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Breaking In a Violin

From Kevin Huang
Posted July 9, 2006 at 05:41 AM

I remember reading that Lydia Mordkovitch said that her Gagliano violin took a few years for the sound to come out. When I read that, I wondered if maybe she was breaking in the violin to her own standards? I think she sounds fabulous on that Gagliano, and so do many other violinists.

I also remember somebody talking about a violin Nathan Milstein had used for a while. That person said "Milstein's tones were still in the violin".

So what do you all think about breaking in violins?

I have some pretty old instruments, but they were NOT all that great when I got them. Whoever played them before I did had not pushed those violins all that much. This was most obvious in the areas of chording and high position playing.

Some of the best violins I've ever played were old German violins that my public high school had. Those instruments were pretty ragged looking, but they had been played by students at the school for 20+ years. Hence they sounded excellent in basic positions but were not broken in as far as virtuoso technique goes.

I'm convinced that bows break in too.

It seems that pitch is the most important element for cultivating a ringing voice in a fiddle. I have a student who is pretty much a beginner but always plays in tune, with a full tone. His fiddle is opening up really nicely. I also have seen a nice fiddle not go anywhere, even kind of close down, in a student who plays in tune, but with a weak tone, not really in the string. I take the fiddle at the lesson, get it ringing again, get the student playing bigger, but if it doesn't happen during the week, the fiddle suffers.

More difficult for me is to figure out how to cultivate a more focussed tone in my own violin, especially my modern one. Ideas on how one does this?

Also I have played great instruments by Stradivari, Guarneri, Guadagnini which have belonged to Stern, Perlman, Kreisler, Menuhin and it is absolutely true that their "sounds" still resonate in those instruments (given that those instruments are played well at the time). I especially love the Kreisler Bergonzi which belonged to Perlman. It still has so much Perlman in it, "AMAZING".

I noticed when my daughter experimented with strings the John Pearse Artiste strings had the most focussed sound. Perhaps you should give them a try.

But yes, new instruments definately have a breaking in period! I think the cells and fibres that make up the wood 'settle' due to the vibration of playing and that this settling is also affected by temperature and humdity...and likely a host of other factors.

I also think part of the reason that certain violins played by the pros sound magical is because they were superb instruments to start with and played by individuals who were able to draw the most out of them...

My violin teacher can make my violin sing! It's incredible just how good she can make it sound! And obviously, my 'essence' or legacy of mediocrity isn't keeping her back from producing that outstanding sound...*wink*

I have to say, coming to this whole thing as a rather skeptical Generation X-er fed as a child on the scientific method (ie. not inclined to believe a lot of hooey): I think old violins have ghosts! ;)

If nothing else, I do think that the player affects the acoustical patterning (I could be using the wrong term here, if indeed there is a term for it) that develops in the wood, and thus, the violin does actually have a physical "memory" of its past players.

As far as breaking in a violin goes, it it true that it seems to change with playing. But I don't think this is an "irreversible" process. In fact when I bought my son's 1/2 size fiddle, it was very quiet and not so great sounding when we first tried it, but the price was right and it had been sitting for 7 years unplayed. I was amazed what simply using it did to it! I also changed the strings and pushed the bridge around...but I do that all the time to it now, and it doesn't make as much difference as simply playing it.

Much of this breaking in may have more to do with the player getting used to the instrument, rather than the other way around. We would like to believe that the instruments are alive. In fact, they are dead wood and dead animal hide.

In fact Bill, speaking from a lot of experience i totally disagree with you.
The instruments are still very much alive as the wood expands and contracts according to the weather. It also responds to a great player as that great player grooms the instrument and gives it his/her voice.
As I have stated earlier, you would be amazed if you tried some of the instruments that I have which belonged to some of the great players, I assure you that The Kreisler Bergonzi which Perlman owned for a long time, still sounds like Perlman.
And the Lord Wilton still has the weeping voice of Menuhin etc.
Do remember, that a $100 (cheeply made) fiddle will not be a Strad in years to come.
A new fiddle has to be well made, and a good player can absolutely give it his/her voice with time and patience and lots of TLC (serious practice included).

I completely agree with you, except that I disagree with you.

In other words, I agree that the violin that Perlman played still has a sound that he played, and that a better fiddle has better sound, and that wood expands and contracts, and that a good player will get more out of a good fiddle, or any fiddle.

I just completely do not see any proof that you have causality. In fact I think you are backwards to think that the violin "remembers" Perlman for instance: rather, you remember Perlman and he played on that fiddle; therefore even if you play it, (and you BTW are no mere dilletante, and so you *know* how to get the most out of a fiddle--and how to help a person find their perfect match, E.G. her own best choice) you will hear "Perlman" in it (actually you are hearing his fiddle, not his own playing). The violin doesn't remember anything, it is the players and the audience that remembers. :-)

Yes, wood swells and shrinks, but that doens't make it alive; that just makes it swellulose. I love wood boats. I have owned them and sailed them and built them. I love the smell of them, the way they sound, the feel and the beauty. But my favorite sailboat ever was fiberglass (okok it had a wood foredeck). That boat seemed more "alive" than any other I ever had. But I know why: it was the basic design and the details of the rig, not the material per se.

When I tried the fiddle, I did not know who it belonged to and which particular great fiddle it was etc.
I was trying the Fulton collection and we played many of the greatest fiddles that day.

But I assure you, that great fiddles if well played for many years, resonate differently than poorly made or poorly played instruments and or instruments that are kept in the closet.

I agree with you with respect to great fiddles sounding better especially if they are played, and with the "closet syndrome" which I mentioned with regards to my son's fiddle, which "opened up" after he played it for a few weeks.

I also agree with you that you can hear that "soul" in the instrument, and that you can recognize "perlman" in it even if you didn't know it was Perlman's.

I merely disagree with the causality. I think that you have (and probably many great players have) an extraordinary awareness of subtle tone differences. That is why I think the soul resides in the "head" but the sound resides in the instrument. Or something like that.

Now, as to *why* instruments go dead when they sit for extended periods. That is quite a difficlut thing to get my head around, becausze I have also witnessed it with guitars. I have noticed that it is reversible. You can play it again and it "comes alive" again. I think part of it is refreshing one's kinesthetic sens with respect to that instrument, but there is also a part that appears to be physical change to the instrument itself, but I cannot see that change and have not measured it. I wonder if anyone has measured a change.

What "gives?" (literally and figuratively) with that change?

BTW Gennady I went to the American String Project on the opening night a month ago and it was fantastic! Were you in the other hall playing the show tunes gig? Seattle also has some great food. I had fish over in Shuckers? or something...it was really superbe.

If you don't use a baseball glove, even a well worn one, for a while, chances are it will not be easy to work with. Yet with some amount of usage, it will regain its pliability. The violin is no different, especially since it's made of flexible wood and will adjust itself to meet the demands of the violinists playing it. Leave a violin alone and it's previously opened sound channels will close temporarily. Play that violin and the sound will come back after a while.

Like I said before, just because a violin is old doesn't mean it's flexible in every way. If it hasn't been exercised in certain ways, it won't respond immediately. But if you break in the violin and it has the potential to improve, then things get easier over a while.

Often people think they're getting used to the violin when it's actually the other way around!

Actually that gives me even more cred as a cynic. And yet I tell you, something of every player lives on in that wood! I used to think it was completely insane, too. The person who made my modern fiddle told me I would shape its voice, as its first player. He was so mysterious and hokey about it, I thought he was maybe one those members of the Baby Boom Generation who'd taken things a bit far in the 60s. But I now think he was totally right.

While I remember it, here's a bit of poetry dealing with this topic: link

I've heard Zuckerman call his instrument a mere "wooden box" and that everything comes from within the musician.

As for Heifetz, here's a relevant anecdote from my former teacher:

Once a music fan came backstage to meet Heifetz after his concert. The thrilled fan, not knowing how to express his excitement about the performance, said to Heifetz: "Mr. Heifetz, your del gesu violin sounded so beautiful..." Heifetz then handed his million $ del gesu to the estatic fan and said: "REALLY? Do you want to try?"

Milstein said the same, after a bit of persuasion. Another anecdote from my teacher: When I played for Nathan Milstein at 14 years of age and received his encouragement and recognition, I was playing on a modern student violin made in South America by a no-name maker. I remember Mr. Milstein's comment about the violin after a look at it: "...this is terrible...you could get a better violin than this..."; and his comment after I played: "your violin sounds GOOD! Why spend millions on a violin when you can make this sound so good?!"

I believe the "legacy" attributed to an instrument is simply a social construct and any gained "flexibility" or improvement in tone quality is a result of the placebo effect, which can work to one's advantage nevertheless.

The anecdote actually goes like this:
"Mr. Heifetz, your violin sounded so beautiful..." then Heifetz put his ear to his del gesu and said: "REALLY? I don't hear anything?".

I know Pinky, and he loves his Del Gesu. It is lika a dear friend. Perhaps at that moment he was just trying to be funny.
Not everything these guys (well known soloists) say is serious. They also have a sence of humor.

Dr; Fulton is very generous in lending instruments from his collection. Repin has recorded with one of his instruments. Ehnes has too as well as many others.

I like it.

Any time I hear a professional violinist like Itzhak Perlman say "It's not the violin, it's the player" or "Oistrakh didn't have a great Strad, but it was a Strad", I can't help but cringe ever so slightly. If that were really the case, why aren't they selling away their multimillion dollar Cremonese masterpieces and performing on less expensive instruments? And why are today's best players constantly in the hunt for the best instruments for use on the concert stage if a "good player can make anything sound good"? After all, one can retire comfortably after selling an old violin while also avoiding the insurances and other assorted costs that maintaining such instruments requires.

I know that for myself, there's no placebo effect whatever when playing broken-in violins. There are quite a few things I simply can't musically do without a well-worn violin (sheer age of the violin not being as important as the amount the violin has been played during its lifetime.) But Jim Miller is right that one can make his own history on instruments. That's why I own modern violins as well as older ones.

Gennady is totally right about a violin retaining the past quality of its previous owners. What's also interesting is that the new owner's personality is often retained in the violin as well. Hence sometimes a player can literally shift back and forth between the personalities. Modern day concert critics call that "color".

Yes, I know it seems impertinent, but you see, it is not the observations that I I disagreeing with--rather it is the causality.

I do believe you and others when you say that you can hear someone else's sound in a violin, and that you can hear a difference between old and new, and between well-played etc.

What I want to see is the causality. I havea hypothesis that the casuse and effect are reversed. I do not see any way to "get to the bottom of it" without some objective experimental evidence.

Can Curtin provide that?

But you are arguing with players who have experience in these things.

(ex: I would not try to argue quantum mechanics with people in that field.)

I know it is human nature not to believe things they cannot see, but it does not mean things are not there.
How do you explain the way a television works? Or how does Nuclear Fussion work, or quantum mechanics for that matter. Can you actually see with your eyes what goes on etc.?!

It's going to be a long time, if it can even ever happen, before the measurements you're asking for can be made. The technology certainly doesn't exist to do it now, and is very far away from happening.

Besides, more often than not science is WRONG. That's because in science, the perception of reality is only as good as the test allows. If the test if faulty, then the results will be distorted. That's why ALL scientific inquiry is subject to the fudge factor known as "statistics".

Besides, the human ear is a much more complex piece of technology than any manmade scientific piece of analysis is. Sure there are instruments that can isolate frequencies better, but there's no instrument yet known to man that can adequately hear all the nuances that a human ear can all at once.

No scientific test (and I have a very extensive science background at a postgraduate level) can convince me that my ear is lying to me when I hear the things Gennady and other professional violinists are hearing.

Take your pick
:-D

Then you'll see what Gennady and Oliver Steiner and myself are talking about.

I don't "demand" concrete proof. I merely do not accept an idea as "fact" when I have not seen it demonstrated as such.

Kevin talks about science being "wrong" etc. He is falling into the arts cop-out that is so much easier on the head than confronting intellectual difficulty. Einstein was troubled by the statistical nature of the quantum universe and there is a famous paraphrase, "god does not play dice." He was an extraordinarily powerful thinker and yet he had this same weakness to overcome that all of us have: to see factual proof of something that goes counter to one's beliefs. In time, nature makes a mockery of fools in love with fable.

It is one thing to have an opinion that such and such happens; it is an altogether different thing to assert that it is fact, which is where I see erroneous thinking. That there is not any "technology" or something to "measure" what we're talking about here, does not make the waving of hands a correct response to scientific inquiry.

I consider Gennady's assertion that the violin can be imprinted with a personality as posit, not a fact. It is an opinion, albeit from a worthy player, but one without factual substantiation.

If it is true, then it is worthy of exploration and understanding. The advancement of science is one of limitless curiosity and it cannot be fenced off from the arts.

If you Google "jack fry violin physics", you'll get a wealth of very interesting reading material on his work.

There are thins that are there but we can't see them. It does not mean they don't exist.
I am sure it has to do with frequencies and how a particular player vibrated those frequencies in certain ways (bow, preassure, sounding point, bow speed, vibrato etc) that augmented and elevated the ability of the plates to their maximum. Hence when another fine player in later years plays the same fiddle in a similar way, he/she may get very close to the previous sound made by the previous artist.

Thanks Oliver for the tip on Jack Fry. Now that sounds like a real lead (pun intended)!

I am happy to be proven wrong; in the pursuit of truth, one must be prepared to see hypotheses fail.

Clearly this is a worthy avenue of exploration. (I will go see Fry's work) If in deed it can be shown that response of a violin can be molded by playing (which I do not dispute, having experienced it myself, just not with a Strad) the the next step is to understand how, and why.

That is simply not true. Science is sometimes incomplete, or subject to human error, but just because something can't be understood yet doesn't mean it's not explainable by scientific facts.

Actually I do not contradict--it isn't the hypothesis that I was "criticizing" it was the lack of objective evidence. In fact I think we are only half-way there in that regard. If indeed Fry has demonstrated that exposure to some "menu" of sound (yo ucould call it that)elicits a change in the instrument's characteristics, the next thing to do is to measure the longevity of that effect, the "decay rate" or "subsidence" or "compliance" or whatever we choose to call it.

The "science" of it is not the opinions, or anecdotal observations of experienced palyers; rather, it is the rational quantitative measuerment and confirmation or disputation of those initial hypotheses (the opinions of the players). That is why I think this is a fruitful avenue for further study.

I think it generalizes out to a great degree, as there are similar if not identical opinions wit h regard to certain guitars and certainly mandolins.

Thus if Jacqueline Du Pre played the Elgar on her cello, then Yo-Yo Ma plays the same piece on the same cello, those notes have been worn into the wood in a certain way. He hears her "voice" in it because the wood responds in a different way to something it "knows" than to something completely new to the instrument.

And it's not like the literature for the violin is so huge that an educated violinist would not stumble fairly readily upon a piece that has already been played on an old instrument and thus recognize the ease in playing that particular piece.

"The first important characteristic of a good violin is carrying power: it can be heard even over other instruments that put out more energy. This attribute depends upon the ability of the violin to radiate high frequencies (around 5000 Hz and more) efficiently and with as much power as possible. Instruments like horns generally put out less energy than violins in the high-frequency range. The high-frequency component produces a silky quality rather than the unpleasant shrill sound characteristic of the mid-frequency range (around 2500 Hz), to which the human ear is most sensitive. Thus, efficiency in radiating high frequencies gives a violin a refined sound as well as great carrying power.

A good violin also has divided sound: the low-frequency range, containing the fundamental, is well separated from the high-frequency range, and the middle range is suppressed. The low-frequency component gives the listener a feeling of pitch and fullness of sound; the high-frequency component, elegance and fineness.

Ringing, or the continuation of sound after the bowing stops, is extremely important for the player. It depends upon the ability of one string to excite the others: thus, if you play on the A string and then stop, the G string resonates because its first overtone coincides with the G note on the A string.

Even sound and wide dynamic range are two other attributes of a good violin. Such an instrument produces notes that are more or less uniform in intensity but sound distinctly different. On an instrument where certain notes stand out, the player has to produce evenness manually by playing some notes harder or softer than others. A violin with a wide dynamic range can be played very softly without losing its character or generating a hiss. The player should also be able to put more pressure on the bow to increase the volume without affecting the fundamental properties of the sound.

A good violin allows the flexibility for a violinist to project feelings and emotions by changing from a pure sound to a rougher one and by varying the texture. Without this flexibility, the instrument feels "frozen" --- always producing the same type of sound.

The final important characteristic is response, which concerns how quickly a note can be excited. A good violin responds almost instantaneously, as though, a violinist might say, "the note seems to start before I play it." The player does not have to "attack" the note. Another aspect of response concerns how a violin sounds to the player, which affects the sound that reaches the audience. The "local sound" surrounding the box is dominated by low frequencies, whereas the sound that radiates out has more of the high frequencies. If the local sound is too loud, the player will tend to play too gently to produce the high frequencies that carry out to the audience."

"Fry drew an analogy with the human ear, a complex analyzer of sound. The ear perceives sound based not on one or two frequency components, but on groups of frequencies. Such groups are called "formants" by those who study human speech, and they are used to distinguish one voice from another. The concept of formants became an essential ingredient in Fry's work. He recognized and named three formants, each linked with a predominant mode of vibration of the violin:

The low-frequency range (200-1000 Hz), or the breathing mode. In this mode, the top and bottom plates move out of phase, pushing the air in and out of the f-holes. It is responsible for the bass quality of the violin sound.
The mid-frequency range (2000-5000 Hz), or the rocking mode. In this mode, the sound comes from a seesaw-like rocking motion of the top plate involving the rotation of the bass-bar around its center point. This is the shrill range.
The high-frequency range (>5000 Hz), or the tweeter mode. In this mode, the action is confined entirely to a small area on the top (the tweeter) around the bridge. This range gives the sound its elegant, silky quality.
[p. 17] All of these modes, however, are strongly coupled to each other by the forces exerted by the strings on the bridge that communicates with the plates. Fry emphasizes that understanding their interconnections requires understanding that the violin is a driven system."

I've read that one can boost the "carrying power" of a violin simply by leaving it near an amp/speaker and exposing it to the sound.

It's common for a complicated machine to become more efficient after a run-in period, as friction disappears. Therefore I don't have a problem saying the same thing could happen to wooden instruments. From there it's just a small jump to say they pick up characteristics of particular players, since each player causes it to vibrate differently (each player obviously has a unique sound, in other words). In fact, it seems like that would be more likely than all players causing the same thing to happen to it. So my gut feeling is there's some kind of memory effect. How to characterize it? Don't know. Don't know that it would be worth the trouble to do it either.

If a violin wasn't played by anyone else, how long would it retain what it had learned? I don't know. The Hills had a story of a Strad that was owned by a particularly poor player, and that violin went unsold for 10 years before someone would give it a chance and work it back in. I've had players tell me that they can "feel" the impressions of previous owners. I don't know how real all of that is: the farther it passes through time, the less inclined I am to believe it, but there sure are a lot of players who have some sense of that happening in some small way.

There are a whole lot of easy things to see with age and breaking in if only one person is involved--less high frequency noise, more core, and better response are pretty obvious--or should be. There's not any question that this is real, and I've seen it happen many times with my own violins--when they come back for their first couple of checkups the differences are obvious--either than or each violin I'm making is much, much worse than the last one. I've also seen violins of mine get worse from not being played, and then recovering with practice.

I didn't know until a week ago, when I visited an old friend (we played in a dance band together in high school) who played the trumpet in the Chicago Symphony for 18 years, that brass players say it takes about six months for a brass instrument to break in, too. He wasn't aware of that with stringed instruments, and commented that my description of a violin breaking in was exactly the same as he'd experienced with trumpets. He didn't know if they got worse with neglect, though.

I don't have any experience with cheaper instruments, and I can't tell you what they do in this regard. One characteristic of lesser violins is that it's often not worth doing careful adjustments on them because worse violins don't respond to adjustment much, if at all. That might be a clue that they wouldn't break in much, as well.

I did have long-term contact with a Strad I sold that hadn't been played in 20 years or so. It went through the same breaking in process that a new violin would--it started raw, and each time I saw it, at about three-four week intervals, it was smoother, with less noise, a cleaner sound, and more core. The owner said it was three steps forward and two back every day for about six months, at which point it was mostly where it was going to be. That was with about five hours of playing a day.

As far as I'm concerned, this issue of violins breaking in isn't a debatable issue, arguments from people who don't get it (and there are many) notwithstanding. The issue of what remains through time, and how it persists is less definite, but there are enough players who comment on it to make me think it's not a ridiculous idea.

The debate on "perception" is never-ending. It is infinitely regressive since language is fundamentally flawed.

I only recently found out that Paul Wittgenstein was Ludwig von's brother!

As a violinist with a lot left to learn, it's a two-way street... the violin is "teaching" me how to play it and do it justice, while I am simultaneously coaxing it to open up and respond to me.

I think that is a very good insight. A violin can be like a good teacher in that it can teach by encouragement, rewarding us when we do something well. The most memorable experience I had in this regard took place in Philadelphia, years ago, at Moenig. Mr. Jacobs, a staff member at that time, asked me if I would like to try the ex-LaFont Strad which they had just gotten in and set up. I played it for about a half hour that went by like three minutes. It was a marvelous experience, like a great violin lesson. When I got back to Rochester I felt that I was able to get more out of my own violin because of the "lesson" that I received from the ex-LaFont Strad.

I've heard players say that it commonly takes several months to recognize what their new violin will do. That means that many (most?) players who are moving up to a better violin certainly won't recognize a better one in a shop in five minutes, except for some superficial qualities that slap them in the face. . . which is what volume does, and why volume sells.

The irony is that under-the-ear volume and naked in-the-hall volume don't have a thing to do with real carrying power, which is the ability to compete with other instruments and has literally and completely nothing to do with the how the violin, alone, sounds [great example available on request]. So players who pick instruments quickly and test them in the hall, alone, ultimately don't get the thing they intended to get, except if by random chance, no matter how self-confident they are in their ability to choose. As for contentment after the sale. . .cognitive dissonance reduction is an extremely strong effect, and something that dealers count very heavily on. Try telling that to players, though. :-)

Michael Darnton and Oliver Steiner and Gennady, you impress me more and more with each post you do here on violinist.com.

Here is a very interesting observation by Joseph Curtin:

"You could say that if you want to hear how a violin really sounds, a good violinist is the worst person to give it to. Good violinists impose their own sound on an instrument. They tone down harsh notes, smooth out unevenness, and like a chef using salad dressing, blend everything together with vibrato.

As often as not, good violinists are not really interested in testing a violin; they are interested in demonstrating how well they can play it. What you hear is not so much the sound of a particular instrument as the sound of violin-playing, which is a kind of magic trick they do, using the violin as a prop. Bad violinists are even less useful.

More seriously, when someone plays a violin, there is an unconscious tendency to adjust to the instrument. Slight changes in bow-speed, pressure, point-of-contact, etc., effectively normalize the violin toward the sound concept of the player. This makes it difficult to evaluate an instrument independently of a given player's response to it.

Of course, there is a lot to be learned from talking to violinists. They tell you things you don't hear while they are playing, such as how much or how little work it took to make an instrument sound good. And this is, after all, a major difference between good and bad
instruments.

The trouble is, when players talk about sound, they often resort to highly personal, more or less improvised language. Such words as bright, dark, smooth, harsh, or muffled, seem fairly workable (though a client once told me, without apology, that he didn't use the word dark the way other people do). But what about the player who says an instrument sounds a little too dry, or too moist, or too goosey? The fact is, when violinists talk about sound, it's sometimes hard to know what they are talking about.

The problem has partly to do with how we hear. Each note on a violin is a complex mixture of fundamental and partials, but it is not these we hear. We hear notes, or more likely, we hear music. Is it possible to listen more analytically, more objectively? Musicians, after all, train their ears to hear not just the music, but the individual notes that make up the chords on which the music is built.

Though many research tools have been developed for analyzing violin sound, it is often difficult to connect the results of such analysis with the experience of listening to a violin. Response curves, input admittances, and radiativity charts mean something to physicists, but tend to induce in violinmakers a kind of `fight-or-flight' response. What is needed, perhaps, are tools that bridge the gap between analysis and perception. "

Here is a mathematical way of putting things in perspective as explained by Joe Curtin:

"To determine the actual forces involved, we need to solve some calculations relating to both the string tension and the geometry of the setup (Figure 3). If we assume that the bridge is at a right angle to the base of the triangle (a close enough approximation for our purposes), then the force downward on the belly consists of T times H over L, plus Ttimes H over L1, where T is the total string tension, H is the height of the triangle, L is the string length, and L1 is the distance from the bridge to the leading edge of the lower saddle. Expressed mathematically:

F = T x H + T x H
------ ------
L L 1

The combined tension of a typical set of strings on a full-sized violin is, according to Norman Pickering (whose book The Bowed String I highly recommend), about 51 pounds. "

And yes I have heard Itzhak and Pinky and Elmar comparing fiddles including brand new ones, and ofcourse they still sound like they always do.

But then again, any fiddle they break in and play for a very long time will carry some of their "soul" in it.

For those who are experienced, they know what I and others are talking about. As for the skeptics.......keep looking......... keep asking.

You have had posts from some of the top professionals in the business, that have shed some light on the subject, if you can't take their word for it..........FUGGETTABOUTIT!!!

Inanimate objects feel nothing, see nothing, hear nothing, and know nothing.

BTW, a great violin can also sound as good or as bad as the player playing it. But when the great player is playing it, something magical happens. And then you go back to the begining of this thread and read it once again and see why it happens.
......How about arguing how is it that someone like Brian Green can measure and give a mathematical proof of when the universe began.

Or argue the String Theory.
Or how about evolution and CREATION?????????

Some things are not visible to the naked eye, but they are still there.............
Einstein did say that Imagination is more important than knowledge!

It seems to me that there is a partnership or marriage between the violin and violinist that can become more complex and wonderful in time. A great violinist will learn to extract all the subtleties and beauty a violin has in it. I don't know if violins are haunted by the souls of previous owners but I am the last person to invalidate any experiences an artist has that would make their art sublime.

A question: Do you think the use of metal and synthetic strings today vs. solely gut strings in the past have or will affect how violins break in?

As for the evolution versus creation "debate", there is no serious debate on this. much as the creationists would like to pretend there is. Their "theory" (blind belief is a better term) has no logical basis, is contradicted by the evidence and explains nothing - but that's a topic for another thread.

Like I said, the overwhelmingly likely theory is that the good player's tone is influenced by the inherent characteristics of the instrument. A good player is also more able to bring out the characteristic subtleties of a good instrument. Therefore, it follows that other good players playing the same instrument will be able to bring out similar qualities of tone that they identify with other good players associated with that instrument. No magic required. To justify the opposite (that the instrument remembers the qualities of the player) you really must find some very compelling evidence indeed - to both contradict what I state above and objectively support what you claim.

First of all, I don't think that gut strings should be regarded as belonging only to the past, as there are violinists today who much prefer them. I'm one of them.

I don't know for a fact that this is so, but my gut instinct (pun intended) is to think that gut strings are an advantage in the breaking in of a violin. It seems quite reasonable that since their tone is richer in overtones, the wood is vibrated on a greater number of overtones, and therefore made more plyable on a greater number of overtones.

Here's what I believe is plausible regarding good players using good violins, and the impact of that on the violin. When a violin vibrates, the wood compresses and expands. This is a mechanical process that wil clearly have some lasting physical effect on the material. For most players, their intonation is not sufficiently accurate and their practice times too short for there to be a consistent effect on the wood. For very good players, practicing 6 hours every day with highly consistent intonation, it seems quite plausible that the mechanical stresses are consistent enough and constant enough to leave a lasting physical impression. This is the breaking-in process people agree on. However, is this a memory of that player's playing? No. Firstly, assuming their intonation was equally good, there would be no difference between the "memory" of Hilary Hann and Nigel Kennedy - both would have set up identical resonances in the wood. Secondly, the natural resonances of the instrument are only half the story of what you hear. The other (arguably more important factor) is the driving function - ie. the player's bowing technique. This is what creates the sound you identify with a particular player. I can see no mechanism for how an instrument could "remember" (and then presumably help reproduce) the characteristic bowing of a player.

And what you said here is demonstrably untrue:
"assuming their intonation was equally good, there would be no difference between the "memory" of Hilary Hann and Nigel Kennedy - both would have set up identical resonances in the wood."

...unless Hilary and Nigel sound identical:)

Frequency content is only part of the story for determining what makes a violinist sound like he does. As he plays a note, the frequency content of his note will change with time - from the initial attack through to the final decay. To measure this you need to measure both the frequency content (the spectrum) and also the change of frequency content with time. The sampling frequency sets the highest frequency you can possibly measure - but it says nothing about the frequency resolution (ie. the smallest difference in two frequencies you can measure). This is set by the observation time. Thus, if you measure a signal for T seconds, the resolution is 1/T Hz. The highest frequencys is f/2. So, if you want to really accurately measure the frequency content you need a large T. If you want to really accurate measure how the tone changes with time, you need a small T. You can't win. That's why there is research in high resolution techniques that attempt to introduce a priori knowledge into the measurement process to get round the problem.

Regarding the difference between Hilary Hann amd Nigel Kennedy (or any other musicians). We could model the violin/violinist interaction as a driving signal (the bow) and a resonant cavity (the violin) with feedback (the musician's ear/arm coordination). The difference between Hann and Kennedy is far more than just the resonant cavity - which is all we can be talking about when we say a violin "remembers" a player. Far more important for identifying a player, I would argue, is the driving force to that cavity (ie. how a player bows) and the feedback process (how he/she responds to the instrument). *This* is what makes a player sound like they do, not just the mechanical resonances of the instrument. Indeed, you could (within reason) replace the instrument with any other, and Kennedy would still sound like Kennedy. However, you certainly couldn't replace the player or change his bowing technique, and expect him to sound the same. These differences, however, won't set up substantial differences in the mechanical resonances "remembered" in the wood, as they are transient. The wood can't possibly "remember" the depth or speed of vibrato, or the players "attack" with the bow, how they griup the bow, etc. These are transient effects that are critical to the sound, but would not leave any physical memory on the wood (what bowing would the violin remember - the stacatto, ricochet or the sautille? Which speed of vibrato?).

Remember - and this is critical - we aren't measuring the players, we're comparing measurements of the violin itself, to discover if the players "did anything to it" :) We just have to find a difference. What you say about identifying players is at least partly true, because if you remove the attack from a note, most of its audible distinguishing characteristics are gone. Neither here nor there for our purposes. I quit jobs over conversations like this.

The problem is, the distinctive features of a player's style are, I argue, in the transients of the violin response, not just the steady state (which is essentially what your scope would be measuring in the frequency domain). Thus, has the player changed the speed and depth at which the wood will respond when he plays stacatto, how quickly and deeply does it respond to the speed and depth of his vibrato, etc. Back to Hilary and Nigel, if we had them both play a certain note on the instrument without any "ornamentation" it would probably sound identical. The differences in their playing styles only appears when they are allowed to be creative with their bowing and finger techniques. These will all be time varying effects, which vary across the lifetime of that note. If the violin has indeed "remembered" a player's style, we would need to be able to somehow prove that for a particular time-varying input (eg. *me* bowing the instrument) it responds in a way that is more like the way it was "used to" when Nigel last bowed the instrument. That's the only way of proving that it has "remembered" a player's style - and I think you need more than spectrum analysis to capture that.

I think the last paragraph also highlights even more the nonsense in the claim that a vioin can "remember" a player's style, because a player's style is far more than even a single note. It's the whole interpretation of a piece and how the player chooses to use the armoury of techniques available to him. It's about the emotion he puts into the whole piece, not resonant responses of the instrument to individual notes in isolation. There's *no way* a few pieces of wood and cow gum could "remember" how a particular player interprets music. That's what makes a player distinctive.

Ofcourse the inherent attributes of a great fiddle is there to begin with, but with time as many great soloists have groomed the fiddle, it just keeps getting better and better with time.

So the scientific method is wonderful, but to a player it is irrelevant. It is the sound that comes out that's important.

A good player knows that a great fiddle is like a Ferrari and a cheap one is like an AMC Gremlin (or whatever).
No scientific method will change that perception.

But I do like this debate.

Curtin are listening? You know what to do now. Get your sister Jane to help.

But this is off topic.

What is on topic is that Jim's idea vs Paul's idea is interesting. But Jim is correct that the violin's properties could certainly be sampled in some meaningful way. Really, it is about finding out whether there is hysteresis (which I suspect there is) in the response.

As far as "wearing frequency tracks" into a violin goes, I have some trouble with this concept on the very simple basis that not every player is playing to the same index. Some are playing to 445, others 442, other 435 for "A" etc.

I suspect that string changes are a significant distruption as well.

As far as acoustic coupling goes, the points of contact are the places where a "wear-in" period as well as hysteresis are most likely.

To wit, the bridge feet, the soundpost ends, the string seating on the tailpiece, the tailgut on the saddle, the strings in the notches all have the potential for variation in acoustic coupling due to seating. So that is another possible hypothesis to be tested.

I do not think the questions are unanswerable; rather I think nobody has bothered to follow through with isolating and testing all of the possibilites. Yes Fry did some work, but I have to get his actual papers to get anything meaningful out of his work. I doublt he has covered these hysteresis issues. It seems to me was more intereted in charadterizing the spectrum of a Strad vs a Non-Strad.

However, I'll let it drop at this point, as I don't think you've really understood what I've said either (and yes, like you, I do signal processing for my day gig too - I'm a radar scientist).

Interesting discussion.

There are lots of other things going on that haven't been mentioned. It isn't just taking a spectral analysis--it's what you're testing for, and how you do the tests. Garbage in: garbage out.

There are basic things going on with the tone after transients, though. I've always been less than impressed by that claim that after the attack all instruments sound the same. Heck, not even all violins sound the same after the transient, and that's easily measurable, audible, AND important. Of course, as I keep saying over and over, if your test audience for such checks is both clueless and deaf (as they usually are), the results will always be that nothing's going on.

P.S. Michael, for this you could probably use the same measurement methods Fry used, assuming he had a good way of getting spectral data.

I was momentarily crushed :-( by your comment regarding my last post. I cried myself to sleep, and ruined every towel in the house...but I'm over it now:-)

Let's settle this 'debate' with a comparison of 2 instruments, 2 bows, and 2 fiddle players. It seems the best comparison would be (Stradivari vs. Guarneri del Gesu) built in the same year, or within 2 years apart.

The "fiddlers" can be anybody willing to participate. You can bring the bows of your choosing. I will supply the fiddles.

You make the arrangements for the acoustics laboratory, and the time frame for the "experiments".

After the "data" is compiled and analysed.....

we can all see which fiddle "remembered" what.

Though, you must be careful handling the del Gesu...he will bite!!!:-(> <) Chomp..chomp!!

AMC was just a figure of speech. Could be a Fiat or any other cheaply made car.

There's no substitute for a violin being well-played a few hours a day or more, over a number of years. However, I have a simple procedure that helps 'get the ball rolling' with a new violin, or an older one that's lain dormant for some time, or recently had a new bridge put on, etc. At the beginning of my practicing, on each string I play a 2 octave chromatic scale at a slow tempo, forte, with whole bows and vibrato. Then I play one-octave diatonic scales up each pair of strings in 3rds and 6ths. It really helps.

BTW John,
my statement about hearing the Perlman sound in the Kreisler Bergonzi still stands. The thing is a fiddle in my opinion has those attributes after it has been played a certain way for a long period of time.

The attributes built into a violin remain constant, although there is a simple time honored evolutionary process of maturation of the tone qualities; provided the instruments have not been substantially altered.

The material substance of antiquity being the sum of the parts (maturation process) which is greater than the whole.

No doubt, the highly skilled hands of a great violinist helps things along but any instrument of great antiquity (especially a Strad or del Gesu) will sound out its authoritative voice in most any hands.

I am (by NO means) a skilled or trained violinist, yet when I play these instruments I know they are something far beyond the ordinary.
No doubt, this will be proven true by the hands of skilled players.

But, none of the violins will "remember" anything, nor can they be programmed to "remember" anything by any technical process or experiment.

Neither can any violin remember, retain, or possess any tonal characteristic imposed on it by any player who owned or played it.

Data can tell us the differences between the sound characteristics, but data cannot explain why there are differences.

No one can know the answers, because no one will ever find the answers. I do know this, when the arrangements for the experiment are complete, I'll give you the first try. Be lookin' to hear from you!!

The Strads and Del Gesus that I have tried, have been quite extrodinary.
The only one that I remember being less so, was in London in 1986 when the Jelly D'Aranyi Strad was offered for sale. It is a small charming instrument, but was dormant for a long time.

Out of about 130 Strads that I've seen and mostly played, two were not particularly good. One had definite mechanical problems that probably would defy repair (I believe it had been regraduated, to absurdly thin--mostly 1.8mm over most of the top), and the other was a small, narrow violin with unusually high arching that was in nearly perfect condition (often not a good sign--it means no one ever wanted to play it, from the day it was born) that had been to a succession of people who tried various things to make it right. The rest were exceptional, though not all in the same way and to the same extent, of course.

I'm not a great player, and I'm a cellist (playing violin between my knees--a lot of dealer types seem to be cellists who play violin between their knees, amusingly), not a violinist, but what these instruments had to offer was pretty obvious to me.

The trouble is I am not the first nor the last person claiming what I am claiming.
Michael D., who is well versed in the making process and dealing with many fine players, has already confirmed it.
There have been many other similar claims by very famous players who have played on the very famous instruments.
So, shall we play "ring around the rosie" one more time? :)

We can argue till.......... as the saying goes " I think, therefore I am".
Your skepticism and dismissal of opinions from professionals and their experiences validates that man does not like to believe in things he/she cannot see and touch.
Hence, if it wasn't for the great individuals who gave us so much of their imagination(s) which bore fruit to new knowledge, we would still be arguing that the Earth is or may not be flat but.............

I don't read anyone here to be "dismissing" your opinions. To the contrary; we are all very interested in your opinion, but are also keen to find some way to generalize that sense you are talking about, to quantify it, to measure it, to prove it in a rigorous way-ultimately to understand how it is so.

To know an opinion is far less powerful than to understand an opinion.

For instance, newton was not the first person to perceive the problem of instantaneous rates of change. Indeed, the mathematical "method of exhaustion" was developed by a Greek mathematitian (I forget whom) which solved the volume of a parabola. It was the start of --a glimpse--at the calculus. But it wasn't until Newton and Leibnitz pulled it all together that the power of that line of thought could bear fruit.

So it is with this opinion about old instruments having memories. It is nothing but a fascinating piece of opinion. It does not provide anyone with any tools of understanding. It is merely a matter of observation that only the highly skilled can experience.

So noone is going around and around here but you G :-). We want to go forward, not round and round.

I HAVE been going forward and have complimented the many interesting posts.
Tutti Bravi!!

Keep in mind, that in this case even the scientific method has to consider data from the musicians' perspective & experience. :)

Great debate!

The "fame of the instrument" has nothing to do with how the quality got there in the first place.

The "fame came" because the maker built instruments of extraordinary tonal properties that were recognized early on and that recognition continues to this day.

Too much has been made of the "acquaintances" with this fiddle, or that virtuoso, and fiddle makers who may have been seen with them, repaired them, or took pictures of them.

Many have presented various theories which regal "such and thus"; but the bottom line is the bottom line.

There 'ain't no such thang' as a fiddle that remembers when it was played, or who played it, and it doesn't care who plays it next.

I am in possession of Stradivari and Guarneri fiddles, and not one of them has been able to tell me anything about where they came from, or who played them, and neither can the bows.

This might be interesting discussion too:

Can it be determined that a Tourte bow is able to 'remember and distinguish' the difference between a Strad and a del Gesu, when Viotti used it?

Can the Tourte bow remember and change its own properties if a string breaks on the Strad; and the del Gesu is picked up "mid-stroke?

Can the Tourte bow remember that Viotti is still in its command, if the string breaks on the del Gesu, and the Strad is picked up "mid stroke"?

Would the Tourte bow remember that Viotti once used it, and promptly asserts his (Viotti's) skills (over yours) when it is now in your hands?

I sure would like to find out......where's that laboratory?

Belated last word:

Gennady,

For the record I am not arguing with anyone. I say what I believe to be true, just as you and others have. It's been lots of fun, and most informative.

Got some fiddle sticks I would like to ask you about.

Wouldn't the shoulder, elbow and wrist be the 'driving mechanism' for a bow? :-)

As for your "Strad" and "Guarneri", lend it to a great player for a couple of years, then see what I am talking about.
Maybe then your fiddles will tell you a thing or two.
This way they have the oppurtunity to sing to their hearts content.

As for bows, that is a very bad analogy, for a BOW is not a sound box has no driving mechanism such as a bridge, soundpost and 51 pounds of preasure.

Nevertheless, I would prefer to have a great bow with a mediocre fiddle than the other way around.
If you want to know about bows, that is my specialty,feel free to email or just have a look in the archives. We have discussed bows a great deal.

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