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An instrument is a work of art. When Tom Hosmer holds up a violin and starts explaining the curve, the wood, the seams, the thickness, the weight, the bridge and more intricate pieces of the music-maker, it’s easy to understand that. Likewise, when Harry Eibert talks about the various guitars, banjos, mandolins, harps, ukuleles, dulcimers and other instruments that have wandered through his doors, the passion for the art is evident.
Both Hosmer and Eibert restore, repair and build instruments; Hosmer exclusively deals with violins, violas and cellos, while Eibert branches into most stringed instruments he can get his hands on. The two have established themselves in Central New York over decades of consistent performance through their instruments. They first crossed paths in the 1970s when Hosmer was known for his work on guitars in addition to the smaller stringed family.
“When I started playing music,” Eibert says with a laugh as he begins the story, “I used to bring my instruments to this guy on Euclid Avenue, Tom Hosmer. And I would have to wait and wait and wait to get them back and I thought, I don’t know about this. I had just finished drafting school, so I started building instruments on my own.”
Eibert, 58, began with an apprenticeship with an electric guitar maker before he took off for Nashville, Tenn., in 1976. He bounced between several jobs before landing at the Old Time Pickin’ Parlor, a repair, restoration and building shop. With a rehearsal space in the basement and the store upstairs, Eibert found himself in string-pickin’ heaven.
“Anyone who came in {to Nashville}, and was recording, would come in,” he explains. “One day it’s Neil Young, Johnny Cash, John Prine used to bum cigarettes from me, Chet Atkins used to come in all the time. One of the best performances that I got to hear was when Chet came in one day to pick up a guitar and he wandered in, grabbed a guitar we were workin’ on for him and he sat in the corner of the shop with his back to us and played ‘America The Beautiful.’ You could hear a pin drop. And he turns around and goes, ‘What are you guys doing? Get back to work!’”
Eibert, just 24 when he started rubbing elbows with greats like Emmylou Harris and Linda Ronstadt, was getting the experience of an instrument builder’s lifetime just by being in Nashville to see, meet and work on the instruments of many legendary musicians. But by 1983, he decided to move back to Syracuse where demand for his work had remained strong even while he was hundreds of miles away. He opened and worked out of a store front in Manlius until 1990 when he moved his shop to 4136 Howlett Hill Road.
“When I came back here {in 1983} it was kind of, oh, OK, there’s a good music scene going on up here, but it was totally different than from when I left,” Eibert recalls. “It took a little bit of adjusting to, but after a while it was nice. A lot of local people, a vibrant music scene, pockets of people doing certain things. It still is a great scene.”
Eibert developed a niche working on guitars and various other projects. Well-known local artists including Colin Aberdeen, Mark Doyle and K.J. James (a.k.a. Dr. Blue) and musicians who play for their own enjoyment have all found their way to Eibert’s home shop on Onondaga Hill. Eibert also notes that 40 percent of his work comes from out of state from returning clients and professional musicians. “I don’t generally talk about many of my clients that are in the entertainment business,” Eibert notes, “because they don’t like people to know what’s going on with what they have or what they do. But I do have a few people out there who do come through or send stuff.”
At any given time, Eibert works on 15 to 30 projects, primarily saving building projects for the winter months. He also plays a variety of the string instruments he makes, including guitar and ukulele, throughout the area.
On the other side of town, Hosmer, 64, operates out of a small house at 7101 E. Genesee St., Fayetteville, one lined with violins and violas along many of the walls. He moved from 726 Euclid Ave. to Julian Plaza, just off Nottingham Road, in 1984, then relocated to Fayetteville in 2009. Today, he sells instruments from the front rooms and repairs, restores and builds in the back with a basement full of various bigger tools including a table saw and band saw. Michael Hattala, a member of the American Federation of Violin and Bow Makers, also does rehairing of bow strings as well as instrument restoration and building.
Hosmer’s passion for precision is immediately obvious simply in the way he speaks about and handles the instruments filling the rooms. He carefully explains each and every inch of the instruments, proving his many years of experience have made him a seasoned professional when it comes to anything violin.
Although he began in the world of instrument repair through the guitar avenue in 1970, he migrated toward the violin and eventually studied at the New Hampshire Violin Craftsmanship Institute for seven years. “I learned enough to be dangerous,” he says. “I didn’t learn so much about repair, but I did learn a lot about violin making and met a lot of people.”
Hosmer emphasizes that he doesn’t work on instruments he doesn’t “feel qualified to,” yet a simple conversation quickly demonstrates his vast knowledge of the string family. He also stands firmly behind the belief that it is the setup of the violin (a careful process where Hosmer inspects and adjusts many separate pieces of the instrument), not simply the physical instrument itself, which determines its value to a player.
“I have to do a lot of things to it {the violin or viola} before it can be functional,” he explains. “But when I’m done, I can stand behind it and promise that it will function. If it’s not set up properly, you can’t play it. The most important thing isn’t what the violin is, but who you buy it from. If you go to someone with integrity who knows what he/she is doing, hopefully, you’re not going to be sold crap. Why would I sell something that I can’t stand behind?”
Hosmer spends a majority of his time working on a rotation of projects which range, similarly to Eibert, between 15 and 30 at any given time. Most of Hosmer’s clients are local student musicians or adults in the orchestral or bluegrass communities. He speaks with a disappointed tone when he brings up his past clientele, members of the Syracuse Symphony Orchestra.
“The violin is a dress-up instrument,” he begins. “Why is that? The men in the orchestra are dressed in 19th-century servants’ garb. It’s ludicrous. But they’re conservative. They might get a younger crowd if they changed. In the end you need to appeal to more than just educated people. Other people at least need to show up and give it a try. That’s the trick.”
When Hosmer places a violin to his shoulder and chin, you can hear touches of classical, but with a distinct bluegrass swing. He seems able to understand both musical languages and furthermore understand the importance of each.
“Violinists need to branch out into other types of music today,” he says. “Things have to change.”
With so many years in the business and such a deep understanding of the instruments and the music they create, Hosmer’s voice is just as much worth listening to as his fiddle-playin’ and -repairin’ fingers.
