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Wood Density May Explain Stradivarius Secret
Whorhay writes "A Dutch doctor and a violin maker from Arkansas have compared five classical and eight modern violins in a computed tomography (CT) scanner. Apparently the 300-year-old violins are made of wood with a more consistent density than the modern violins. They aren't saying for sure that this is what gives the Stradivarius violins their unique sound, but it's the first scientific explanation I've heard for it that seems to have merit." Unfortunately science has yet to explain how how all three chords I know ROCK on my SG.
Here's an article from 2004 about the fact that the Little Ice Age was most likely responsible for slowing tree growth and creating perfect wood for violins: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/01/0107_040107_violin.html
Highly unlikely. Are old paitings worthless because we have high definition movies now? No, because they are considered works of art. This is the same for the Stradivarius.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power lost.
So, there's some big mystery about Strads that makes them sound better than other violins? Or do people just think they sound better, because a single Strad goes for millions of dollars? Jon Rose adheres to the second theory:
As any honest violin dealer will tell you (and there are a few) the sound of a violin can be priced in a range from $50 (bad, but playable), to $10,000 (good-sounding) to $20,000 (extremely good tone and projection) to $100,000 (simply over-priced). The rest is snotty-nosed hubris. As has been proven on a number of occasions, most notably by the BBC in 1975, a well-made, top modern violin can sound just as good if not better than the prized golden age models. In a recording studio, behind a screen, the violins of Isaac Stern, Pinchas Zukerman and Charles Beare were played back to them. The instruments were a Strad, a Guarneri del Gesu, a Vuillaume, and a Ronald Praill (a modern instrument less than a year old). None of the esteemed violin experts really had a clue which violin was which. Furthermore, two of them couldn't even tell which was their own instrument. They were left mumbling platitudes about the personal relationship between fiddle and player — bloody obvious if you spend most years of your life playing the violin.
His full rant here.
Wood - all aspects, from density to shape - plays a huge role in guitar tone. I've always found this to be rather astonishing since the sound of an electric guitar comes from a vibrating piece of wire interacting with a small magnet. How is it that the thing holding the string above the magnet can play such a big part in what the magnetic field is doing? But it does, and that's pretty cool to me.