The Science of Mandolins

**billhay4** · Mar-09-2016, 1:21pm

I've been thinking about the science of mandolins a lot since I started a thread about the function of the body of the instrument. It has drawn a lot of views, comments from real and self-appointed experts, and some controversy. Nothing surprising there. This is the internet.
I've been told to read up on the subject and I have done some of this. I've had it suggested that I really cannot understand some of this. Be that as it may, my reaction to all the talk about nodes, impedance coupling, amplification, string dimensions, differential equations, string theory (a bit of a joke here), and other very technical issues leaves me with just one response. So What?
Don't get me wrong here. I am not doubting the value of the science. What I am trying to say is that it seems to me that the value of the science is for the scientists, not the luthier and player of mandolins except in a very indirect way.
For those of us who are not (as the self-proclaimed and real scientists among us delight in pointing out) scientists, the issues addressed by these scientific studies seem to me to be almost wholly irrelevant.
I don't care what node is being excited, or whether energy is being introduced into the system, or whether a string is a one, two, or multi-dimensional object except for the curiosity and intellectual interest of these subjects.
As a player and builder of mandolins, my thoughts are wholly on other questions, questions that seem to annoy scientists because they are not easily reduced to an equation, and are not easily the subject of experiment.
Questions like:
1) How do I get consistent tone from one instrument to another?
2) What arching pattern for the top will produce the best combination of sweetness and loudness?
3) Where is the best place to position the tone bars?
4) What does changing the body shape do to the sound of an instrument?
5) How will placing soundholes on the perimeter of the top affect the sound of the instrument?
6) I like walnut; will using it in an instrument negatively affect the sound?
7) What is the best way to hold the pick?
8) How do I get the best sustain without getting an echoey instrument?
9) If I make the body a half inch deeper, what will happen?
And so many other, similar questions.
Many of these and other such questions are quite vague in both their formation and in the answer sought. Still such matters are what are important to me. The address the real-world issues of producing and playing the mandolin. They don't require that I go back to university.
Let the scientists do their thing and when their efforts produce results that are truly useful to luthiers and players, we'll surely hear. Right now, though, I would much prefer a simple list of the 20 most important things to do in building your instrument, and the 20 most effective ways to play the instrument to 1) avoid injury, and 2) get the most and best sound from it.
I'll read your scientific comments and articles. I'll gather what I can from them. But, for now, I won't really understand or care much about their relevance or import.

**Tobin** · Mar-09-2016, 1:30pm

So you want to ask questions that have a scientific answer (as all questions about the physical world do), but you want the non-scientific "easy" answer because the scientific answers are just too much work? Or was there some other point to this that I missed?

*edited to add: I don't mean that to sound rude or condescending. But if it were worded in whatever way causes the least offense, is that pretty much the summary?

**billhay4** · Mar-09-2016, 1:39pm

I never said I wanted to ask questions that have a scientific answer. I don't even know what that it. That is your language, not mine.
Bill

**Tobin** · Mar-09-2016, 1:51pm

Yes, those were my words because you're asking questions about things which are governed by physics, and the physical world. Our knowledge comes from the study of the physical world and how it works, via what we call science. I don't even know how your questions could be answered without at least a passing reference to science. People can dumb down the answers so that they are easily understood in layman's terms, but the answers still rely on science.

So my question, albeit poorly worded, is this: you're asking technical questions, but you want answers in easy-to-understand layman's terms that don't go too far into actual scientific explanation?

**billhay4** · Mar-09-2016, 1:58pm

I get what you are asking and think the question doesn't understand what I was saying above. I'll try to clarify.
My post wasn't asking for anything. I was merely musing on how irrelevant so many of the scientific explanations we see here seem to me, how irrelevant the questions they seem designed to answer seem to be to me.
This is not because the science is wrong, misdirected, or even too complicated for me. It is because I have different questions and different priorities. Or I think I do.
Well, let me qualify that, I was asking for something as I suggested in the final part of my post. However, the main thrust of that was meant to suggest the irrelevancy to me of many of the scientific answers we see.
Now, irrelevancy means not relevant. It does not mean not important or bad or something of that sort. What I am trying to say is that I find much of this kind of talk does not address the questions I have.
Hope that helps.
Bill

**billhay4** · Mar-09-2016, 2:11pm

you're asking questions about things which are governed by physics, and the physical world.

I'm going to take some exception to this statement. Physics does not govern the world. It attempts to explain how it works; it is our best human explanation of that ON A CERTAIN LEVEL. There are other explanations that are just as powerful and, I might opine, just as true. Poetry, music, drawing, literature, religion. All of these are attempts to understand and explain the world, both physical and spiritual.
Physics is no more real than music.
Bill

**sblock** · Mar-09-2016, 2:37pm

billhay4,

I'll be frank. Those of us on the MC with science backgrounds are growing tired of answering your endless questions and responding to your posts, because you repeatedly ask about the science (the word "science" is even in the title of your thread, so stop denying that!), but then you either reject the guidelines suggested by the science (such as it is), dismiss or disparage these, or fail to understand them altogether. And that much is abundantly clear to the rest of us, even if you don't happen to agree. And honestly, this kind of behavior gets annoying after a while: it comes across as trolling, and not constructive. We have tried, and with considerable patience I might add, to treat your inquiries seriously. We can only hope that you show equivalent respect for our answers, but there has been little evidence of that so far.

You are, of course, entitled to believe whatever you choose. But the fact is that you're not going to find scientific answers outside the realm of science. Any more than you will find religious answers outside religion!

As for the questions you posed in your post this time, the answers exist for essentially NONE of these! Because if they did, we wouldn't be worrying about how to get a better sound from our mandolins, because all mandolins would be built to sound optimal! Luthiers and scientists alike don't know do that. Instrument building is both an art and a science -- and not one or the other! And it has not reached an endpoint -- not by a country mile. Builders still experiment with sound hole shape and placement, top, back, and side thicknesses and graduations, wood properties, tone bars, and 1,000 other things. Like nearly every other stringed instrument, the modern mandolin is a work in progress. And we wouldn't be worrying how to play better, hold our picks and instruments, and all that, either, if there were definitive answers. You have only to look in detail at the body and hand positions/motions of a dozen of the greatest players to realize that there is no one single answer about how best to play.

It's extremely foolish -- and thoroughly naive -- to request "a simple list of the 20 most important things to do in building your instrument, and the 20 most effective ways to play the instrument." That's totally ludicrous, in fact. You're not going to get such a list from any responsible and knowledgeable luthier. Nor from any scientist, for that matter. Only a charlatan or mountebank would be bold enough to suggest that one could somehow distill all of luthiery, and all of musical performance, into two short lists of 20 items each. And they would be conning you if they did.

You just want a bunch of easy answers. But there are none! And you come across as being lazy.

This forum contains thousands of posts that discuss various approaches to building, and to playing the mandolin. You would be better advised to please go back and read these, to seek some partial answers to your questions. You will find plenty of opinions and guidelines, but definitive answers will not (and do not!) exist. But please, before posting naive questions like you did: Go do your homework, I say! There's a whole lot to learn, and many of us on the MC enjoy doing that learning.

**Beanzy** · Mar-09-2016, 2:38pm

Here are some science free answers, which, now I've written them, seem about as much use as most answers not underpinned by evidence or referenced to any base criteria.