New UMD Woodwind-Making Course Combines Music, Engineering Skills

October 31, 2024 School of Music

Someone holding a portion of a woodwind instrument in their hands. They are balancing the piece between their index fingers, and just beyond their hands is a laptop screen showing a digital rendering of the part.

Professor of Clarinet Robert Dilutis partners with A. James Clark School of Engineering's Ted Baker for a course where students use technology to create instruments.

Engineering and music students at the University of Maryland can now learn woodworking methods used to create wind instruments in a new cross-disciplinary course.

Sponsored by Arts for All, students enrolled use technology including woodworking tools and 3-D printers to create instruments. The course, taught by Robert DiLutis and Ted Baker, allows students to combine the disciplines while exploring their historical and cultural roots.

DiLutis, a clarinet professor at this university, has crafted musical instruments for more than 30 years and runs a music store, The Reed Machine, out of Riverdale Park. DiLutis said that fusing the historical technique of woodworking with modern techniques like 3-D printing interested him.

He approached Baker, a student competition and woodshop manager at the engineering school, about starting the class and conducted a student pilot course over the summer.

Read the full article in The Diamondback. Photo courtesy of Robert DiLutis