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."

Comments

I'm playing the world's smallest violin

[Richy_T]

I bet that's worth a fair bit.

Time to add another layer of BS indirection:

[Tablizer]

It's because they are "playing it wrong" in the tests

Re:Time to add another layer of BS indirection:

[FatdogHaiku]

Ugh - get it right. They are holding it wrong...

Ok, Stop fiddling around!

Re:Time to add another layer of BS indirection:

[amicusNYCL]

A violin made in the 1700s is still worth a lot of money, it just doesn't sound any better.

Re:Time to add another layer of BS indirection:

[exomondo]

It's because they are "playing it wrong" in the tests

No it's because they weren't using Monster Cables!

Re:Time to add another layer of BS indirection:

[Camael]

Oh come on, this study is bogus, the artcle said it was a double-blind study, but there is noway in hell that a violinist of sufficient skill to extract from a Cremonese violin anything close to it's potential, wouldn't know a 300 year old instrument the second they picked it up; this study neither proves or disproves anything.

On the contrary, it appears that you have allowed blind prejudice to cloud your judgement. The study did look into this point specifically, as follows from TFA:-

The violins were winnowed to six old and six new in a double-blind listening test judged by the soloists. Then, each of them donned dark goggles so they couldn’t distinguish the instruments by sight and tested out these top fiddles in two 55-minute sessions, one in a small room and one in a 300-seat auditorium. (Soloists could also play their own instruments for comparison.) After each session, the soloists picked his or her four favorites fiddles and rated them on scale of zero to 10 for qualities such as articulation, projection, and playability. Finally, after the second session, each subject had to guess whether instruments in a small selection that included some of their favorites were old or new.

The consistency of results from session to session showed that soloists could definitely distinguish one violin from another. However, the soloists seemed to prefer the new violins, the researchers report online today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. In their lists of favorites, new violins outnumber old ones roughly 3-to-2, and the most popular violin by far was a new one, denoted N5. Musicians rated qualities of new instruments higher, too. And when it came to telling old violins from new, the soloists did no better than if they had simply guessed.

There may be other reasons to fault the study, but " noway in hell" is not a scientifically valid reason. It has about as much weight as "because I say so".

Re:Time to add another layer of BS indirection:

[outlander]

Sample size being what it is, this isn't really a surprise. In the lutherie world, tests like these get conducted on a relatively regular basis to determine whether or not the qualities attributed to old master violins are replicable by newer makers. In general, the tests (often conducted under the aegis of the Guild of American Luthiers (GAL) or Association of Stringed Instrument Artisans (ASIA)) have tended to validate the claim that many modern builders - Paul Schuback, Joseph Curtin, Michael Darnton, Scott Cao, many others - are doing work that matches (or exceeds) the performance of Old Master violins.

Keep in mind that what we think of as a modern violin is emphatically NOT what the old masters built. Really. They generally made baroque violins, with lower bridges, shorter fingerboards made of maple or other fruitwood, much flatter neck angles, and lower tuning (where A could be as low as 405 to 415 Hz, vs 440 for modern instruments). Over the years, any old master violin which is being played regularly has had its neck reset to a steeper pitch, its fingerboard replaced with a longer ebony board, a much taller and thinner bridge, sometimes a new tailpiece, sometimes even a new scroll. Many times, the top has been regraduated to lighten it in an attempt to reduce mass and increase brilliance. Bass bars are routinely replaced.....some well-known Strads have fifteen to twenty chalk-fitted area patches to repair damage caused by wear, accident, or worm, and at least one has had the entire top thinned to .5mm and new spruce chalk-fitted to structurally rebuild the instrument. (See GAL Red Books; lots of articles on this topic). So the instruments are NOT what the old masters built - they've been hotrodded to suit the needs of players. Baroque violins sound beautiful (listen to Ars Musica ensemble for great examples) but lack volume and power and sustain.....and hotrodded violins have all of these qualities in spades.

What remains of the original violin after hotrodding? Well, for a lot of Strads/Guarneris/Amatis and the like, it's the arching of the top and back, and the general design of the body The patterns of arching and the shapes and outlines have been studied for over two hundred years by violin makers, and has accelerated dramatically with the advent of computing power whch can measure resonance patterns (laser interferometry. for example, and 3D scanning, and materials analysis) and there are extraordinarily accurate plans readily available for interpretation by skilled modern builders. Since, in general, the violin lutherie world is chiefly an apprenticeship system, notwithstanding a few excellent schools, builders learn their craft at the feet of great design and often with strict but excellent teachers.

The implication is that the art of violin making has continued to evolve, with greater access to the science behind the instrument as much as great manual skill to actually do the work of construction. Modern builders don't have and generally don't need magic varnishes or magic wood; they have good materials - and in fact a wider choice of materials than ever before, deforestation notwithstanding - and great skill in working with it to create superlative instruments. And honestly, while old master instruments are nice, I'll take a new, slightly 'tight' violin, and play it in until it loosens up; it costs less, is less to risk, and listeners can not distinguish between it and the ancient instrument. And I'll be delighted to be able to interact with the person that made it, and give feedback to help make the next ones even better.

Oh, and the whole magic varnish theories of people like Nagyvary are nonsense. Construction is more of a determinant than finish....think about it. Which determines structure, the construction, or the extremely thin finish layer? Yes, ash varnishes are beautiful, and salt-of-gems varnishes are beautiful, but they don't necessarily exhibit the visual properties (chiefly dichroism and clarity) of old master instruments.

Moo

[Chacham]

Important paragraphs:

Fritz cautions that the study is too small and too subjective to draw broader conclusions about new or old violins in general. "Our observation is about these 12 violins," she says. "Maybe if we had done this with 12 other violins people might have been able to tell the difference." One aim of the study was to determine what violinists look for in an instrument, which remains hard to quantify scientifically. "I donâ(TM)t like violins that are too direct," says soloist Solenne PaÃdassi. "I like a sound that's more diffuse."

Not everyone is convinced that there isn't something special about the old instruments. Hou says she found the study somewhat artificial in that choosing an instrument for one tour isn't the same thing as choosing one to use for the long haul. A modern instrument may sound better right away she says, but an old Italian may be able to produce more colors of sound that only become apparent after months of use, she says. "I played the Avery Fisher Stradivarius for 6 years," she says, "and it took me 3 years just to get accustomed to it."

Re:Moo

[seepho]

Too late. The summary already gave our resident armchair-experts enough fodder laugh over how everyone is stupid except them.

Re:Moo

[LordLimecat]

Forgive me, but

colors of sound that only become apparent after months of use, she says. "I played the Avery Fisher Stradivarius for 6 years," she says, "and it took me 3 years just to get accustomed to it."

Sounds an awful lot like

Simply put these are very danceable cables. Music playing through them results in the proverbial foot-tapping scene with the need or desire to get up and move.

Elitists come in many shapes and sizes. That doesnt mean there universally substance behind their claims.

Re:Moo

[the gnat]

A modern instrument may sound better right away she says, but an old Italian may be able to produce more colors of sound that only become apparent after months of use, she says.

The phrase "confirmation bias" springs immediately to mind. People hear what they want to hear, and the knowledge that they're playing on a three-century-old, million-dollar violin gives them certain expectations.

Re:Moo

[ShanghaiBill]

Too late. The summary already gave our resident armchair-experts enough fodder laugh over how everyone is stupid except them.

Except the armchair-experts are probably right. There is a huge number of precedents for snobs thinking their choice is objectively superior, but being unable to distinguish them in a blind test:

1. French wines consistently win tasting contests over California wines, yet have no advantage in blind tastings.
2. Steinway pianos are indistinguishable from other high end (but much cheaper) pianos, when played out of sight.
3. Some of Rembrandt's greatest paintings, the very paintings that made him "great", and were considered quintessential Rembrandt masterpieces that could never be equaled by lesser artists, turned out to be fakes.
4. Monster gold plated cables.

Re:Moo

[sexconker]

But there's not much substance to the study, either. You're doing exactly what you're complaining about.

It's a double blind test. Elitists can't pick out the over priced, over hyped thing from the other things. What more do you want?

Audiophiles, wine connoisseurs, art critics, and fashion designers are the masters of bullshit. They even trump holistic healers and political/religious leaders/zealots.

Re:Moo

[Solandri]

Your analogies are wrong. If you read TFA, this isn't a case of people being unable to distinguish between the instruments in a blind test. It's pretty clear the violinists playing the instruments (blindfolded) could tell the instruments apart. It's just that when they tallied up which violins they most preferred playing, a modern one got the most votes.

I'd say this is more a testament to how much modern violin building has improved. It's no longer a black art like it had been for centuries. With modern measuring instruments like accelerometers and oscilloscopes and computer analysis, it's become possible to deconstruct what made the violins crafted by the old masters so great. Then replicate many of those features into modern violins. This in no way diminishes the reputation that Stradivarius violins have built up with centuries of use. It just means modern building techniques have finally caught up to and surpassed what Antonio Stradivarius was able to do in his shop 3 centuries ago.

And I've played on many Steinway pianos. I probably cannot tell from the sound if the music is coming from a Steinway, but I sure as hell can tell if the piano I'm playing on is a Steinway. There are subtle nuances from the weighting of the keys, to the dynamic range between soft and loud, to the consistency of the weighting and tone of the notes as you play them in sequence which are characteristic of Steinway. As a friend of mine said, it's like playing on butter - so soft and responsive. (I'd add easy, except Steinway tends to weight their keys rather heavily, making them not so easy to play for younger/smaller people. The German Steinways are more guilty of this than the NY Steinways; some of the heavier ones will give your fingers quite a workout.) The cheapest piano I've played on where it was obvious the builder paid attention to little details like this was $22k, and that one still had flaws in its tone and feel. Most of the pianos I'd consider comparable to a good Steinway for playing on are in the $50k+ range - the same as a Steinway.

Re:Moo

[I'm New Around Here]

Remember: Price and rarity are another set of entities altogether. A solid gold violin couldn't be played,

You've never been down to Georgia, I take it.

but would be worth a ludicrous amount of money.

I'd bet it against your soul, because I think I'm better than you.

Re:Moo

[ShanghaiBill]

Even more interesting however was a man around the WW2 who make 'original' Vermeers, i.e. paintings which were not copies of existing paintings but were so good and a such a match to the style and quality that people believed they were (almost) real Vermeer works.

That would be Han van Meegeren, one of the greatest art forgers of all time. After the liberation of Holland, he was arrested, and charged with treason for selling Dutch masterpieces to the Nazis, including some to Herman Goering. He faced the death penalty. His defense was that he had indeed sold the paintings, but that they were forgeries, and he painted a new "Vermeer" to prove it.

Re:Moo

[Anonymous Coward]

I remember once I was practicing billiards in the afternoon. A group of young adults came in and played at the table beside me. I was just messing aroung but making some impressive shots consistently and when asked how I did something, I showed them but went back to my own thing.

After an hour of this, they weren't very trying but not very good at making the shots I showed them and I was running racks of 9 ball in self practice and a few trick shots, they asked with a lot of admiration how much I paid for my pool stick. It was a two piece, carbon fiber looking thing that was matte gray-black and looked rather pretty and sleek. I told the truth. $19.99 at walmart.

Immediately, something about them changed. I still don't know exactly what. Maybe I was no longer a billiard magician honing his craft with his expensive and unobtainable wand but just some hustler with a cheap stick playing parlor tricks anybody could do with some practice, but they went quiet and we interacted little the rest of the night I was there.

If I had told them $500, but that it was only my practice stick and not the expensive one I use only on tournaments, they would probably have believed me and marveled at it and my skill some more, and probably commented how they wished they could afford such a fine piece and that my real cue must be really something.

Re:Moo

[phantomfive]

2. Steinway pianos are indistinguishable from other high end (but much cheaper) pianos, when played out of sight.

Wow, this is completely not true. I can teach you how to hear the differences.

One of the most important differences is the scale design, how does the designer want the piano to sound? Do you want a note to sound clear like a bell, or have more color, like a trumpet (in terms of sound waves, the bell tone will emphasize the fundamental, the colorful tone will emphasize the overtones more). Steinway chooses to make the middle and upper notes clear like a bell, and the lower notes more colorful. Steingraeber (another top piano) chooses to make it clear like a bell all the way through. Bosendorfer is notable for the extremely clear tones in the low bass.

Next up is the sound for the milliseconds when the note hits, and the sound of the sustain. Pleyel makes their pianos sound 'colorful' when the note hits by adjusting the hammer density, but during the sustain the note becomes more clear.

Another difference is the length of the sustain of the note. Once again, Steingraeber chooses to make the sustain on their piano last much longer, as compared to the Steinway, which chooses to have a shorter sustain.

There are plenty of other differences. Now, this isn't to say you will always be able to tell a difference. Yamaha in the last few years has changed their high-end piano to sound more like the Steinway. Furthermore, Steinways are inconsistent in quality; since they are made by hand, you can get two Steinways that are not of the same standard, which is frustrating when you are trying to buy one.

So, if a piano technician is trying to trick someone, they can probably get the right Steinway and the right Yamaha and adjust the voicing so the person will be tricked, but when a Steinway is regulated to its best, and a Bechstein is regulated to its best, the differences are clear and easy to distinguish.

misleading title

[Anonymous Coward]

"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.

Re:misleading title

[ShanghaiBill]

"cannot tell the difference" -- that's not what is being said here.

That is what is being said. TFA states that they could distinguish between individual violins, but that they could not tell which were old and which were new. So if you have two violins, A & B, and you play one and then the other, and then you pick either A or B at random, the subjects could tell whether you are playing the first or the second, but they could NOT tell which was old and with was modern.

Re:misleading title

[steelfood]

Here's an informative blog piece by one of the testers:

http://www.violinist.com/blog/...

Modern audiophiles are no different.

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Modern audiophiles are no different.

[lgw]

The 4k Hz "beat" signal is perfectly captured by the digitization. What's your point? Lack of understanding what a band pass filter actually does?

Yes, but you *can* tell the difference if...

[istartedi]

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.

Sorry about the loss of the magic

[jfengel]

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.

Re:Sorry about the loss of the magic

[ArcadeMan]

Just like ancien mechanical clocks are marvels of engineering especially at the time of their fabrication, they're totally imprecise compared to even a low-cost crystal-clock Timex plastic watch.

I'm an OK violinist

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:I'm an OK violinist

[Mithrandir]

"Few multiples" of $10K won't buy you much in the range of around half the orchestral instruments. You'd be flat out trying to pay $30K for a pair of Clarinets or a trumpet, but the less popular instruments can get very, very pricey. As a bassoonist, many of our top of the line instruments are rather expensive. A good Fox or Heckel will be around $30K - 50K USD before custom keywork is factored in (can add up to $10K to the base price). My Fox Contra was, 10 years ago USD $30K so it would be significantly more than that to replace it now. If I was to purchase the same instruments here in Oz about triple that price in AUD.

Double basses and 'cellos also are upwards of $50K in the USA for good ones. Harpsichords also up over $30K for a reasonable one that wasn't assembled from a kit (lots in kit form for $15-20K). Harps also waaay up there in price. That's just from instruments I'm personally familiar with that I either play or someone in my family plays.

The value of a Stradivarius

[kruach aum]

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.

Re:The value of a Stradivarius

[gander666]

That is fine for a collector. For someone who plays for a living, not so much. Most of the artists who play the Stradivarius' don't own the instrument. They are loaned to them from their benefactors.

I play guitar. I have a few nice guitars, and I thought I had an expensive habit. A friend who is a concert viola player has a "mid range" viola from a good maker, and it cost $45K about 15 years ago. Probably worth $60K or so today. And that isn't from one of the better modern makers.

And my wife gives me grief for my $2k used Tom Anderson guitar.

What's in a name?

[suprcvic]

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.

The study was wrong.

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

These violins are to be heard, not seen. They should have done a double deaf study not double blind study.

Re:Article Is Wrong

[the gnat]

The older violins are worth several million of dollars and they were loaned on the condition that they could not be tuned.

First, your link refers to an earlier article (also in PNAS) with a smaller sample size. Second, the condition wasn't that they couldn't be tuned, it was that "tonal adjustments" like moving the bridge or replacing the strings were not allowed. I would assume that simply tightening the pegs was permissible.

Re:It was a big mistake

[Frobnicator]

...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.