Product Description
Locally Made Spike Fiddle (“huqin”), Made to Order by Andi Liu. Thank you to Andi Liu for donating this auction item.
CLICK HERE to learn more about the Spike Fiddle.
“I will make one of my unique spike-fiddles for the winner of this auction, to be completed before the end of June 2024.
I would like to apply more time with the customisation of the art around the soundhole engraving and the fiddlestick (if stained pine), ideally to match the name and appearance of a particular individual Kaimanawa horse. I’d need a photo of their blaze markings if they have one, and a name and year of muster. If you have a particular horse in mind, please send me a photo of their head and I will ask my much-more-gifted visual arts friend to sketch them and I’ll try to engrave their likeness on a future fiddle!
From the t’yngryng fiddle of the Nivkh people of far-east Russia, to the Balinese rebab of Indonesia, to the Endingidi of Uganda, to the Irish fiddle, local traditions of bow-string instrument making and playing have spread, often following the spread of horse culture perhaps 1000 years ago. They have been made from locally available materials for local conditions and cultural needs. It spans social strata, rural-urban boundaries, and enriches the cultural means of production just like horses have enriched our developmental possibilities.
I have developed and now make these unique fiddles from mostly local sustainable materials, adapting traditional methods and materials used in fiddle-making such as coconut shell and salmon skin, alongside newer technology such as rotary tools and digital image processing.
Although I use locally-available materials for most of the instruments, the bow is 100% imported. In the near future, I plan to source bow hairs from individual Kaimanawa horses. When replacing bow hairs in future, I will provide the option of acknowledging individual horses with an additional donation, which shall go to the horse whose tail hair it is from.
I can deliver the spike-fiddle to the winner of the auction if in between Auckland and Palmerston North (planning to drive down around May 30th), or could have it couriered at cost. If the winner of the auction can meet in person, I can spend a while teaching the basics – I have experience teaching complete beginners – most recently at a cultural festival stall in Aotea Square on Feb 25th – to the level where they can feel where the equivalent of violin first position is, within an hour.”
