Music for the Mind and Soul

After a day in the office, psychologist Dr. Robert M. Childs likes to unwind by making a violin or two. Donning a work apron, he ascends to his third-floor loft, turns on a CD of classical music, and gets busy with some sandpaper.

After 17 years as a master craftsman and many more before that as an apprentice, the 51-year-old Childs belongs to a worldwide elite of artisans. He has built 140 violins and 20 violas and caters to a range of top players, including a member of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, a Scottish national champion, and an all- Ireland fiddle champ. Working only on commission, Childs says he finishes five or six violins in a given year. He says it is not a simple matter of making an instrument, but suiting the type of sound to a musician’s personality.

“I’ve always been a very intuitive person and a good listener,” he says. “There’s an attunement process in making violins. By that I mean, you have to really understand what the person is saying. Sometimes it’s not in the words they’re using. For example, some violinists like to be out in front of the orchestra, like a trumpet. Then there are other soloists who pull the sound towards them.”

Similarly, he says he has adapted a vocabulary to describe the sound of sound. Whereas some violins have “warm, clear tones,” others “sing,” both in melodic soprano tones and in darker, resonating ones.

Childs says his two careers in listening have always run parallel to one another. After graduating from SUNY Binghamton with a joint degree in philosophy and psychology, he built furniture while serving in a New York hospital’s psychiatric ward. A chance encounter with a 70-year-old luthier (guitar maker) in rural Maine inspired him to begin his first apprenticeship crafting violins. In 1988, he opened his own shop in Cambridge and began studying part-time to become a psychologist, graduating from the Massachusetts School of Professional Psychology in 1998. “Violinmaking holds up the angst of working as a psychologist,” Childs says, sitting at his workbench on a Monday afternoon.  He works 20 hours per week in his office and 30 in his studio, has never married, has no kids, and lives simply.

Around Christmastime, the global community of fiddlers that play on Childs’ violins—called Childsplay—gathers in Cambridge for a concert series, led by Childs, beaming, in the center. “Not all violin makers will agree, but I believe that the soul of the maker goes into the instrument,” he says. “You want whatever it is you’re expressing to live beyond your own life. When I have everyone gathered around me, it helps me feel that.”

Childs says he has a waiting list of over a year for one of his instruments. As demand has risen, so has price: in 1986 his violins sold for $2000; now, you could purchase a Childs violin for $14,000. Each of his handmade violins bears his signature, not only by the ink stamp of a “Putto” cherub, which is his personal insignia—but also by the violin’s sound, which is distinctly Childs’.

“I have never advertised in my life,” he admits. “People find me by word of mouth. Your instrument is out there in public, speaking for you all the time. Someone who hears that violin might get intrigued by the sound, and that encourages them to try the violin and that hopefully brings them to my door.”