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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.
It might go a log way to preventing them from producing undesirable harmonics.
Anyone know of any studies which looked at the waveforms to find unique qualities?
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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
Well, perhaps this is the final verdict? However, in the past the claim was the wood was from logs that were at the bottom of a swamp or something. Also, it was thought to be the chemical treatment. I suspect this is just the latest theory.
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Stradivarius-Violins-Mystery-Solved-41462.shtml
They aren't saying for sure that this is what gives the Stradivarius's their unique sound but it's the first scientific explanation I've heard for it that seems to have merit.
This idea (and papers supporting it) have been around for years... a quick Google Scholar search turns up papers going back to at least 2003. The only new part was the use of CT imagery, as far as I can tell.
The varnish on a Stradivarius is what biochemist Joseph Nagyvary thinks is relevant. Cheaper varnishes may be too rubbery and as a result damp high frequencies. He's built some violins based on his ideas, though apparently a good musician can still tell the difference between one of his and a Stradivarius.
One problem with the wood density idea is that not all Stradivarius violins have the sound for which they're famous.
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.
This is a problem with woodwork. It is difficult to get dense wood. Only 20 years ago it was easy to get good dense wood that could be built and oiled so it would last a very long time. Now all I see is light junk wood.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
There was a TV show some years back about a physicist who tried to figure out what makes violins sound good. He found a few interesting things.
High-frequency response depends on the shape of the bridge. All those curly-cues cut into it control the transfer function from the strings to the body.
Mid-range response depends on the shape of the f-holes in the body. In this range, the bridge is rigid. The strings push on the bridge, and the bridge rocks the portion of the top plate between the f-holes back and fourth so that it radiates sound.
Bass goes from the strings, through the bridge, down through the sound post to the back panel, and is radiated by the back panel. Stradivarius shaped the back panel of his violins asymmetrically, so that the center of percussion was right where the sound post pushes on the back panel. IIRC, getting the center of percussion under the sound post was a distinguishing characteristic of Stradivarius violins.
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.
Who alternately and randomly played a strad and a fake strad for an audience and for experts. Turned out that the well made violin was dubbed a strad equally often as the strad even by experts.
What really makes a strad sound good is the musician playing it.
How many entry level violin players play a strad?
There is no magic, there is just LOTS of practice.
God: "I don't leave footprints!"
Not necessarily.
I know this is anecdotal, but I've a violin that's my grandmother's, which was her mother's (I think). It's very old, and German, and is a pleasure to play.
I also have several new violins that have been modeled after the really good old ones (including one that's modeled after a Bolshoi instrument). Now, the new ones sound fabulous, no doubt, but the old ones still have an ineffable quality to them that makes the music stand out.
For the longest time I thought this was psychological, but I've played both kinds of violins to friends and family with no music knowledge, and almost always, people say that the older violin just sounds richer. Even more interesting is the fact that the strings (both violin and bowstrings) are all quite new, so it most certainly is the body.
Secondly, it is also the collector's value - you have some excellent replicas of some of the world's most famous paintings, perhaps in better quality and in better resolution. However, that hardly diminishes the value of the original.
Do I enjoy playing my new violins? Hell yeah. In fact, I've some with fixed microphones inside which makes it easier for me to make recordings and the like (this is a problem because appropriate placing of mics inside a violin is hard, without affecting the harmonics, and there are some violins that take this into consideration).
And while some of my new violins can certainly take a beating, while I'm scared shitless of doing anything to my grandmother's violin. That does not mean that it diminishes the value of the old one - if anything, it makes it a delicate, valuable item.
I have played fiddle for 10 years, mostly bluegrass and Irish music. I've also spent time in an orchestra as a clarinet player, as well as a smattering of other instruments. The world of bowed strings and the prices associated with Strad-grade instruments has always astonished me. I can't name another type of musical instrument people are willing to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for, and I think there are a couple of factors behind it:
1. Most classical violinists play in the company of others, i.e. in an orchestra, where 'one-upmanship' can play a big role. If your instrument isn't as expensive as your stand partner's, you might fear the perception that you value your craft less highly! In fact, I'm told some orchestras won't audition players unless their instrument cost a certain (quite high) dollar amount.
2. I can say as a violin player that the instruments are basically impossible to perform systematic A/B tests with. For example, I can't A/B two different brands of string on my instrument, because changing the strings takes at least 5-10 minutes, by which point my short-term aural memory is already gone. Furthermore, it's next to impossible to change strings without shifting bridge and tailpiece position, both of which affect tone as well. Need some more nails in the coffin? Rosin buildup on the strings and string age also affect the tone _more_ than different brands of strings do. It's a different picture than, for example, factory built electric guitars, where you could set up two identically built solidbody guitars with your A and B stringsets, and (at least within a first order) you could claim equivalence between your two string-testing platforms.
In the absence of the ability to perform systematic tests, it seems like string players go for a lot of "magic" - $90 sets of strings, rosin with gold flecks in it for "warmer, richer tone" - and a lot of other bullshit, including price-performance equivalence. Like Lotus owners, violinists are usually limited far more by their technique than their instrument (once you get into the 10-20K range), and yet there is still a push to buy the 100K instrument!
As for the Strad instruments: scientific inquiry into things like wood density, varnish, etc, seems pretty disingenuous if no one can reliably detect the qualities the instruments are supposed to have. If, as the earlier posters mention, Strads can't be reliably detected in double-blind conditions, it seems obvious that any investigation into their unique properties would be chasing one's own tail. Even if there is an amazing, one of a kind Little Ice Age, shipwreck-sunk virgin blood Stradivarius, none of those attributes are relevant if they don't impact the sound. And if "what makes Strads so great" isn't about the sound, then WTF is the point of the investigation? Dense wood really isn't great for its own sake.
Whew. rant over.
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That it was the volcanic dust they used to finish rubbing the wood before varnishing, which stayed in the wood to leave a very hard layer under the varnish - it floated my boat.
-- Only information exists, the rest is just smoke and mirrors.
I'm a woodworker and some of my friends have tried to make violins. They all looked good and sounded terrible. It's definitely a tough business.
Obviously we aren't there yet, not even close; but in principle the future(possibly even a future some of us will live to see) will hold nanolevel assembly techniques that will allow us to construct objects out of pretty much any material or mixture of materials that plays well with existence. I find it extraordinarily unlikely that the best possible violin is made of some sort of naturally occurring wood, finished with simple hand tools and crude chemistry. How long, though, will we resist such a conclusion?
The same could be asked of wine. In principle, a team of analytical chemists with the right equipment and no reverence for the past could characterize(and possibly, at some future time, economically duplicate) whatever vintage has the experts drooling this week.
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