Blackbird (violin)

The idea of constructing a musical instrument from stone came when Lars Widenfalk was working on big diabase blocks destined to form part of the artistic embellishment of the Norwegian TV building in Oslo, Norway.

Therefore, the back plate was made of another stone, a porphyritic diabase, about 1.9 billion years old, from the province of Härjedalen in south central Sweden.

The ribs (sound box wall) were made in one piece by first sawing out a 30 mm (1.2 in) thick plate shaped to form the external violin contour.

Then the inside was removed using a waterjet and machined with hand tools to create a thin rib, no more than a couple of millimetres thick at its thinnest point.

Precision bonding of the sound box parts was done using two component glue and the neck secured with two silvered steel pins where it joins the body.

[5] Since then, it has been played in many places including Dubai,[6] Luxembourg, Monza, Milan, Nuremberg, Oslo,[7] Prague, Stockholm and Washington.