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Born in New Zealand in 1939, the son of a violinist, Nigel Harris learned to play the piano and violin as a child, but a strong interest in building things led him to read civil engineering at university. When a partner in a firm of architects and engineers he continued to play the violin as an amateur and soon developed a deep interest in the instrument itself. His work involved analysing the forces, stresses and movements of multi-storied building structures under earthquake vibrations. He was in the rare position to see how these techniques could be used to analyse violins, to find the forces stresses and movements caused by sound vibrations. His study unlocked many of the reasons why the violin is the shape it is, in outline and in plate arching and the relationship between the front and back shape. To continue the research it became necessary to make some violins. After making several violins, Nigel travelled to Italy where he made a thorough study of the Italian varnish tradition. In 1981 Nigel became a full time violinmaker, and devoted his workshop to the making of new instruments only. Nigel left New Zealand in 1984 and set up his family home and workshop in England and now lives and works in London. To further his research Nigel did a PhD at the Institute of Sound and Vibration Research at Southampton University. His thesis was on the relationship between the shape of the arching curves of violin plates and the tone of the instrument. In 1994 Dr. Harris was joined by Roger Sheldon.
Roger,born in 1967, lived as a child in England, South Africa, Canada and
Singapore. He read physics at University, was employed variously as a
physicist and purveyor of fine wines, but his interest in working with
wood lead him to doing a diploma in cabinet making. Roger's
love of music and his skill at shaping wood prompted him to make a violin.
Nigel heard about this amateur violinmaker, and was so impressed with his
cabinet making that he invited him to join his workshop. As
expected, Nigel found Roger to be a fast
learner, and his background in physics gave him the ability to appreciate
fully the scientific basis of the methods already used in the workshop. He has
become the inheritor of the Harris method. Roger has taken a lead
particularly in the field of varnish development, and has brought his
investigations to the point where they are close to recreating the old
Cremonese varnish. To prove that the varnish is "the real thing",
Roger has started a research project with a university materials science
department.
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