These days Cuban shoppers are scouring shelves for all kinds of missing household items—potatoes, juice, salt, and toilet paper to name a few. But violin repairman Andres Martinez will tell you that another cultural staple is missing from Cuban stores and homes: musical instruments.
Cuba is famous for music. Highly danceable Cuban melodies set the country apart by combining European and African traditions. Cuba has dozens of free music schools, and thousands of skilled young musicians graduate from them every year. But increasingly, the graduates have no instruments to play—or cannot keep the instruments they have in tune.
Andres Martinez’s workshop is cluttered with tools and pieces of old stringed instruments. He carves strips of imported wood and silently measures angles of violin pegs and viola necks. The stringed instruments, the hardest kind to keep tuned, are bent into dissonance by years of use.
In Communist Cuba, people don't control business. The government does. That idea is called central planning. It's an idea with serious consequences. Under Communism, Cuba’s economy is struggling. So music students must make do with violins from China that easily pop strings and lose their tone. The loss is obvious to everyone within earshot. "If you feel bad, you need a doctor,” says violin workman Juan Carlos Prado. “The same thing happens with a musical instrument. If it isn't working well, you can hear it in the music." You could say the same is true of the Cuban economy.
Mr. Martinez wants to help—by creating new wealth in Cuba. A Belgian group called Fiddlemakers Without Frontiers sponsors his work. He fixes instruments, builds new ones, and trains young violin makers. He opened his shop three years ago. Since then, shop workers have repaired more than 400 stringed instruments. They’ve also built a dozen new, quality violins. Can this small seed produce an independent violin industry in Cuba? If it does, you will be able to tell using just your ears.
