Go soak your blank

January 31, 2012 at 06:44 PM · Joseph Nagyvary gave a lecture demonstration at the Eastman School of Music 3 or 4 years ago. According to him, Samuel Zygmuntowicz, the notable luthier from Brooklyn, soaked some of his wood in salt solution about 20 years ago. Whether he still does it (or not) is something Zygmuntowicz won't talk about anymore.

Nagyvary's laboratory slides are convincing that something different happens to wood structure when soaked in salt water. He says it is well documented that maple trees headed to Italian luthiers of the 1700s floated in ocean water for months. It was not a secret recipe, it was just cheap transportation.

Nagyvary's violins (made from salt soaked maple) sound very good. But the highlight of the evening was a concerto played on a del Gesu. My conclusion is that a salt bath may help, but it takes some other skills, as well.

February 1, 2012 at 12:02 AM · I don't soak or treat my wood, and most makers I know are doing that too. It is interesting that Giovanni Marchi, in 1790, writes that German violins sounded bad because the wood of their tops was treated in some way.

www.manfio.com

February 1, 2012 at 12:35 AM · I don't know for sure (fiddlemakers aren't always high-disclosing about what they do), but will guess, from interacting with a lot of violin makers, that various kinds of wood treatments had their heyday between 5 and 30 years ago, and have largely been discarded now. It would be hard to say that there are long-term success stories at this point, compared to plain-ol' wood.

Currently, I know of only one upper-echelon maker who uses treated wood (one or two others are suspect), although I don't know the specific process (soaking, boiling, heating, chemical impregnation etc.

February 1, 2012 at 01:45 AM · Nagyvary proposed a number of different treatments for wood. The thing that bothers me is that there was never any before and after properties of the wood presented... just "here's a violin with the treated wood... isn't it wonderful?"

One category is the "soak" in dissolved minerals. This is mostly for trying to stiffen the wood by crosslinking hemicellulose, or something like that. I tested some of Nagyvary's recommended ideas, and found very little change in the test samples. Definitely no weight reduction, possibly some reduced damping in the spruce (lower damping is not necessarily good).

Another category is treatment for hemicellulose reduction. Nagyvary has some enzyme soak for that purpose, some use a fungus, and some (Yamaha, and me) use a thermal/pressure treatment. There are measurable reductions in density, increases in speed of sound, and reduction in damping (at least, with the thermal treatment). How these properties translate to what is heard in the final instrument is not well defined. My guess is that it should be noticable, but not a VSO vs. Strad difference.

February 1, 2012 at 08:48 AM · Hi Don, I would like to know if other makers tested your processed wood.

www.manfio.com

February 1, 2012 at 09:10 AM · Another question I see is the importance of the starting wood, prior to the process. For instance, a pre treated wood may have a 0.37 density and after the treatment its density is 0.33, but we can find 0.33 wood in its natural condition.

www.manfio.com

February 1, 2012 at 01:08 PM · Don's experiments are interesting, probably relatively new on the violin scene, and were mentioned in a recent article on processed wood in "The Strad" magazine.

I tried soaking wood in a borax solution (mentioned at one point by Nagyvary), and found to my surprise that it did indeed increase the stiffness. However, it's debatable whether or not that's a good thing. Personally, if an increase in stiffness is needed, I prefer to achieve it by leaving the wood a little thicker, because I believe this offers durability, longevity, and long-term resistance to distortion advantages.

February 1, 2012 at 04:04 PM · I agree with you David, I prefer leaving my plates on the thick side.

February 1, 2012 at 06:35 PM · Don Noon, If you are interested, look for Nagyvary's academic / scientific publications. In the lecture-recital that I mentioned above, he showed photos of microscopic maple wood structure before and after salt baths. It is clear to even the casual observer that something changes. He said his publications talk about the chemistry changes. He discussed this, but I don't remember his chemistry comments. I don't recall him talking about "stiffness" - I do recall him talking about "plasticity", but understand this is recollection only from a lecture over 4 years ago.

Others have commented here about soaking spruce. My recollection (could be faulty) is that Nagyvary advised against salt soaks for spruce because it performs a different function on the violin.

February 1, 2012 at 07:05 PM · Mike, most of us are fairly familiar with Nagyvary's research.

One potential stumbling block (not to take anything away from what he's done) is that when some other researchers have also studied samples of wood and varnish from old instruments, their findings have been different from his, on both the wood and the varnish.

Some of the most recent studies were by Echard, and by Brandmair and Greiner.

This link has a brief overview of some of Echard's findings.

http://www.physorg.com/news179148281.html

February 1, 2012 at 11:33 PM · Greetings,

the comments about wood thickness are interesting. A few years back Yamaha (Japan) decided it wanted to break into the `intermediate` level violin market. Bssed I suppose on the argument that the Suzuki instruments were/are standard in the lower range. The head of the instrument division showed me a number of `in the white` intruments which sounded great and were very easy to play. I was asked to recommend them and very reluctantly declined. My reason was that the plates seemed very much on the thin side and it seemed to me that although this led to the instant ease it did not bode so well for longevity. I don`t know how correct I am on this issue but I personally would prefer a modern instrument with slightly thicker plates that took somewhat longer to play in but did better in the lo0ng run.

Do I need to go and soak my head?

Buri

February 1, 2012 at 11:47 PM · I read (and believed) some of Nagyvary's ideas before I made my first fiddle in 1990. Unfortunately, his definitive conclusions changed faster than I could make fiddles so I was unable to keep up. I met him once at an American Chemical Society meeting and as soon as he found out I was a maker, as well as a chemist, he clammed up. The fiddle he demonstrated there was less than impressive.

I did find some benefits to soaking, and plain water seemed to work as well as anything, but they had nothing to do with tone. I haven't done it for several years because it is more trouble than it is worth for me.

February 2, 2012 at 01:02 AM · Luis - I have not yet had anyone else use wood that I have processed. Most of the wood has been over-processed; although the changes in properties are most extreme, it is also very dark and split-prone. I have been backing off on the severity, and it's probably more suitable for a serious violin.

Changes in chemistry and cell structure may or may not show up as a change in the density, stiffness, or damping of the wood, and it may or may not be good. I have read everything I have come across on Dr. N's work, and don't recall any basic measurements of these critical properties.

The scale of changes due to processing, from what I've seen, is in the range of a few percent lower density, a few percent higher speed of sound, and possibly greater reduction in damping (20%-ish or less). Natural variations are more than that, so getting good starting material is critical.

February 2, 2012 at 04:49 AM · Somewhat off the subject, but I'm amazed (and frankly a little annoyed) at the legs this "study" (referenced above) has. It seems to be pooping (sorry, Freudian slip) up everywhere, including recent editions of the Economist and The New York Times last week. When will it die? Have all the news organizations simply run out of other interesting stories?

I've heard soloists playing dozens of Strads, and I've never not been impressed, especially at the way that Strads tend to not color the sound, and in the way that the music simply comes through them transparently. To my ears they are the most neutral of violins. It's very difficult to say that about other instruments, including Villaumes, Amatis, and even Guarneris, which seem to add their own color. The assertion that only 20% of Strads are any good? I don't know, but I assume I've not just been hearing only the top 20%.

And though I'm not a luthier, all one can say about Nagyvary's "secrets" is that, so far, they haven't earned his violins the favor of major artists. No one seems to be beating down his door for his fiddles.

February 2, 2012 at 10:44 AM · Scott, you sound like a good candidate for involvement in one of these tests. It's not unusual for people to believe they can pick out the Strads. Perhaps you can, but other people who thought they could have been surprised in various "blind" test situations.

An excerpt from the comments of one of the players involved in this particular test:

"I was completely wrong. I experienced my anticipated “old instrument” characteristics on almost all of the instruments. Only one I considered “weak, easy to break the sound” and having less than high quality tone (that was a Strad!!!!!). My favourite was a new one, New2, and it played exactly as I had “expected” a Guarnerius Del Gesu would have played…powerful, difficult to “overplay”, complex, highly responsive, and joy from the moment I picked it up (but so were virtually all of them)."

Article source, and the complete article:

http://www.artsjournal.com/slippeddisc/2012/01/exclusive-how-i-blind-tested-old-violins-against-new.html

February 2, 2012 at 07:01 PM · David,

Of course I'd love to be able to participate in such a study. Of course, it's fraught with problems.

First is the author's summary that "...in the case of Strads, the sound is NOT a factor in setting the price. It is history, provenance etc. This experiment is just more proof that the price is NOT related to sound." This is quite a big claim. It implies that all of the world-class soloists and concertmasters who bought Strads were somehow fooled.

The "experiment" just has too many issues. The fact that the trials took place in a hotel room are just the first. I'm not surprised that the sound of the Strad cracked easily--give most people used to more modern instruments an old one and they will try to overdrive it, because that's what many modern fiddles demand, especially if they are new. It takes a different technique.

There is also the question of how old and broken in the new instruments are. If a violin somehow does play and sound fantastic right off the bench, what happens in 5, 20, or 30 years?

However, the biggest problem by far is the time spent with the instruments, and I think many experienced with the process of choosing an instrument might agree: You can't tell much in a few minutes, and hour, or even a few days. How many times have we been smitten at the shop, only to have those initial feelings that we'd found "the one" fade by the end of the second week? What sounded great under the ear turns out not to project, or certain aspects of the sound that attracted initially like brilliance start to grate on the nerves? Or we start to notice a funky response as the instrument settles in?

If choosing a good instrument is a marriage, then this supposed "experiment" is nothing more than a wet-tee-shirt contest on spring break.

February 2, 2012 at 09:50 PM · Scott wrote:

"Of course, it's fraught with problems.

First is the author's summary that "...in the case of Strads, the sound is NOT a factor in setting the price. It is history, provenance etc. This experiment is just more proof that the price is NOT related to sound."

This is quite a big claim. It implies that all of the world-class soloists and concertmasters who bought Strads were somehow fooled."

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I don't believe it does imply that. People buy Strads for various reasons, and they are often owned by people who don't play professionally, or don't play at all (such as investors or museums). In fact, the Lady Blunt Strad, which recently set an auction price record, has mostly been owned by various collectors (never a professional musician), and has been played very little. A Strad in even better shape and probably worth even more, the Messiah, has been played even less, hardly at all. So the desirability and monetary value of the world's two most expensive Stradivaris has had very little to do with their utility as musical instruments.

So Strads may have value as musical instruments, but they also have a clearly established separate high value as collectables, somewhat independent from from their musical use.

Would a musician be foolish if they they were to make a choice based mostly upon the bling which accompanies playing a Strad, combined with being an intelligent investor (as long as it plays OK)? I'd be hard-pressed to say so.

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Scott wrote:

"However, the biggest problem by far is the time spent with the instruments, and I think many experienced with the process of choosing an instrument might agree: You can't tell much in a few minutes, and hour, or even a few days."

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The experiment was designed to test the first step of the selection process, which has never been formally done before, not the entire process. It was partly structured the way it was out of criticism of preceding tests, like, "OK, maybe the listing audience didn't like the Strad best in the hall, but what really matters is what the player thinks".

Long-term tests would certainly be valuable, but it might be a challenge to find player volunteers who are willing to remain blindfolded for three weeks. ;-)

Still, between the various tests done so far, an interesting picture is emerging.