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Fungivarius Beats $2 Million Stradivarius Violin
Fluffeh writes "Violins made by the Italian master Antonio Giacomo Stradivarius are regarded as being of unparalleled quality even today, with enthusiasts being prepared to pay millions for a single example. Stradivarius himself knew nothing of fungi which attack wood, but he received inadvertent help from the Little Ice Age which occurred from 1645 to 1715. During this period Central Europe suffered long winters and cool summers which caused trees to grow slowly and uniformly ideal conditions in fact for producing wood with excellent acoustic qualities. Now scientists are turning to fungi to recreate some of these amazing sounding instruments."
They're the same instrument. Fiddlers tend to use different strings, and different techniques, but the instrument is the same.
There are differences in playing techniques. For example, classical violin style tends to have vibrato, while fiddles are often played without. Fiddlers makes extensive use of shuffle bowing (the "dee diddle de diddle") rhythm and lots of double stops. But those are playing styles - the instrument is the same.
I'm old enough to have seen that a breathless "the real secret to Stradivarius's violins discovered!!!" story comes up about once ever ten years, then fades away, making way for the next iteration.
When I was in high school it was that the wood he used was floated down rivers before it got to him, and therefore picked up minerals - which a modern maker claimed to have duplicated by boiling the wood in a broth made from shrimp shells. (I'm not making this up.) Earlier, it was something to do with the exact composition of the varnish. And no doubt numerous others that I never heard of.
Somehow, through it all, Strads are still prized above all other instruments, and keep increasing in value each year.
I listened to quite a bit of classical music when I was a kid, but during high school I switch to rock. During college I rekindled my interest in it when I found that classical had the same-- if not better-- calming effect on my brain that some kinds of metal music had. In particular, almost everything by J.S. Bach and Girolamo Frescobaldi. I especially like Glenn Gould's Bach recordings (piano) and Colin Tilney's Frescobaldi recordings (harpischord).
I've found that the structure and depth of much classical music is much more complex and satisfying than most contemporary music. Don't get me wrong, I still listen to rock music, rap, folk, and electronica music, and I do like a good amount of what I hear-- but I think for many "artists", making a living is more important to them than making art, and this is really where a lot of the old masters excel.
Here are some good "beginner" pieces to listen to. They're accessible, and have catchy tunes, and they run the whole spectrum of expression. They're not dull at all!
Anyhow, give it an honest try. You might like it.
I wonder who can actually tell if a strad is better than a good modern violin. Is anyone aware of this sort of testing ever happening?
Wikipedia cites this book by James Beament of Oxford as a source of blind tests and audio analysis that concludes there is no observable difference. The money quote:
there appear to be no characterizing differences between the perceived sound from well-made orthodox instruments on any age when played by a skilled player
The audiophile phenomenon is neither new nor isolated to electronics and turntables. Instruments are shiny and expensive and often rarefied; it is inevitable that a mystique emerges that lead to claims of dramatically superior audio quality. Never expect that the existence of actual evidence will dissuade the audiophiles; for every one tester there are a thousand bullshit artists and a million fools that want to believe them.
Unleash the anecdotes!
Lurking at the bottom of the gravity well, getting old
Should everyone have the privilege of having access to cheap books? Should everyone have access to quality medical care? Oh, I see, they should not...or should they?
Ezekiel 23:20
I don't think it is fair to compare this to audiophool cables. A new violin and a very old one are quite different.
A hundred years or so of playing changes the sound of a wooden instrument.
A few things happen. The wood ages and seasons, and the vibration changes the characteristics of the wood. A completely new violin sometimes has a few hot or dead spots in it's frequency response that get less obvious after a few years of use. Also, the bridge, nut and fingerboard get a little worn.
There have been studies that show these differences are large enough to be noticeable.
Of interest is "US Patent 5537908 - Acoustic response of components of musical instruments" which talks about using a vibration table to attempt to speed this process up.
Also keep in mind consumers of classical music prefer the sound of a modern violin. the tension of the strings has increased meaningfully over the centuries and so has the pitch. So a Stradivarius isn't really built to handle the tension or modern strings.
This isn't exactly true. Nearly all 18th-century violins have been radically overhauled to meet 19th-century standards for sound projection. The neck was re-cut to bend back to allow for greater string tension, which also had to be absorbed by a heavier bass-bar under the left foot of the bridge.
But this aside, the majority of violin players still tend to use gut strings (usually wound with silver) by preference. Synthetic strings can work well on some instruments, but YMMV. On my own instruments, I have had some success with synthetics on the middle strings.
His name was Antonio Stradivari, Stradivarius was his latinized name.
Being myself from Cremona, home of Stradivari, Amati and Guarneri violin makers, I suppose they'll have a long way to go to get the sound of a '700 violin. I'm not saying they won't, sometimes, tough, technology has costs too high to reproduce artisans craftmanship.
By the way in Cremona every day one of the Stradivari's is played in the City Hall. They need to be played to conserve their sound quality; so if you pass near Milan, you can arrange for a hearing.
Check out Emilie Autumn, and her two disk album "Laced / Unlaced". The first disk is some impressively technical classical, the second modernizes and goes industrial.
Maybe. This article says "ten thousand euros." Perhaps worth it to a professional. A student can learn on a less expensive instrument, but at some point, that student's talent might "outgrow" the violin.
There's competition from China, but many of those cheap violins are tarted up to "look like" a more expensive instrument. Unless they also "sound like" the real thing, it's pointless.