Drier climate damages music making - 6th January 2023

Climate change has had many negative effects, but few think about the damage to music making.

Traditional instrument makers in Switzerland are anxious. The material they use is found in the Risoud Forest, on the border between France and Switzerland. In this region, up in the Jura mountains, many of the trees are centuries old.

The wood here is exactly what's needed for craftspeople who create guitars, violins and other string instruments. However, now climate change is damaging the wood's wonderful qualities.

Francois Villard works as a forester.

Francois Villard: "Global warming is the problem. The average annual temperature, when I arrived here in the Vallee de Joux, 30 years ago, we had an average annual temperature of 5-6 degrees. Now we are way over."

It's the high location of these Risoud Forest trees which makes them so unusual, as specialist Theo Magnin explains. He's someone who searches for the perfect trees.

Theo Magnin: "For musical instruments, you need very tight veins and that's why the more the trees grow in altitude, between 1000 metres and 1200 metres high above the sea level, the veins will be very tight."

Out of 300 trees that are selected and cut down, a maximum of two will be appropriate for the skilled workers. He fears that global warming will destroy that small amount.

Theo Magnin: "With global warming and the lack of water, I don't know what we're going to find as resonance wood, high quality wood in the next few years. It's becoming a disaster with the woods drying."

While the instrument makers have experimented with a variety of wood types, for craftsmen like Philippe Ramel, the Risoud Forest wood definitely produces a better sound.

Philippe Ramel: "It's the air inside the guitar that will, with the vibration of the string, begin to move and which will cause the soundboard to vibrate like the skin of a drum. So we want the best possible vibratory qualities and the Risoud forest guarantees that."