Musical strings serve as ties that bind the Singleton family.
The Singleton Piano Trio includes brothers Eddie Singleton on cello and Philip Singleton on violin, and
Eddie’s wife, Lynn Singleton on piano, and the instruments the brothers play were handcrafted by their
father Edgar Singleton.
The Singleton brothers, who grew up in Bowling Green and graduated from Bowling Green State University as
did Lynn Singleton, will present a concert Oct. 3 at 2 p.m. in the atrium of the Wood County Public
Library. (Photo: The Singleton Piano Trio (from left) Philip, Lynn and Eddie Singleton will perform Oct.
3 in the atrium of the Wood County Public Library.)
Both brothers graduated from Bowling Green High School, Eddie in 1976 and Philip in 1978, and then went
on to study music at BGSU, where they had gotten their first training as children in the Creative Arts
program.
"Music was just such an important part of our upbringing and household," Eddie Singleton said
recently. "It was just part of the environment in our house."
Their mother, Marilyn, who died in 1986, was an active musician who played organ and violin.
It was the brothers’ and their sister Carrie Jane’s string lessons that prompted their father, a physics
professor a BGSU, to start studying instruments.
At first, Edgar Singleton said, it was a matter of practicality. With three youngsters playing string
instruments, "I learned how to glue cracks and replace strings," the elder Singleton said.
Then one instrument needed more serious repair "and I tried to fix it not knowing what I was
doing."
One of his sons brought him a string catalog and he was fascinated by all the accoutrements of instrument
repair. "I discovered there’s a whole world out there of luthiers. You can buy everything you
need," he said.
So in 1982 he purchased a book and all the wood and other materials needed to make a violin. The first
one, he said, "sounded pretty good" so he made another one.
Then he found out about the Catgut Acoustical Society, a group of scientists interested in bringing
scientific principles to instrument design and manufacture.
Edgar Singleton, who now lives in Sylvania, was able to apply "a little physics." He had a lot
of fun in his new avocation. "It’s just something that piqued my interest," he said.
In the past 27 years he’s made 10 violins, three violas and two cellos, and has another violin in the
works, he said.
Previous to making violins he did some carpentry. Making a wooden instrument was "a combination of
carpentry and carving skills," he said. "It takes patience and the ability to figure out how
to correct mistakes."
For centuries the creation of instruments was highly subjective. Instruments created by the masters were
deemed to sound brilliant or dark, but how they ended up sounding that way was shrouded in mystery.
Scientists in the Catgut Acoustical Society were "able to quantify some of these qualities,"
Edgar Singleton said.
"They observed that if you measure something and got a certain number, when you finished the violin
people thought it sounded nice," he said.
Hearing his sons play his instrument gives him pleasure. "It’s very satisfying, fulfilling," he
said.
At the library concert, the Singletons will play a program of music by Franz Joseph Haydn, Sergei
Rachmaninoff, Jean-Baptiste Loeillet de Gant and Frederic Chopin.
The trio tries to perform once a year either in North Carolina, where Philip Singleton performs and
teaches, or Columbus, where Eddie teaches English at Ohio State and his wife has a piano studio.
The trio’s first performance, though, in 1982 was at BGSU.
Because of those strong connection to Bowling Green, "we thought it would be a chance for people we
lived and worked with in Bowling Green to hear us," said Eddie Singleton.
At first they looked for a hall on campus, but the scheduling didn’t work out. Then they contacted Jim
Brown, who directed the brothers in high school choir and Madrigals. Brown is a member of the committee
that oversees the use of the library’s Steinway grand piano. Through him, the concert was scheduled.
In the audience will be Edgar Singleton, who despite a few years studying cello, has never mastered a
string instrument.
"I sit there and listen," he said, "and I can’t believe anybody can do this."