I know that you can study at a violin making school for a diploma, but I had never realised you could also get a diploma from a violin shop. Can any violin shop offer this, or is it something unique to London's J&A Beare workshop?
200 hours seems to be quite short when compared to a 3 year making school course, so I'm assuming it's a night class, unless I've misunderstood, and it's actually a 200 hour exam (scary!).
I've looked on the Beare website, but can't find a link. Does anyone know if they still offer this, or was it something they did years ago?
For those who have this diploma, I'd be interested to know what it covers, what you learned, and most of all what it was like to be in the Beare workshop, it truly must be a magical place
I'd also be interested to know how much it costs, you can PM me if you don't want to openly discuss the price.
This is how I found out about the Beare diploma http://www.phoenixviolins.com/Pages/welcome.aspx
I cut up a piece of maple to make some purfling. I got it out of the wood bin at work. Most of it is new wood; mostly oak, they use it under bundels of 50' long bars of steel; but I look for grey ones, and lighter ones. Found some good block wood, and some sycamore I use for linings (need some more of that). There was nothing unusual about the wood, Beileve it or not, it has a really fine light flame to go with the nasty brown smudges. Anyway, I noticed that I was getting some purple gunk on the balde when I got half way down. Then I noticed that one side of what I cut off the other end had purple stains on it. No stains anywhere else. Very strange.
Any ideas on what it could be from?