What does a violin sound like?

May 11, 2016 at 03:03 PM · "So -- I now know, from when the preferences/opinions of a professional violinist who played 5 of my violins a few months ago did not agree with my own - the kinds of effects individual hearing differences can have."

I don't have the technical expertise to address the rest of your post, but it's important to point out that how a violin sounds under the ear and how it sounds to a listener some distance away are two different things. When one of my students is considering a violin purchase, I always ask them to bring in the violins they have out on approval to a lesson. I then do a blind test, playing each violin in turn while my student has eyes closed. More often than you'd think, their preference in listening doesn't match up with their preference in playing.

May 11, 2016 at 03:30 PM · Andrew: which other consideration did you do, apart the upper frequency limit?

Do you have a preferred tailored curve that you want to talk about, for example?

May 11, 2016 at 05:12 PM · Mary Ellen,

Starting many years ago I used serve as a "test player" for a violin-maker friend of mine. We would bring one or more of his just completed instruments to a large church in town and I and others would play it and alternately listen to it being played from various parts of the room. So I understand and agree with all you say.

I even try to play my chin instruments in cello position to get a better sense of their sound away from the chin - but still that gives no indication of how they project. It also provides a more accurate way of tuning, because there is no way you will "saturate" (and "de-tune") the left ear that way - of course one should not tune loudly - but whatcha gonna do in orchestra when the flutes and piccolo won't stop tooting?

What you say is absolutely true and you really have to decide what sound you want under your ear vs. what anonymous listeners may hear. After all,you have to listen to your violin every day. It's the reason in 1959 I sold the Stefano Scarampella my father had left me (that he had bought in the 1930s) rather than the violin he had bought me in 1952 - and it helped pay of the birth of our first child (But I sure wish I had waited until the 2000s to sell it - then it could have sent my grandchildren to college.)

When I was teaching I always preferred to go with my students to select an instrument, it was a "service" I did not charge for because it would make such an important difference to their musical futures - I am fortunate to live in the SF Bay Area where there are a number of dedicated string-instrument dealers (over the years I have visited 6 of them, but settled on the one closest to me - 30 minutes).

What I was considering here is the wide difference in what different people actually hear from the same sound waves.

Andy

May 11, 2016 at 05:27 PM · Marco,

When the audiologist initially set up my hearing aids the extraneous sounds I heard were overwhelming. If I had known of the self-testing website I would have used it at that time to analyze the amplitude-frequency spectrum she had set me up to live with. But lacking that I selected some steep cuts in the higher frequencies and had her adjust those - but not all the way up to "normal levels." (I think getting that much audio boost after having it fade over decades would be just too much to tolerate.) Following that I discovered the http://hearingtest.online/ website and used it to determine what increases and decreases in amplitude I wanted at various frequencies. I went back and had those adjustments made - they are working pretty well for music and I also do better in conversations than any of the other "hearing-aided" musicians I know are doing (I can tell by what they cannot hear).

I consider having another adjustment to have the 6KHz frequency region boosted, but I don't think there is any real musical value above about 5KHz and there is a lot of noise there - so I probably won't do it. I can hear the rustle of tree leaves - and that's good enough - although always being able to better hear the difference between certain consonants would be desirable in conversation - especially when the orchestra leader says "start at B (or D, or G, P - you rarely get to T), etc.

Andy

May 11, 2016 at 05:41 PM · 4kHz is roughly the top note of a piano and includes the "projection", and/or harshness of violin tone, but not its sheen or bloom, or even its "complexity". My own hearing used to extend to 16 kHz, but 67 yo it tails off towards 8 kHz(right ear) and 12 kHz(left ear). My left ear has survived better because I have plugged it when playing. I have to ask my eagle-eared daughter to know if my fiddles are developing nasty overtones from worn strings,etc.

I once discussed the audiogrammes of some future sound engineers,: while they were all very complete, they varied widely in their shape, even between left and right ears. But after all, we listen to recordings and the original sounds with the same ears..

It sounds as if we are both at the stage of "Pardon?" followed by "Don't shout, I'm not deaf!"

May 11, 2016 at 06:14 PM · I too need music, but I am also curious as to how it works.

Two different pleasures.

May 11, 2016 at 08:36 PM · Jane, putting chips into your brain does NOT help (well, really not, that is) playing a violin, unless, You're a robot ;-) shorry

May 11, 2016 at 10:37 PM · Adrian,

I was interested in what you wrote and wonder if I should consider increasing my aids' amplification at 6 and maybe 8 KHz. What do you think?

A recently deceased dear friend of mine, "tone master"recording engineer, Stan Ricker, told me 25 years ago that loud sounds overdrive our hearing apparatus and raise their perceived pitch. This can account for some of the flat playing of some otherwise marvelous violinists - especially as they aged. What I found it did to me was cause me to have difficulty tuning to an orchestra oboe (and probably playing flat). I thought it was the sound of the oboe - but it was the fact that I was actually hearing two pitches from my violin and the higher one was coming from my right (and dominant ear) so I tended to tune flat - and play flat. I have since found this to be a documented (i.e., scientific) fact. I took care of it 25 years ago by using a rather loosely placed ear plug in my left ear so the sound level from my violin in both ears was balanced (i.e., equal as far as I could tell). This requires roughly 12 -18 db attenuation in the left ear, depending on how you tilt your head when playing. I actually experimented with this with our orchestras entire violin section and it tuned it right up - but had no effect on the violas - and of course is not relevant for the cellos.

Over the years the plug in my left ear was replaced by a $100 hearing "amplifier" ("aid"??) in my right ear when playing that I would then move to my left ear when having conversations - and finally last year I put out the big bucks for a real pair of hearing aids, and for the first year I only used the aid in my right ear, but this year I have started using hearing aids in both ears all day long.

May 11, 2016 at 11:13 PM · I have constant ringing in my ears. I gave up long ago on needing to have anything "audiophile," and thank goodness I cannot hear the supposed difference between a high-quality MP3 file and a CD, because that is like a shoulder-rest war on steroids.

What I have seen is that people do not stop being music lovers as they get on in years, and their playing skill is usually limited first by physical problems such as arthritis. So an older person might not be able to hear the higher frequencies, but they can hear music, likely better than a younger person with superior hearing.

And by the way hearing is more than frequency response. Dynamic range is important too.

May 12, 2016 at 01:24 AM · Andrew, thanks for the interesting thread. Thanks also for the link to that hearing test; my ears are better than I had thought. With my own test, I've found that I can hear an 11,000 hz sine wave, but it's very thin. Three years ago I could hear 15,000 hz. I've wondered what this change is doing to my perception of sound; violin in particular. Shrill, too-bright sound bothers me as much as ever, but what is the frequency profile of that sound. What was it when I was a kid and could hear sound at 18,000 hz.

Thirty years ago a viola player told me that we all lose more hearing in our left ear from having a violin (or viola) jammed up underneath it for years. I think she was right.

May 12, 2016 at 07:37 AM · I measurered my violin and viola just by the ear: 100dB. This contravenes all health & safety regulations!

Andrew raised two other points:

- Our perception of pitch varies with loudness, but not the same way for everybody.

- Our ears, tested seperately, do not always register quite the same pitch.

And I'm sure it is well worth getting fitted up, to stimulate the perception of higher frequencies so the brain doesn't "give up" on them. That said, current hearing-aid technology is rarely clean enough for musicians, especially at the high end of the spectrum.

May 12, 2016 at 04:26 PM · Andy,

you already know that hearing aids are designed to target what is perceived to be the most important to majority of users: speech recognition. Music seams to be less important!

As a hearing aid user (one ear), I have been constantly talking with audiologists and technicians about the total neglect of music loving people by the hearing aid manufacturers. Unless their "bottom line" changes, and they see profit in our sub-group, we are doomed.

Although nowadays virtually all brands do have "music" program, the inherited limitation of input (16 bit analogue-digital converter) can not be compensated by computer-simulation of (already obscured) sound. Garbage in - garbage out...

In other words, unless you get an analog hearing aid (K-AMP), or one of those specially designed digital ones (see links below), your experience of violin sound and other instrument will be diminished.

[Another limitation to proper hearing aid fitting is the audiology test itself; it measures only thresholds for frequencies between 0.25 kHz an 8kHz. ]

It has been long since I studied physics, so you correct me if I am wrong: the sound consist of fundamental (frequency) and the overtones. The sound timbre is what makes violin sound different from, let say, flute.

Losing the ability to hear the overtones is, in my opinion, the 2nd biggest loss for a violinist; yes we are blessed to still be able to hear the fundamentals, but may terribly miss the richness of the sound!

For more information, google for Marshall Chasin's articles; he is my audiologist and has done remarkable job in helping musicians.

[For what is it worth, I am a happy user of Unitron "Max 6 SP" with a special low-cut or “-6 dB/octave” microphone, designed by Marshall and Schmidt. Still not even close to a healthy ear, but way, way better than my previous Oticon "Tego Pro", and 99.99 % of other digital hearing aids.]

If nothing else helps, try viola; depending on your hearing loss profile, the sound quality may be way better for your enjoyment!

Last, but not the least, you may find the sound of gut strings and period performances more pleasing than "space-age" new generation strings.

Rocky

http://www.audiologyonline.com/articles/programming-hearing-aids-for-listening-12915

http://journals.lww.com/thehearingjournal/Fulltext/2010/09000/Six_ways_to_improve_listening_to_music_through.5.aspx

http://www.hearingreview.com/2014/07/best-hearing-aid-listening-music-clinical-tricks-major-technologies-software-tips/