Who is Yann Besson?
Yann Besson explains with great simplicity how lutherie has permeated his life.
The first steps towards lutherie
More than a revelation, I remember a succession of sequences that marked my journey to the profession of luthier as I experience it today.
This cassette that I listened to on repeat
First, there was that Vivaldi concerto for guitar and mandolin that I listened to hundreds of times. It was the one and only classical music cassette in the family home.
This cassette introduced me to the world of classical music, and to that of baroque music more specifically.
The music school of Corme Royal
My parents, who were completely unfamiliar with the world of music, finally enrolled me in the municipal music school in Corme Royal, Charente-Maritime, to satisfy my desire to learn the mandolin. The instruments taught included the guitar and the violin, but I discovered that the mandolin and the violin had something in common: their strings are tuned the same way (G D A E). They are simply doubled in the case of the mandolin.
Mrs. Simone Mège
That was the name of the teacher who taught violin at the music school. Whether it was her touching personality or the chocolates she readily gave her students, I still wonder what sparked the seven years of private lessons that followed… come to think of it, both must have played a part!
I associate those years of learning with pleasure, and I must admit that I was very lazy.
Is this the reason why Mrs. Simone Mège once spoke to me about the Mirecourt school of violin making, seeing in me more the luthier than the musician? Her sensitivity had certainly allowed her to detect what I did not yet know.
She probably also made the connection with my father's carpentry workshop and the many hours I spent there assembling or carving wooden objects.
My father, his workshop, his library...
I remember as if it were yesterday how deeply the distinctive smell of sawn, planed, spindle-shaped, or sanded wood affected me. My memory is positively filled with those scents of resin, elm, or oak that define the character of a carpentry or cabinetmaking workshop.
In this place and alongside my father, I forged a strong relationship with wood and the craftsman's tools.
A Roret encyclopedia (Luthier and Varnish Manufacturer manuals), as well as the Tolbecque They sat among the technical works published over the centuries, which my father owned in his library. These pages fascinated me, and my violin teacher may well have heard about them.
Perhaps my mother had also told him about the last-minute rescue of my violin, which I was going to "open" in order to explore its interior?
These books guided my first instrument drawings and my first compass strokes… with, of course, results commensurate with my inexperience!
The National School of Violin Making in Mirecourt
I was fifteen years old at the time, and it was time to take the entrance exams for the...National School of Violin Making from Mirecourt.
Among these tests, one focused on auditory perception. It involved reconstructing a tone from twenty intervals. This exercise might seem complex, but it was easily achievable for me thanks to my violin training. While my limited practice didn't allow me to play the instrument brilliantly, I had at least acquired the ability to distinguish between correct and incorrect notes!
In short, I was accepted and the doors of the National School of Lutherie in Mirecourt opened wide before me.
A life
learning