not available to everyone. Disenfranchised communities may lack for music in their educational systems, the homeless have few possessions and no electricity, and the incarcerated have far more violent sounds available to them than the sounds of fine stringed instruments, bassoons, flutes and trumpets.

This is why programs such as Los Angeles’ Street Symphony are vital. The core of the program is about social justice by way of professional and emerging artists who work among the city’s homeless and incarcerated communities. Its mission statement includes, “all people deserve access to a creative and expressive life.”

Street Symphony programs, which were founded in 2011, include “Music With A Mission,” which entails monthly concerts at Skid Row shelters and county jails. It also includes The Messiah Project, where excerpts of Handel’s masterpiece are performed along with stories and performances from current and formerly homeless artists. The organization’s Daniel Chaney Fellows Program explores “citizen-artistry” with fellows who receive a year of intensive instruction in musical performance and the intersection of arts and social justice (fellows include Skid Row community members alongside university and conservatory graduating artists). Street Symphony also provides musical education to inmates at five Los Angeles County jails.

We are all human beings after all. Music can and should be a part of everyone’s experience, regardless of where they live and what they own.

The Right and Wrong Ways to Use Bow Rosin

Between your instrument strings and the bow hair is something vital, the rosin. Too much or too little, applied the wrong way, can impair your playing.

The beginner violinist may think a small disk of coniferous tree sap, rosin, plays a minor or even unnecessary role in the creation of music. Au contraire! The right rosin, applied with expertise, can significantly affect how the instrument is played and the sound it creates.

The end goal of having just the right amount of rosin is to create warm, rich tones, with just the right amount of friction that enables smooth movement of the bow over the strings.

But it’s possible to have too much or too little rosin, or you might mishandle the rosin in ways that are detrimental to the bow or the instrument itself.

So let’s break that down:

The Goldilocks of Rosin: too much, too little – or just right

It IS possible to play without rosin on your bow but not advisable. It’s more work for the violinist or cellist who has to press harder on the strings. And even with that the results are a hollow, pale sound. Add a little (but inadequate) amount of rosin and the sound will improve. But the friction the rosin is intended to create will tend to be spotty, as will be the music.

Too much rosin will make the bow feel stickier as it moves across the strings. Excess rosin can generate a cloud of rosin dust as you play, and the sound will be harsh and scratchy. Rosin debris will fall onto the surface of the instrument and, over time, can damage the varnish and the wood.

For this reason, when working with fine instrument bows and fine stringed instruments, understanding of the proper rosining techniques is of utmost importance. The right amount of rosin allows easy movement of the bow, rich tones, and no excess. As a rule of thumb, it typically takes four or five strokes of rosin on the bow hair to achieve this.

Correct handling and application of rosin

It also matters how the rosin is applied. There are a few steps to take:

1. Tighten the bow. Slack hairs will accept the rosin unevenly and it becomes possible the rosin will touch the bow wood (not good).
2. Don’t touch the hairs. Natural skin oils are bad for the bow hairs because it prevents the rosin from binding.
3. “Activate” a stick or disc of rosin when it is new. By this we mean scratch it lightly with the edge of a quarter to slightly roughen it. You only need to do this when the rosin is new.
4. Cover the entire length of the bow hairs, from end to tip, for even playing.
5. Rotate the rosin as you apply it. This is to avoid creating grooves in the rosin that cause it to break before it’s used entirely.
6. Wipe off excess rosin on the bow stick and the strings after playing. You want an even distribution and to avoid caking.

A final note on which kind of rosin is best, as well as the quantity: That depends on the ambient temperature and humidity, and the type of stringed instrument being played. Violins and violas, with smaller strings, need lighter (in color, density and stickiness) rosin. Darker rosins are stickier, heavier and more suited to the cello and bass. With higher temperatures and humidity, too much rosin can get stickier. And of course, vigorous playing will heat up the bow and strings as well. Players need to pay attention to all such conditions and how it affects the rosin and their music.

When in doubt, take a trip to your local violin shop and ask the local expert.

Carl Becker and the Lady Blunt Stradivarius Violin

Now the most highly valued violin on the planet, the iconic instrument was refurbished almost 40 years ago in Carl Becker and Son’s simple Chicago studio.

Today, a non-descript condominium building stands at 1416 W. Belmont Avenue in Chicago. This is in the re-gentrified Lakeview neighborhood of the city’s North Side, an area that not long ago was tired and tattered, a stretch of cash exchange depots and tattoo parlors. At this particular address once stood the second floor studio of Carl Becker and Son, violinmakers and repairers of fine instruments, in a building that evidently was demolished sometime in the 1990s.

What probably few people then and perhaps no person today on that block realize is a very valuable Stradivarius violin was “resident” there for a while as it was being refurbished by the Carls Becker, father (Carl G.) and son (Carl F.).

The Becker operation is obviously a family business. It goes back to the late 1940s and their descendants continue their craft today. The son in the firm’s name was Carl Frederick Becker, who died in 2013 at the age of 93. His children and grandchildren now operate the firm in the city’s Loop (central business district) a few miles south and, notably, within walking distance of Chicago’s Lyric Opera and Symphony Center concert halls.

The Beckers have a long-established world-class reputation. So perhaps it shouldn’t be so remarkable that in the 1970 and 1971 – in the simple second-floor walkup shop on Belmont Avenue where the Beckers crafted and repaired fine stringed instruments – that a particularly well-known and extraordinarily valuable Stradivarius violin was kept there for an important repair.

This instrument is known as the “Lady Blunt Strad,” so named because it was once owned by Lady Anne Blunt, the daughter of Ada Lovelace (a mathematician and writer who conceived the idea of the computer) and granddaughter of England’s Lord Byron. It was made in 1721 by the master Cremonese luthier, and was last sold at auction in 2011 for $15.9 million USD, the highest price ever claimed by a musical instrument.

That such an expensive and exquisite instrument, probably the most valuable Stradivarius in the world, spent several months in the Becker studio in Chicago isn’t quite so surprising for anyone who knows the Becker family and their work. The shop under their name had only been open for a couple of years when the Lady Blunt was placed in their hands, but both father (Carl G.) and son (Carl F.) had previously worked with the respected William Lewis & Son, also in Chicago. Their skills were well known and they easily drew customers with repair-worthy violins, violas and cellos.

Father Carl G. was well known as a violin maker. Son Carl F. crafted over 500 instruments with his father, spending the rest of his career in the repair business and making a modest amount of instruments on his own.

The Lady Blunt Strad was owned by Tarisio Auctions when Becker repaired it. Once it was restored, it sold for $201,000 at auction. The buyer (Robert Lowe) owned it for 30 years, after which it was acquired by the Nippon Music Foundation for $10 million. The Foundation put it up for charitable sale to benefit the victims of the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami (in Japan), where it sold for $15.9 million. It is rarely played.

The Becker shop repaired other Stradivariuses, including the Muntz Strad. Carl F. Becker was also a founding member of both the International Society of Violin and Bowmakers the American Federation of Violin and Bowmakers – pretty heady stuff for a firm that started out on Belmont Avenue in Chicago.