Meet Eric Benning of Benning Violins in Studio City

Today we’d like to introduce you to Eric Benning.

Eric, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
I began learning to make violins from my parents at a very early age. They were both noted violinmakers here in Los Angeles and they brought me into the workshop at around seven-years-old. That would be considered a very young age to start but I was always at the feet of my parents in their home workshop, tinkering with wood pieces and shapes, cutting them and gluing them together.

I had a true love and fascination for woodworking and working with my hands at an early age, but with school and other obligations I didn’t really start making instruments and actually apprenticing with my parents until two years later.

I actually began earnestly crafting my first violin at the age of 9, spending weekends and school breaks and summers in the shop. With that schedule it took me two years to complete my first violin, which was promptly purchased by a local, high profile professional violinist, Raymond Wurfl.

Many years later, I was afforded an opportunity to work with my great uncle, Carl Becker Jr., from Chicago, and that’s really where I developed and honed most of my skills for making new instruments. I should mention, my uncle Carl was a world-renowned violin maker, so it was a real honor to study with him.

I’ve spent time learning from others here and there but my parents and my Uncle Carl were my main influences in making and repairing instruments. But even more than thirty years in, in some ways I feel like I’m still just starting, still learning. I’m pretty certain at this point that I’m always going to feel that way and I’m really glad about that.

We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc. – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
When trying to master any sort of craft or art, I imagine, that road is always going to be fraught with real or imagined struggles, challenges and dark nights of the soul. That just seems to be the nature of things and why so few make it from the starting point of learning a craft to, say, being good enough to make a living at it and then to being widely recognized for achieving a high level of expertise.

I’ve been fortunate in that my road to where I am today has been pretty smooth because I was born into a violin making family. I’ve had wood and instruments and music around me from the beginning. I wasn’t forced into making. I wanted to make. So in a sense, I inherited this opportunity with an established shop with an established reputation. As a third generation luthier, I’ve basically stood on the shoulders of giants, as the say.

Being raised in this environment, I think I became aware earlier than most that learning and mastering a craft is a process and not a destination. Generally, I’ve never told myself that I’ll be happy when I arrive at this point or I’ll consider myself a “real maker” when I achieve this. That’s where artists generally get stuck. It’s not an “arrive at” thing.

Having said that, we do create our own paradigms, and we achieve or struggle within that. I do have my struggles, things I want to be better at, things I’d like to do better, such as varnish, for instance. I don’t believe any violinmaker is ever completely satisfied with this process. Every maker wants to improve their tone, achieve more depth, more richness in the sound. And that’s all good struggle. That’s the very thing that pushes makers to keep improving and discovering new techniques and understandings. That’s what makes the great makers great; the sense that they’ve never fully “arrived” in their craft, that they’re never fully satisfied.

So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Benning Violins story. Tell us more about the business.
I’m a third generation of a now fourth generation family business. My grandfather, Paul Toenniges, started the business in Studio City back in the 1950’s. He was a Chicago-area luthier who focused on making large double basses and achieved some notoriety for his making. He moved to the West Coast in the 40’s and started Studio City Music in 1953.

His daughter, my mom Nancy, was also a maker who excelled in repairs and restoration. When she left to study violinmaking in Germany, she met my father, Hans. They returned together to Studio City Music and worked with Paul until they took over the business in the late 70’s when Paul retired.

We recently celebrated our 64th anniversary. We now service the instruments of children and grandchildren of some of our original customers.

I specialize in the making of new instruments, specifically violins, violas and cellos. I’ve now made over 110 instruments since my first. But lately I’ve been establishing a reputation for making what are called “bench copies” of usually notable instruments.

A bench copy refers to a maker actually having the instrument being copied right there on the bench with me while I’m copying it. When a musician who owns a notable instrument wants it copied, we’re talking identical. Varnish. Imperfections. Sound. Weight.

It’s a tremendous benefit to being based in Los Angeles, which is a classical music mecca, with so many beautiful and interesting instruments to have the opportunity to see and hear and examine. I’ve had so many great instruments on my bench from extremely notable makers.

So that’s what I’m really enjoying doing right now. I’m really appreciating making these models of other great instruments and finding out how these instruments work and what makes them so wonderful.

What gives me great pride is that I’m continuing a family tradition, a legacy. Just being able to do that successfully is wonderful. Working with family comes with its own challenges but if it can be done, the rewards are extraordinary. Successful family businesses have become so rare.

What’s required to make it work is an increasingly rare thing. Everyone has to be on their toes and present and wanting to bring their best to the shop. We have to communicate with each other kindly and respectfully and that hasn’t been hard because everyone knows what to do and how to do it.

Now the fourth generation is working in the shop. My boys, Laura, our customer service manager’s girls are there and they get it. They’ve grown up in the shop, too, and have learned to respect everyone and their roles and what they do well. Now that they’re in the shop, it looks like this tradition and legacy is going to last well over a century. It’s hard not to feel very proud of that.

There are so many great shops out there doing great work. I can single out other makers who have aspects of what they do that I appreciate. I think what makes our shop very unique first and foremost is the years of collective experience in the shop. We’re talking a couple of centuries.

With that experience comes expertise at a lot of separate disciplines within the craft of instrument making. We repair instruments. We restore instruments. We appraise instruments. We make fine new instruments for the highest level professional. We provide great instruments for beginning and intermediate players. We repair and rehair bows. We have a professional violinist on staff to help customers choose and to demonstrate how the violins sound. That’s a lot of things we do well. There’s always a lot happening in our shop. And because that’s true, the cross section of visitors is diverse and eclectic.

I spend time in the shop with some of the greatest players in the world and ten minutes later, I’m helping a young kid choose their first instrument. I work on cellos owned by classical musicians in the LA Philharmonic and I work on cellos owned by players who tour with Lady Gaga. Jazz players and fiddle players are all part of this community built around our shop.

It’s offered me a broad scope of the entire industry and that’s been very helpful. Understanding and knowing directions and trends of where musicians are headed towards, business trends, cultural trends – it keeps me current and open minded and informed. Here in LA, I can’t afford to be stodgy and too traditional. Basically we do everything for everyone.

If you had to begin again, what would you have done differently?
As a maker, I would have spent more time gaining other repairmen’s and other makers’ input and insight. I still try to do that but I think it is always in the back of my mind that I should have done more. But I am continuing to do those things, so it’s not really a regret so much as a desire for more time in the day.

I will say that early on in my career, sharing information was not so highly regarded. Makers and repairmen usually kept things much more secretive. Especially my father and grandfather’s generations, these were things you kept in-house and you didn’t share that with anyone else. It was completely proprietary.

Now there’s a much more generous spirit of sharing information and work techniques, and what it’s done is it has brought our entire industry up. I share my work on social media and I have other makers ask me how I did this or that and I never hesitate to share what I know.

Makers today are so much higher caliber and I think that’s because we are sharing together and learning together as a group. We aren’t in competition and we all understand there’s more than enough to go around.

But in retrospect, I think to myself, “Hey, when I had a little bit more free time before I was so busy with other things, it would have been nice to have additional training.” But that’s not really a regret. It’s just life.

What are key company values that have made your enterprise successful?
We are very focused and oriented toward providing the customer a high level of expert and personal service. The music business is a difficult, demanding industry and the equipment a musician uses is vital. We’re here to make sure – to do what we can – to help that musician be as successful as possible because there’s always a lot at stake.

This morning a professional cellist came into the shop complaining that he didn’t think his cello was performing optimally for his audition. We adjusted the sound post and crafted a new bridge – small, fine adjustments – that made his cello sing and project. I know he left extremely happy and that’s what we’re here for. It made all the difference in the world.

That’s our approach for everyone, not just professionals. Stringed instruments – violins, violas and cellos – are all extremely difficult to play. Yet there are things we as professional luthiers can do to make it easier, especially for the beginners and amateur players. Because if it is too difficult, then people don’t play. And we want people to play music and enjoy it. For a lot of reasons, my family believes the more people who are playing instruments, the better all around. And we’re here to support them.

There’s a great deal of caring in the shop and everyone here is passionate about providing very courteous, kind and patient service. My mom and dad modeled that to all of us, a sort of old-world level of caring and kindness that I believe our generations of customers really and truly appreciate.

Contact Info:

• Address: 11340 Ventura Blvd.
  Studio City, CA
  91604
• Website: http://www.BenningViolins.com
• Phone: 1-818-762-1374
• Email: [email protected]