William A Mackay Interview 1 Luthiers background

For those who don’t know you yet, can you tell us about your background? Did you go to Luthiers school? Did you follow a training with already established Luthiers? And, if you don’t mind my asking, what did you do before embarking on this adventure? Were you a musician before becoming a luthier? Or did you do anything else? And, by the way, do you still find time to play music with your work as a Luthier ?

My Interests in Luthiery came from being a musician and making adjustments to my own instruments which led to me wanting to make my own.

The first Instrument was a bass guitar modelled on the Fender Jazz bass.

The majority of performing I’ve done as a bass player, guitar and double bass.

I later started offering service and repair work on stringed instruments in my county.

After years where I worked mainly on guitar occasionally folk instruments such as mandolin, banjo and violin wanting to go further with my abilities as a maker I decided that I’d like to study violin making seeing it as one of the highest disciplines in luthiery but also having always been fascinated with double bass. I studied with the Newark school of violin making knowing they offered a good training in violin making as well as repair and restoration. The school is also well respected and recognized by many in the trade.

Completing the course at Newark I returned to my home county of Caithness to establish my workshop on the Berriedale Estate. I focus on double bass making as a maker mainly though as Scotland has a strong connection through its traditional and folk music to the violin I enjoy also making violin. Occasionally I enjoy a tune or two on fiddle though that may be the reason my cat deserted me, preferring the hills.

I still like to play music daily.

Usually the instrument will be whatever I am working on, gigging on or just obsessing over at that point in time. I can’t lay claim to being a virtuoso on any though it definitely helps further my knowledge and understanding of each instrument. My live playing has been reduced, even before the lockdown period so I only play the occasion gig now and sometimes support various members of my family at the local accordion and fiddle club. Most of my family are musical, I’ll use the term loosely as we’re dealing with accordionists, pipers and drummers.