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Elite Violinists Can't Distinguish Between a Stradivarius and a Modern Violin
sciencehabit (1205606) writes "If you know only one thing about violins, it is probably this: A 300-year-old Stradivarius supposedly possesses mysterious tonal qualities unmatched by modern instruments. However, even elite violinists cannot tell a Stradivarius from a top-quality modern violin, a new double-blind study suggests. Like the sound of coughing during the delicate second movement of Beethoven's violin concerto, the finding seems sure to annoy some people, especially dealers who broker the million-dollar sales of rare old Italian fiddles. But it may come as a relief to the many violinists who cannot afford such prices."
I bet that's worth a fair bit.
It's because they are "playing it wrong" in the tests
Table-ized A.I.
Important paragraphs:
Have you read my journal today?
"cannot tell the difference" -- that's not what is being said here. Instead, the violinists were asked which ones they preferred. Certainly they could distinguish between them.
This is nothing new. Audiophiles and musicians are notoriously stubborn when it comes to accepting reality. There are still people who insist that vinyl records are a more genuine/accurate representation of sound than digital formats. There are people who insist that they can hear the difference between 320kbps mp3s (using the highest-quality available compressor) and their uncompressed counterparts.
Science and math proves all of these things wrong, yet people still insist they're right.
Yes, but you *can* tell the difference if you play the recordings on the original vinyl with a tube amp. That's how Stradivarius intended his instruments to be heard. He even held the wood close to a fire for a few minutes, to give it that warm sound.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
People have some kind of innate (or maybe learned, but deep) fondness for "authentic". They'll pay for things that were touched by celebrities, as if there's some kind of magic that's transmitted through it.
These were, almost surely, the best violins available. The Stradavari family had extraordinary skill, surpassing anybody else at the time. It's remarkable and amazing that it should take us centuries to make other instruments with similar precision, balance, and quality.
But it's not amazing that we should eventually do so. There was no magic to these instruments, just tremendous hard work and a commitment to quality. These are rare, but hardly unique, especially over the course of centuries.
Let us appreciate these for what they are: remarkable artifacts of history, hand-made to extreme precision, durable enough to stand the test of time and be selected for their quality. There's no point in adding an additional layer of BS about some magic, unattainable extra that can't possibly be reproduced. It doesn't diminish the instrument, nor does it make every hack a great musician. Great instruments and great musicians will continue to make great music; surely that should be enough without sullying it with gullibility.
I'm in my mid-thirties now, and have been playing since I was 5. I played 5 hours a week until high school, which rose to nearly 10 a week. I took a hiatus from playing in college. I play about twice a month now, having many other demands on my time. I'm not all that good, but I enjoy it and hope to pass some form of love of playing music to my children.
I can tell the difference between my crappy violin and nicer ones in the store. Do you know how much a top quality modern violin costs?
These things aren't remotely affordable. A crappy old one might cost $1,000. A top quality modern one will cost you what a decent house might. Saying that a modern violin is more affordable than a Strad is like saying that a Bugatti Veyron is more affordable than a F-16 fighter jet. I'm not buying either one.
The real conclusion that should have been drawn, is most people who claim they are experts, are not.
Much like how over 90% of Ivy league-educated economists were unable to see a bubble was forming in real estate nearly 10 years ago.
We live in a society where we act as if a person's credentials actually mean something, but most of the time, in reality, they mean absolutely nothing. It's just a placebo effect.
I can't tell the difference between a signed first edition of On the Origin of Species and a regular seventh edition either if I'm only allowed to look at certain pages, but that doesn't mean they're of equal value. The value of a Stradivarius lies not in the sound it produces but in its provenance.
The thing is, you can have good ears and bad hands, and you KNOW you can't play the violin. But someone with good hands and bad ears may be playing wrong, and won't be able to tell. Because for all practical purposes, good hands mean nothing without good ears, any elite violinist should by definition have good ears.
New violins don't have cool names like Stradivarius though. That name is so epic, it could make anything look or sound high brow and expensive. Stradivarius Coffee, home of the $75 latte. Stradivarius Bounce House, let your kids bounce around for only $125/hr. Stradivarius Water, Anything less, will dehydrate you, only $49.99 per 8oz bottle made out of the finest Stradivarius plastics. With a name like that, people will pay anything.
They didn't use Monster(tm) cables!
3 years ago I had the privilege and pleasure of running sound mix for a piano (9 foot Steinway) and violin concert. The violinist played a borrowed Stradivarius. I expected it to be deeper, richer, fatter, fuller, etc., like a viola, but it was kind of bright. Turns out that's what makes them so good. The violinist commented that it's like playing an electric guitar- you get much more volume for the same bow effort and enables far more dynamics. He was almost giddy with excitement. It certainly made a lot more sound than I'm used to from one violin.
We now have the tools and tech to analyze the wood, finish, glues, bracing, etc., and people have, so I fully believe a well-made new violin could duplicate the Strad's sound. The $ value is, like any antique, based on who is willing to pay what.
Many of the old strads have been modified to have a taller bridge
or this or that to improve on the voice.
The old strads that were less than wonderful have been used
as kindling or rebuilt and refitted to be playable. i.e. only the
instruments that stand the test of time made it to today.
One anomaly in the good ones that is almost impossible to measure
is the way the wood was dried. One supply had been submerged in
volcanic ash and was gently permeated with silica as well as it
was cured for decades before being sawn into boards and finally
dried. Should someone pull some Mt. St Hellen spruce out of Spirit
lake and slow cure the boards well we could have a modern fiddle
that in 700 years will prove to be a master.
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't. Mark Twain.
These things are analog. You tune them by twisting a wooden peg. They don't even have frets! Each instrument is unique and so are we. Professional players really take their time searching for an instrument that suits them.
I play trumpet Thank God. Our instruments are MUCH cheaper. But most of the pro players I play with own several instruments because of all the little variations between them. Go to the home of any serious guitar player and ask how many guitars they own... It's quite common to find guys who own a dozen or more.
Are the Stravdivari and Guarneri violins worth the 8 figure prices? It's all a matter of supply and demand. There are only so many of the old instruments and if enough people want them, then the price goes up. The value of something is what someone is willing to pay for it, which in the case of violins, does not necessarily correlate to how well it plays.
My wife also plays baroque violin and has a French instrument, made in 1774, which cost her only $12k. She tried out nearly 20 baroque violins before she settled on this one and it's a gem. There aren't many people playing in the baroque style, so there isn't as much demand. Most of the old Italian instruments have been altered over the years from their original form. "Modern" violins (those made after about 1830 or so) have necks that are bent further back and put more tension on the strings. They are engineered to play louder than the older instruments. The bows are bigger and heavier as well. And the bows are concave instead of being convex and have more horse hair on them so they play louder.
Because there isn't as much demand, the prices for the old instruments are much lower. The old instruments are worth that much because people are willing to pay for it, not because they necessarily are "better".
Read an account about it here:http://www.violinist.com/blog/laurie/20121/13039/
First of all, the violinists were able to tell the difference between old and new violins.
It was a double blind study about which violin the violinists preferred to play. And since musicians that play the same instrument have different ideas of what kind of sound they prefer, it should not be a surprise that some preferred newer models. Of course, no two violins are created equal, and some Stradivariuses sound better than others. There were some constraints to the study, however. The older violins are worth several million of dollars and they were loaned on the condition that they could not be tuned.
There are more than enough examples of ridiculous amounts being spent on not much more than popularity or a whim. Why is it so surprising people are willing to spend a lot on legendary and very rare instruments from several hundreds of years ago?
Maybe our modern-day instruments can hold up to those legends simply because today violin makers are standing on the shoulders of giants like Stradivari? A brand-new violin still costs a fortune and the most famous violin-makers today still select their clients very strictly. You essentially have to apply to even be allowed to pay them all that money.
And without trying to be too "voodoo" about this but as a musician myself, I am wondering just what kind of effect this privilege of playing such a rare instrument could have on the violinist. Maybe part of the "myth" is simply that the feel-good knowledge of playing one of the most legendary instruments out there can slightly improve an artists performance to push it to where "magic" happens?
World-class athletes do all sorts of "magic" to push themselves beyond their limits, to get just a slightly better performance. Why should the same not be true for performing star musicians?
"Only one thing is impossible for God: To find any sense in any copyright law on the planet." - Mark Twain
These violins are to be heard, not seen. They should have done a double deaf study not double blind study.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
...not to include a couple of clunkers in the test; the sort of violins the average student may possess at high school.
Why? They can be dismissed out of hand. Not a professional by any means, but almost a decade of lessons during childhood. The difference between a "clunker" and a quality instrument is instantly obvious to the player.
There are the differences in construction and the parts. I have seen student violins pop their glued seams. I have heard the wood creak as they are handled and placed in position, as pressure from the bow is applied. Cheap fingerboards tend to vibrate uncomfortably. I went a few times to a violin shop and just played around on the various instruments. I was young enough that I didn't care about cost, just went around playing them. Violins in one area felt like fingernails on a chalkboard and sounded similar. I found part of the shop with a stash of violins that felt like silk and had beautiful tone, and after falling in love with several of them was gently told that those were far outside hat we could afford.
If I could tell that kind of difference as a non-professional youth, I cannot imagine a professional picking up a squeaky, creaky 'violin shaped object' as they are called, and confusing it for a well-made instrument.
//TODO: Think of witty sig statement
Probably some really bitchin' funny cat videos. Who has time to make violins by hand?
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Modern instrument manufacturing is capable of making incredibly high quality instruments at very reasonable production costs. Higher end instruments require a lot more human hands-on intervention in the manufacturing process but the high precision manufacturing equipment means instruments can be built to exacting specifications and done repeatably. The human finishing and fine tuning process completes the process for high end instrument builds. I play guitar and love to play many of the Paganini pieces from Opus #1 and therefore I listen to violin virtuosos like Perlman, Heifetz, Midori, Mintz, etc. I think they deserve to own the classic instruments with incredible provenance. Much of the tremendous sound they produce though is also a product of having master luthiers perform expert restoration and maintenance to these older but very finely built instruments. As a guitar player I am constantly amazed by what guitar collectors will pay for "classic" guitars. I grew up in the 60's and I love classic Strats, Teles and Les Pauls too but the idea that the sound is worthy of 6 figure prices is rediculous. Many fine instruments are built in the far east, starting with great Japanese guitars built in the 70's and growing from there (South Korea, China, Indonesia). In general I believe today's high end violins are certainly comparable with the finest classic violin masterpieces from the Italian luthiers of the 18th century. But that does not mean that those instruments are not to be admired and sought out by the finest virtuoso violinists who relate to the importance and provenance of these instruments in addition to appreciating their stellar tone.
Hmm. I'd suggest that when you say 'inconsistency,' what you're referring to is the range of timbres available throughout the instrument's entire compass. Part of the richness associated with the old master instruments is a sweetening of the high end, caused by a variety of factors but mostly by the instrument being in tune with itself. The idea of building the instrument to be consonant with itself - that is, in tune with itself - is quite old. Builders who do this (tuning the top and back to specific pitches when rapped, working the bass bar and neck to work with the body, et cetera) tend to build instruments where the harmonics pile up on each other in the upper register and sound sweet - there's not a lot of phase cancellation. Builders who don't tend to have 'wolf' notes, which are odd resonances caused by any number of things, mostly mass either existing or lacking in a particular location in the body.
Many modern builders do tune the instrument such that it gets sweeter as the pitch increases, which can lead to a deceptive increase in perceived volume.
A number of modern guitarmakers have adopted the build-without-stress and consonance philosophy as well, most notably students of the late Arthur Overholzer, including Richard Hoover of Santa Cruz Guitars and a number of the people he's taught. It definitely makes for a more pleasant players' experience - they move all of a piece and feel very alive.
"Truth is what works" -- William James "It works!!" -- o-dark-AM comment