Welcome to D. Rickert Musical Instruments.

This is the primary website and blog for Don Rickert Musical Instruments, a bespoke lutherie practice that designs and makes historic, custom and ground-breaking modern musical instruments, generally instruments played with a bow, such as violins, fiddles and violas. We are presently engaged in adding a collection of historically-inspired banjos to our portfolio.

The images below show the main types of instruments I am building these days. Clicking on any of the images brings up a brief descriptive summary, with links to more detailed information, including full product descriptions with pricing information and such. All of these instruments are considered to be “Alternative Violin Family Instruments”. You will want to see the following articles about such instruments:

What Are ‘Alternative’ Violin Family Instruments?: Three New Articles On that Topic

Brief Descriptions for Various Alternative Violin Family Instruments

Alternative Violin Family Instruments: Relative Sizes and Shapes of Soprano, Alto, Tenor and Baritone Range Instruments

Alternative Violin Family Instruments: What Are They For?

The Latest on Octave Violas and Tenor Violas by D. Rickert (with Demos)

If you want a plain old violin or fiddle, there are literally thousands of sources. D. Rickert Musical Instruments is one of the few lutheries anywhere that specialize in extended range, low-pitched and unusual bowed string instruments.