Lloyd Loar in 1921 on Bridges

[Joe Spann]

In 1921 Lloyd Loar gave a speech at the Guild of Banjoists, Mandolinists and Guitarists Convention in Los Angeles, California. His topic was "Gibson Selling Points From Science." The entire speech was recorded in the January 1922 issue of Sounding Board Salesman magazine, but I have extracted just his thoughts about stringed instrument bridges here.

I believe this speech is particularly important as it was made at a point in time just a few months prior to the release of the first Master Model instruments (summer 1922). Therefore, it allows us a look at what Loar had been thinking about during the developmental phase.

LLOYD LOAR ON BRIDGES
"The bridge of an instrument has a great deal to do with the tone. The weight of a bridge, the stiffness of its material and the amount and shape of it in contact with the top are the various factors through change which will effect the tone. The various combinations of these three factors are many, and only patience and careful observation can give satisfactory and definite results. We discovered some time ago that the movement of the bridge was of an oscillating or rocking nature, first one foot then the other, but of course with great rapidity. This being the case it seemed to us that a two-footed bridge, with an open place in the middle would allow greater freedom for this sort of motion, regardless of the type of instrument. We knew that such bridges had been tried unsuccessfully for the mandolin, but further experimenting determined that by changing the pattern of the feet, increasing the amount in contact with the top, and using suitable material, the quality and amount of tone possible was better and greater than with a solid bridge. We will have two-footed bridges of special pattern for all our instruments."

[pfox14]

Well, at least that makes sense. The other bits Joe posted really don't make sense to me.

[sunburst]

We know that mandolin bridges don't always rock side to side (only more-or-less "riding" the 1,0 top mode), now that we have the technology to observe it. Much of what Lloyd believed and presented was erroneous, and/or conjecture. He didn't have the technology to measure and observe things the way we do now. It's important, historically, to understand his reasoning for things, but we need to realize that he didn't know everything.

[shelley.heard]

<This post has no relation to the information in this thread. Suggest you start a separate dedicated discussion in the eBay or Vintage area.>

[Ken Waltham]

Joe; thanks a lot for posting those really interesting observations by Lloyd Loar. Perhaps the science of that time was not as advanced as today, but, it is very interesting to note that he was greatly involved in not just putting together an instrument, but trying understand how it could be better.
It may be somewhat dated, but, it's reallycool!
Thanks.

[testore]

I find it comical that Gibson called Loar an acoustical engineer almost a decade before any such degree was ever issued by any university.

[Bill Halsey]

Title does not necessarily reflect academic training, although it is sometimes assumed. Neither is Noam Chomsky degreed. The proof of Loar & his staff lies in results and resale value.

[brunello97]

Title does not necessarily reflect academic training, although it is sometimes assumed. Neither is Noam Chomsky degreed. The proof of Loar & his staff lies in results and resale value.

I'm with Bill on this. "Sound Engineer" is right up there with "Cremona Brown". Is it really that much fun to point out that the paint guy has never been to Italy or that Loar wasn't a 'certified engineer'? I think everyone is probably already in on the skinny.

The Loar hagiography and Loar de-bunking have both run their course. Major props to Joe S for getting this fascinating material out. Do we know more about 'sound chambers' 'bridges' or 'banjos' now than we did 100 years ago? I not sure that Lloyd knew there would be a space station under repair over the holidays, either. He was working his thing out and promoting it at the same time. Just like everyone else has done before or after.

I don't get the whole "I'm smarter than Loar!" posts. Read and enjoy.

Mick

[Canoedad]

Chomsky. Now that makes sense.

[Tom Smart]

Title does not necessarily reflect academic training, although it is sometimes assumed. Neither is Noam Chomsky degreed.

Noam Chomsky earned his PhD at the University of Pennsylvania.

[Bill Halsey]

Tom, thanks for the correction -- he certainly is degreed in that he holds honorary degrees at that and countless other universities that wish to be associated with him. However, Noam himself claimed to be teaching at MIT because, lacking a [proper?] degree, he would not be hired by an academic school. Sorry for the non-mando content.

[Tom Smart]

Chomsky holds many honorary degrees, but he was also awarded an actual PhD by U. Penn based on a thesis he submitted that became part of "The Logical Structure of Linguistic Theory."

That said, his formal education was spotty at best by any conventional standards. He seems to have pretty much done his own thing, hanging out in the Harvard stacks and meeting with a few like-minded peers, rather than getting the formal "academic training" that would be expected of most PhD candidates. You could say it's not a "proper" degree in that sense.

[lukmanohnz]

Chomsky. Now that makes sense.

This is not the first time Noam Chomsky has been associated with the mandolin. Check this out, for example.

[tim noble]

Joe
Thanks for the fascinating new information. While Mr. Loar may not have formal training in engineering, it appear that he was using experimental method and a keen ear in his testing and evaluation of changes in bridge designs, sound hole size and placement and frequencies that eventually led to superior instruments. A bit like science to me.
Tim

[Dave Cohen]

A lot of Lloyd Loar's conjectures were not very much like science. A couple of illustrations follow.

In 1922, Loar wrote a rhapsodic letter to the Virzi brothers extolling the virtues of their Virzi tone producer thingy. Among other things, he claimed that it caused the air column in the instrument to vibrate at many frequencies instead of just a few, thereby increasing the sound radiating from the instrument and elimininating wolf notes. Where he got that, I can't figure. It is completely in confict with what was known then and is known now from classical wave mechanics about normal modes of motion. It was also not very scientific in that he didn't bother to consult the literature before conjecturing. The great Indian physicist C.V. Raman had published two papers (1916 and 1918) detailiing what was then and is now generally accepted as the correct explanation of the origin of wolf notes. Wolf notes have little if anything to do with the air in the cavity of an instrument. They have much to do with the drop in impedance at the bridge seen by a string & caused by the motion of a body mode. There is a good short explanation of it in the Fletcher & Rossing text, as well as the references to Raman's papers.

Siminoff's tap tuning book contains another communication by Loar in which he claimed his new mandolins had more and higher overtones (string harmonics? He didn't distinguish) than other instruments. Nowadays, anyone with a computer who can download Audacity or Wavesurfer can easily disprove that. Neapolitans, f'rinstance, got lotsa high harmonics. The number of string harmonics observed depends partly on how and how hard the string is plucked, partly on which string & at which frequency plucked, partly on the location on the string where the pluck occurs, and on and on. Loar made no mention of any of that. Those are things which Helmholtz, Rayleigh, adn others were able to predict decades before.

On the other hand, Loar was something of a visionary in some respects. He was, after all, at least in part responsible for the development of a new form of mandolin. He foresaw the potential of electrified instruments when neither Gibson nor anyone else gave him any support or encouragement. Like most of us, he was a complex mixture of success and failure, correct and incorrect, tunnel vision with blinders and visionary,...

http://www.Cohenmando.com/

[Jeff Hildreth]

The Mayan written language was decoded by an "amateur".

Many discoveries and developements and theories and accomplishments have come from other than certified academia.
Academia is a controlled environment. Being uncontrolled has advantages, ie fewer restrictions.

I would also suggest that Loar is not the end-all-be-all of acoustic instruments/mandolins. He owes his fame to the likes of Bill Monroe.

[Dave Cohen]

"Many discoveries and developments and theories and accomplishments have come from other than certified academia..."

In science, there is no law against coming to conclusions contrary to the existing body of scientific knowledge. However, to do so, one needs to have conclusive experimental evidence, and also is obligated to explain the difference. Loar didn't have experimental evidence. Indeed, he wasn't even aware of the existing work (i.e., of Raman), nor that what he was conjecturing was non-physical. In science, "theory guides, but experiment decides". Raman had experimental data, and most important, the experiments could be repeated with the same results then and now.

http://www.Cohenmando.com/

[Bill Halsey]

"Many discoveries and developments and theories and accomplishments have come from other than certified academia..."

In science, there is no law against coming to conclusions contrary to the existing body of scientific knowledge. However, to do so, one needs to have conclusive experimental evidence, and also is obligated to explain the difference. Loar didn't have experimental evidence. Indeed, he wasn't even aware of the existing work (i.e., of Raman), nor that what he was conjecturing was non-physical. In science, "theory guides, but experiment decides". Raman had experimental data, and most important, the experiments could be repeated with the same results then and now.

http://www.Cohenmando.com/

Dave, did Loar actually not have experimental evidence?

I ask this because he apparently had a factory & workers available to him (& McHugh, et al) to carry out his ideas, plus a workbench of his own. Further, he continued to autograph 2 1/2 years of production under his aegis, which suggests he at least played and listened to those instruments.

I'm thinking of the sound made by the F-5 he signed, in the hands of Monroe, working it really hard. Also of many other similar Loar-signed F-5s I've played, which provide at least an inkling, and sometimes quite a lot, of that signature sound when pushed hard enough. I hear some consistency between almost all of them in this respect. Might this not indicate a result based upon experimentation and selection?

[Dave Cohen]

Loar gave no evidence for the claims in his corresponence, and there is no record of any evidence. Nothing that he claimed in those two letters could be repeated with the same results, The issue of the early market failure and eventual success of the F5 mandolin is completely separate from Loar's claims in his correspondence. The sonic attributes of the F5 mandolin do not argue in favor of Loars claims re harmonics and wolf notes. If you want to keep the discussion grounded in "what" rather than "who", my advice is to read Loar's correspondence, read the pertinent section in the Fletcher & Rossing text,and read Raman's 1916 and 1918 papers.

http://www.Cohenmando.com/

[Fretbear]

I did an experiment. I installed one of Steve Smith's full foot CA bridges, which follow the McHugh-Loar design pretty much exactly minus the two feet LL is speaking about above. It sounded (much) better but I can't prove it. Don't need to either.

"The bridge of an instrument has a great deal to do with the tone. The weight of a bridge, the stiffness of its material and the amount and shape of it in contact with the top are the various factors through change which will effect the tone. The various combinations of these three factors are many, and only patience and careful observation can give satisfactory and definite results."

[Galimando]

The Mayan written language was decoded by an "amateur".

Just curious, who are you talking about?

[Bernie Daniel]

I did an experiment. I installed one of Steve Smith's full foot CA bridges, which follow the McHugh-Loar design pretty much exactly minus the two feet LL is speaking about above. It sounded (much) better but I can't prove it. Don't need to either.

"The bridge of an instrument has a great deal to do with the tone. The weight of a bridge, the stiffness of its material and the amount and shape of it in contact with the top are the various factors through change which will effect the tone. The various combinations of these three factors are many, and only patience and careful observation can give satisfactory and definite results."

At fist I believed a two-footed bridge was best -- then I came to the conclusion that a full contact bridge was best -- now I think a two-footed bridge works best again......uncertain as to my opinions on this in the future...

[Michael Lewis]

The full contact bridge foot helps maintain the cross arch of the top. I feel this is a good thing, plus I haven't noticed any missing tone or volume in my mandolins.