Old wood article

[mandobob]

Discovery Channel article (http://http://dsc.discovery.com/news/afp/20031208/violin.html)

[John Flynn]

The link is not working for me.

[mandobob]

New Better Tasting, Less Filling...
Should be Discovery Article... (http://dsc.discovery.com/news/afp/20031208/violin.html)

[grsnovi]

The only "problem" that I have with the premis is they claim this "mini ice age" occurred between 1645 and 1715. Stradivarius was born in 1644. How old does a spruce tree need to be before its old enough to cut for a violin top?

[sunburst]

I, for one, am pretty tired of articles like that. Seems every so often there is another study that gets writen up by the popular media as having uncovered the "secret" of Stradivari, or at least some part of it.

There is a somewhat related situation with old American guitars. I've read several times that the wood available to the luthiers of the 30s was far superior to that available to us today.
I have some Red spruce top wood that was cut in the 1989. If I count the growth rings, I can easily find the section of that wood that grew in the 30s. It's a band of wood about 3/4 inch wide, about 3 or 4 inches into the tree. Everything beyond that grew before the thirtys. How much different could this wood be than what was used in the guitars of the 30s?
I've thought of building an instrument and staining that band of wood some bright color to set it off from the rest of the top. If anyone were to ask why that band of color was there, I'd look at them and say with reverence..."Why, that's the 30s!!!"http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/laugh.gif

[GBG]

"Wolfe added that another problem with attributing better sound quality to the violins was that the Stradivarius has become the standard against which other violins are judged."

Substitute the words LOAR and MANDOLIN for Stradivarius and violin."Almost by definition you can't make anything better than a Strad (LOAR)."

[mandobob]

I saw Joshua Bell play a Strad at a Praire Home Companion show in NYC; it was the 'red' one of movie and theft fame. It was
'different'; that was the first show I'd seen at Town Hall so the room coulda been a big factor. It was a high, vocal almost eerie sound, but I was surprised at the moderate volume.
Coulda been him, me, the room, etc. The Allstar Shoe Band sounded better that night.

[fiddler59]

That article is crapola at best. First, all Strads are not great sounding violins. All Loars are not great sounding mandos. What the two men have in common is that they perfected both intruments from a design aspect as we know them today. If all Strads were great why did Pagonini choose a Guarnerius del gesu 1743 for his main axe ??
Food for thought.
David Blackmon

[Dru Lee Parsec]

We must remember that there is (according to an extensive article in one of "The Big Red Book of Lutherie" volumes by the Guild of American Luthiers) exactly ONE un-modified strad in the world. Every other strad has had the neck and fretboard extended and nearly every one (if not all) have had bass bars replaced, the top re-graduated, various cracks patched and repaired, and so on.

So what's a real strad sound like? Do we really know?

Disclaimer: Although I have been a musician for nearly 40 years I am NOT a violin player. So everything I say about strads is probably a load of crap. http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/laugh.gif

But it seems to me that the strad mistique stems from a combination of the "Perception of Quality" and scarcity. The actual quality may very well be exceptional but the perception of quality of strads is so high that people will pay half a million or more to have one.

As far as this relates to Loars we would have to admit that, just like the strads, the true quality is certainly there. But perception of quality combined with scarcity have driven the prices beyond what the instrument may demand purely from a tone and feel point of view. But here's the crux: That's not a bad thing. There's nothing wrong with scarcity increasing the price. It's up to us, the consumer, to decide what a thing is worth. If Gibson can sell Master Model mandolins for $15,000 then good for them. That's awesome! They're filling a niche market that need to be filled.

If folks like Joshua Bell can hear or feel the difference between a Strad and an Amati then good for him. I hope he gets inspiration from his instrument. Me? I'd probably just try to play Salley Goodin on the thing. Hey, I can make ANY violin sound Bad http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

[Kid Charlemagne]

It would be interesting to be able to somehow have heard a Stradivarius played for the first time after it left the man's shop. These articles always bug me because they imply that Stradivarius was building miraculous instruments that sounded good when they were first played. They always seem to discount the multiple centuries of age that these violins have on them. Many of those that are currently played have been for many years - literally hundreds of years. Even relatively new instruments suffer when not played regularly, and sound better when played constantly (I've directly observed this with my violin, which was built in 1933 and which hasn't been played regularly in a couple years).

Those of us who've ever been the first owners of a good mandolin, violin, or other stringed instrument know that it takes a while for it to really come into its own, sound-wise. You can't outdistance craftsmanship, it's true - if it's not well-made, it's never going to sound as good as one that was, no matter how old it is - but age does a lot for these instruments. I'd be willing to bet that decades or a few centuries from now, if the violin is still being employed as a popular instrument (who knows, it could go the way of any number of other string instruments that have fallen out of favor in the past), the violins made by the great builders of today will sound equally as good, even if they sound different.

[Chris Baird]

I believe that the insinuation that strads are the best violins ever produced and that there is some secret is very contrary to all blindfold test by physisist, players, audience etc.. The finds are that the good violins built in the baroque era are indistingishable from the good violins of today(that is in the hands of the same skilled player). All the tests generally point to the fact that there is no secret and if there is then it isn't lost to todays top violin builders. Nearly all soloist prefer Guarnerius del gesu not because they sound better than a strad but because they require greater "work" to play which actually allows a greater bowing tolerance near the bridge.

[Tom C]

Strad comparison Here (http://agnews.tamu.edu/dailynews/stories/BICH/Sep2203a.htm)