Arlington resident Bob Childs has spent the past 43 years making over 100 fiddles — 175 of them, in fact. Now, at age 67, and with some eyesight problems, that career is coming to a close with his pending retirement.
The music group Childsplay, which was formed to celebrate and pay tribute to Childs, is also calling it quits. On Sunday, the group will finish up with two special concerts at the Sanders Theatre in Cambridge.
During a recent interview at his home studio in Arlington, Childs talked about how the violin — or fiddle — is ubiquitous through so many genres of music around the world.
"The violin has been around for centuries,” Childs said, “and it’s played in almost every ethnic combination of cultures and people around the globe."
Child's work over four decades has brought many musicians together, and Childsplay is a testament to that. Each of the fiddlers performing in Childsplay has had an instrument hand-made by Childs. Even Bob himself was asked to be part of the group.
"I got a phone call one day from a woman in Washington D.C., inviting me to come down and play in a concert,” Childs said. “And she said, before she hung up the phone, that, by the way, the name of the band was Childsplay because everyone in the band is going to be playing one of your instruments. So I was actually invited to be in the band."
That was 1986. Childsplay has performed and toured yearly since.
In Childs' basement workshop at his home studio, there are far more hand tools than there are machines. The room was dominated by an abundance of wood in many shapes and sizes.
"The sound is in the wood," he said, "and you have to learn how to get the sound out of the wood."
Most of the wood in the shop was old maple. Childs demonstrated the distinct sound of each piece by tapping lightly, making each one's different tones clearly audible.
"To me, that's one of the really beautiful things about violin making,” Childs said. “There's this incredible mystery to it. You can't really explain it. You can see the numbers, or, you can get the measurements, but there is this intangible quality that goes from the violin maker into the wood, that ends up in this instrument."
Childs has a very personal story that connected him to his chosen career. As an orphan, he experienced loneliness and an absence of stability.
"In the early years of my life, I was in five different foster homes, and it took me a long time to understand the impact," he said.
Then, as a young apprentice, something happened that changed his life.
"When I was in the shop in Philadelphia, I had a dream one night where I was taken into a room and there was a spotlight on a violin that was on this table,” Childs said. “I picked it up and turned it over, and inlaid into the back of the violin was an image of a small boy crying. And that was a pivotal moment in my life. … I realized that I was trying to create not just the violins, and trying to transform my experience, my early years, which really lacked language, into the instruments. But, also, to have a band like Childsplay, which amplifies that experience by all these incredible musicians. And I think it’s really central to the sound of Childsplay."
Bob Childs and Childsplay will take their final bows with two concerts this Sunday at Sanders Theatre in Cambridge.
For more, listen to a radio documentary on Bob Childs and Childsplay recently produced by Brian O'Donovan.
