September 2015

The beautiful voices and sounds that’s not too high or too low

The instrument that gives a soothing melody and completes the string family is called a Viola. The multiple phases of the different changes is weather from rain to snow and from a heat wave or any temperature from eighty to eighty to eighty-five degrees Fahrenheit will make the Viola sounds flat. The same goes with cold weather at the temperature of 50-60 degrees Fahrenheit. The temperature to keep the pitch and tone from falling would be a 60-70 degrees Fahrenheit.

Here’s why, cold weather does exactly what water does in a freezer, freeze. What do I mean? I mean exactly what I said, let me elaborate it. For you to have a better understanding of my synopsis. On a Viola, there are scrolls and pegs on top of the body of the Viola right? Well, when exposed to cold weather. It gets stuck. What I mean by that is that the cold weather around the Viola even if the Viola is in a case where you’d think it’s protected, still freezes. It all happens because the Viola is easily affected by the cold, damp, or basically under fifty degrees Fahrenheit temperature.

Next, let’s talk about how heat impacts the tuning pegs of the Viola. Here’s a question: What happens to a human body when experiencing a phase of a hot flash or intense heat? Yes, you sweat. That’s what a Viola does as well. But, how can a viola sweat? It can’t really drink water and run right? The viola has moisture already in it. The Viola was made to have moisture to sound elegant. But, does it affect the way the Viola is made? The hot and cold temperatures that the Viola can feel even when it’s in a case? Yes.

When cold weather whether it is raining or just a cold breeze, it can still affect the Viola. A viola is carefully constructed with a lot of types of wood. First, there’s something used for the top of the Viola called a straight-grained spruce. But, it can’t be made instantly because it takes about five years to make it sound good. The longer you wait, the better it sounds. In a sense, it’s like food. It’s like food because, some or a select few of foods are better being fermented right? As an analogy, they both need a lot of time to be good. The only difference between these two things is the length or duration of time it takes to be good.

The reason I used the comparison of food to compare to the making of a viola and how it relates to the weather effects on a viola is because it all connects. If you really want to know how hot and cold weather affects a viola and why everything happens, shouldn’t you know how it was made to fully understand the instrument? Well, a wood called maple makes the sides, neck and body. Maple is the type of wood that tears and breaks in cold weather. Like, when you take a walk outside in the wintertime. Don’t you notice a cylinder shaped tree being broken down? It has the color of a darkened white. That is maple.

Maple is the wood that makes the viola. Why does a type of wood that wears down make a viola? It’s because of the beautiful hollow echoed sound that comes out of the viola when you play the strings.

Ok, that was very boring talking about wood huh? Well, let me give a more real life experience that will help you get a deeper understanding of this instrument. The cold weather affects the Viola, even in a case. Why? The Viola gets stuck and out of tune right? Well, I’m pretty sure everyone has a freezer right? And even if you don’t have it, you’ve felt cold weather before right? That’s what a viola feels, even when it’s in a case. It can still detect a cold breeze coming by. That’s why the viola goes flat when you take it home. That’s why it would be best in a 60-70 degrees Fahrenheit environment.

Spruce is the type of wood used for the neck of the viola. Where you place your fingers on a viola to play a song is made by spruce, a beautiful piece of wood constructed carefully and specifically by specialized people that know how to create and make a viola. Spruce and maple is a type of wood that really makes the viola lighter than a cello but, slightly heavier than a violin. Completing the string family, the viola has a mellow warm sound.

I also found an experiment by Paige Abernathy that proves my hypothesis to be a well-known fact. Her materials used in the scientific experiment were four violas, all of the same kind even though that was a difficult thing to do. She ended up with two violas with metal strings, while the other, last 2 violas had the normal anti-metal strings. Her hypothesis was that they would all turn out sharp from the heat and flat from the cold. What she found out at the end of that experiment was astonishing.

She first tested all four violas, two with dominant strings. In a refrigerator set to the temperature of forty degrees Fahrenheit. She left it there for four hours. When the four hours were up, she and her team of partners who helped her with this project immediately took out the violas and checked the tune of the A string with an electric tuner. They were all flat. That was the test of cold temperatures.

Next, is the test of hot temperatures. Paige’s idea of how to measure the hot temperatures was to put all of the violas in a heated room at the temperature of 80-85 degrees Fahrenheit. After four hours in the heated room and immediately pulled out and tuned, it was also flat.

So, her conclusion was the hot and cold weather make a viola flat. But, I disagree with her whole experiment. Here’s why,

1. Paige Abernathy didn’t say that she used two different control groups because of the strings

2. Paige used a specific temperature of forty degrees Fahrenheit for the cold temperature test but, she didn’t have a specific temperature for the experiment of heat as it was BETWEEN eighty and eighty-five degrees Fahrenheit.

3. She should have used eight different violas because if you freeze something, you shouldn’t put in a heater after being in a forty-degree refrigerator to test effect of it being cold.

4. Lastly, she should have taken into account the wood used to make the viola since everything I said about the instrument was my own research. Because, of the ruined wood that was made by the cold temperatures wasn’t at mostly prepared for the heat that came before tuning the A string.

That is why I think her experiment was false. There is really only one way to know the real effects of hot and cold weather to a viola. Get more control groups. What I really mean by that is that the four violas should have been separated. To elaborate that, I mean to use one dominant string for the hot temperature and the other dominant string for the cold temperature. Same with the last two violas to get a better reading on what happens to the viola with that change of weather. That is basically the only way unless you change the dependent variable to make an equal and opposite reaction, as Newton’s law states, to affect the independent variable.

As Paige’s conclusion has been denied by yours truly, an opinion of someone else other than Paige Abernathy. I would say the true fact of the affects that hot and cold weather cannot be classified until it is experimented with everything I had just stated. But, she measured the strings, in cents.

I know that stating the measuring of the strings would help in this science project but, I’m not really talking about a science project. But, I am talking about how the science of weather affects the composition and design of a viola. But, isn’t the fact stated already? That they both become flat?

No, because as I stated before out of researching facts about the viola. The outcome of Paige Abernathy’s experiment following her conclusion was not true. So, unless someone else I haven’t found yet has done this experiment correctly with the control group, independent and dependent variable. That is what would have completed a factual attempt on gaining the most needed knowledge of the instrument called the viola.

My conclusive summary of this whole passage is that cold weather cracks the wood on the viola and makes it flat while the heat comparison is still unknown to me because of this uncompleted, inclusive test is what’s missing. That is how I will complete my informational article. Thank you and have a nice day. I hope you got what you needed.

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