Alumni Update: Engineering and art make beautiful music

When Aaron Bailey and Tigran Vardanyan restyled a shoulder rest for their own violins, little did they know their simple design, made in Bailey’s home workshop, would be sought by musicians around the world.

Just as there are unique designs of violins and other stringed instruments, there are many different styles of shoulder rests available to musicians. Bailey ’05 (mechanical engineering) and Vardanyan found a way to build a shoulder rest that fits both the curves of violins—and bodies— but still allows for freedom of movement and does not impact sound.

Luis Pena ’07 The ArcRest shoulder support is made of flexible materials, lightweight padding and minimal anchors to hold a violin in place.

The ArcRest shoulder support is made of flexible materials, lightweight padding and minimal anchors to hold a violin in place. Over the last two years since the company was incorporated, artists from the New York City Ballet Orchestra, Pacific Symphony and several chamber music ensembles in Europe use the ArcRest.

 “As musicians we want to be able to connect with the instrument, to have nothing intrusive in there so that you can blend with the instrument and it blends with your body. The ArcRest allows you to approach the instrument more naturally,” said Bailey, who began playing the violin at 3, played with RIT’s Philharmonic and continued studying after college with Vardanyan.

Both looked to tradition and the old masters, who often played their instruments without shoulder rests, when they started to design the ArcRest. 

“Our question was, how did they do this without anything? You had to learn to balance the instrument yourself. But we thought with a little support, especially if it helps the sound rather than takes away from it and doesn’t destroy that natural relationship between instrument and artist and gives some support, this could work,” said Vardanyan, who is celebrating 20 years with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra.

As they developed the ArcRest, they asked musicians they knew to test the device.

Luis Pena ’07 Close-up of the ArcRest.

“We were pleasantly surprised. One colleague had used the same type of rest his entire career. We asked his opinion of it, maybe he’d show it to his students. We never thought he’d use it himself,” said Vardanyan. But that was what he did.

Bailey, a senior mechanical engineer with Council Rock Enterprises in Rochester and current member of the Brighton (N.Y.) Symphony Orchestra, continues to make the devices in his basement workshop.

He and Vardanyan have designed new models made of carbon fiber composite materials and they continue to produce several different thicknesses of pads. They also created smaller rests for children.