Breaking in a violin
I found this interesting
it says putting your violin by a speaker with the bass turned up is similar to playing the violin because the strings vibrate like you are playing it and it says it helps break in your violin, just thought someone would be interested in knowing that
Replies (19)
I've actually heard of violin makers exposing their new instruments to this kind of "second hand" violin vibrations to open the sound up before taking them to violinmaking competitions.
To prove this point, a violin maker I know, set a tuner on top of a brand new violin he had just made. It was set to a generate a high G sharp (6th position). We chatted and left it alone for about 20-30 minutes after which he had me pick up the violin and and play all the notes around that G sharp. Sure enough the G sharp had more ring and volumne than the other notes. It sounded comparable to, if not better than, the A which has the advantage of creating sympathetic vibrations on the A string.
Apparently the wood needs to "learn" how to vibrate differently for each pitch and anything that gets the wood vibrating at the right frequencies will help to open up the sound. Of course, playing on the instrument is the best way to do this but the speakers seem to work too.
wow...very interesting...im going to do that with my tuner!
This absolutely works. Guitar makers have been doing it for decades.
It's not just the wood that breaks-in, it's the varnish. Supposedly, the way the crystalline structure lines-up can be altered by vibration, and thus you want this vibration to reinforce frequencies based upon A-440 and the whole pythagorean thing.
Additionally, even 10 year old, air-dried wood has a certain amount of flexible pitch inside it (especially rosewood and pernambico) It can take 30-40 years for this to completely crystlalize.
It is most important to do this within the first few years of an instrument's life. Note that in Peter's rather extreme example, it was a brand new instrument.
Of course, playing it constantly is even better.
This does have an effect. It's not the same as from playing a violin directly, but it does do something to loosen the thing up. The most effective strategy I've heard is to lean your violin against a speaker that's playing loudly, all the time, which probably works well, but I don't like the idea of just leaving a violin leaning around out of its case. Practice is what makes perfect.
i like to place it on the floor and use my foot, but buri developed a technique a while back that is a wonder to see. I'll just say that it involves rabbits and swedes. no more.
Greetings,
stick the damn rabbit in there as well,
Cheers,
Buri
You could try playing major and minor seconds with full bows and a huge tone. The dissonances will shake the hell out of the fiddle.
I agree. Having the strings actually playing and vibrating loudly has got to be many orders of magnitude more effective than their barely ringing in front of a speaker. When you play the strings normally they move quite a bit. There is a guy who has a service that actually plays the strings of the instrument at fortimissimo non stop for a week at a time. This seems much better than a speaker or a huge practice mute vibrating at one pitch attached to the bridge barely making any sound.
Hmmm...was it actually an f-hole that the rabbit went down, followed by Alice? I have found a dust bunny or two down there!
But seriously, I think that the speaker thing helps a bit - sympathetic vibrations and all. Anybody ever play in an orchestra during a passage when the fiddles didn't play but there came a big, fat brass chord that made your violin vibrate palpably in your hand? It all helps.
But there is no substitute for directly playing. All kinds of playing for several hours a day. If that is not done, it will simply take a lot longer. Also, some violins are more open and responsive from the get-go. But the ones that ultimately have the most to give, usually take longer. The Hills discussed this in their classic book on Guarneri.
That said, I agree with the idea that different parts of the violin respond to different picthes. So, I recommend the folllowing excersises to break in a violin evenly. While not a substitute for several hours of daily playing they are a bit of a short cut. They can be used in themselves - and are the best thing to do - if you have only a few minutes at your disposal. And even if you will give the violin a lot more playing, I'd recommend excersise #1 to begin your practice, and #2 at the end:
ex 1: play a 2 octave chromatic scale up each string, forte, with a whole bow for each note, at a very moderate tempo. Use vibrato.
ex 2: in a similar manner play scales in thirds and sixths up each pair of strings. Here, I like to repeat each note.
They're not bad excersises for our playing, either!
Something happens to a violin over time. Is it due to vibration? Or humidity cycling from the player's breath? Or just time?
I recently strung up a violin, and recorded it daily for about two weeks. It became much more open sounding during that period, comparing the recordings (attempting to reduce human factors, such as expectations and memory fallibilities).
During this period, the violin wasn't played much, maybe a total of one hour. At one point, I artificially vibrated the hell out of it for about 36 hours, and the results, if any, were barely perceptible. The overall changes with time were rather radical.
If anyone makes claims about "playing in", look to their methodology and their proofs, before accepting it as fact. Might be something there, might not.
I'm sure that time, itself does something, as the fabric of the wood matures, the varnish, etc. But I do strongly believe that playing makes a big difference. Also how it is played - the bowing, whether it tends to be closer to the bridge much of the time or not, more speed or more pressure, a glue-y, deep Stern-like approach or a faster Milstein-like sweep. Then there is vibrato, the purity - or lack thereof - in the intonation, the type of repertoire played, etc. etc. it's my own experience as well as that of many others that these aspects and more will have an effect on the development a violin's response, openess, complexity, etc. How could it not? Look at what ultrasound does to kindney stones, and so quickly. So sub-ultrasound over time...There have been times where almost every stroke of the bow would make some difference in a new or renewed violin (with a new bridge etc.). But with a new violin, it will close up again quickly if the assiduous playing is not continued.
It would be most interesting if some maker - any volunteers? - would strive to make 4 violins as alike as humanly possible. Same logs, same shape, measurements, soundhole shape, and placement, same archings, graduations, etc. etc. Let's say that a number of people agreed that they sounded remarkably alike. Then give one to be exclusively used for 1 or 2 years by one professional, another to be similarly used by a very different type of professional player, one for easy use by an amateur or beginning student, and the 4th stays untouched in its case during this period. Then bring them back and compare. If they still sound identical I'll eat my hat. (Just in case, one of my hats is a great big sugar cone!)
BTW, I also feel that bows similarly benefit from use..
Raphael, the closest thing to what you've described, that I've come across, is a study of "playing in" done in Australia.
Here's a link to the summary.
www.phys.unsw.edu.au/jw/powerhousetwins.html
I'm not saying that playing in doesn't happen. It's just difficult to assign cause and effect. For instance, how much is a change in the instrument, and how much is the player learning to get the most out of that particular instrument (the instrument "playing in" the player)?
One weak area I'm trying to get past by recording is the weakness for remembering subtle details over an expended period of time. For instance, if someone tries to pick the color of their living room wall by memory, from a color chart with several hundred samples, then paints a swatch of the new color on the wall, how well would it match? Anyone who has tried this knows what I'm talking about. Darn it, there must be several hundred "whites" alone, and with many of them, it's hard to know the difference until comparing them side-by-side. That's what I'm trying to do with recording, using the instrument as it originally sounded, for side-by-side comparisons with the "changed" instrument.
The results of my own experiments won't settle the matter either; it's just an attempt to approach it slightly more scientifically than is usually done.
Hi David. I read the link. This part seems significant to me:
What of someone who is very familiar with one of the violins? (Strangers may not be able to identify identical twins, but their parents often can.) In a separate, blindfold, playing trial conducted after the last comparison experiment, Romano Crivici, the owner of the played violin, was asked to play a scale and a short piece on the instruments as they were presented to him in random order, and to identify each instrument by saying "mine" or "museum's". He was correct in 20 out of 24 trials, which is significant at the 99% level. It is not known to what extent he may have used tactile cues. (The varnish of the regularly played instrument shows signs of wear.)
One thing I can say is this, and I don't know whether it would be considered "scientific". I keep a file on each of my instruments - kind of a violin diary. I record from time to time how it seems to be changing, as well as such 'events' as a new bridge, a sp adjustment, string changes - even the occasional polishing. Early on after its acquisition, I even play a 2-octave-plus chromatic scale up each string. I then notate on staff paper which notes are especially nice and rich, and which may be a bit pinched, or even have a wolf. I revisit this periodically and note changes - especially after an adjustment, but also over time. I often find changes on specific notes.
In a more general way, from time to time I write about the sound and response of a particular violin, especially if it's having a particularly good or a rather off day. Over time, looking back at previous entries, I find a remarkable consistentcy in the language I use to describe the sound. However, looking back over a wider span of time, especially comparing early impressions of a newly-made and newly-acquired violin, there are often major changes. It's not a matter of a subtle synonym. For example, one violin of mine that's now 3 years old, has,among many other things, a very focused, edgy and assertive sound. That very same violin at first, I used to describe as lovely, but a bit inward and sappy. There's no way I would begin to describe it thus today. Yes, it's had duly-noted adjustments, but they alone wouldn't account for all the change.
So, if I've proven nothing else, I've probably proven that I'm a fiddle fanatic!
Raphael, sounds like you're a lot more thorough than most people.
I agree that they change. I'm just not certain why they change. Is it vibration, breathing onto the instrument while playing, time alone under string tension, or what? Or some combination of the above?
All I can say at this point is that my new violin changed a great deal, but it wasn't played much, and the short artificial vibration experiment produced little or no change.
I'll probably put it out to a player soon, but I guess I still won't know upon getting it back whether heavy playing has changed it, or if it's more of the same changes which seemed to happen "spontaneously", without much playing.
I was surprised at the level of seemingly spontaneous change. Before being aware of that, I might have attributed changes to playing, just by default. I still don't know much, but at least I'm making progress at learning how much I don't know, and challenging my own assumptions, and that's a start. ;-)
David, was the violin you used for this experiment one that was straight from your work-bench, i.e. never ever played before?
I wonder what kind of results you would get in comparison if you undertook the same process on a good quality old instrument (say 18th century) that has come into your shop obviously unplayed for a long while, one of these sad neglected cases that has no tailpiece, needs new fingerboard, complete overhaul etc etc. I'm presuming one would get very similar results, or would you?
I'm just thinking if a violin was really extensively played for say 150 years by a series of virtuosi and then left unplayed for 50 years, would any of the playing in during its first 150 years remain "in" the instrument to be "reactivated" when a new violinist picked it up again?
Or maybe this is a stupid post and I should go back to practising?!
No doubt, there are a number of factors at play, and it's hard to completely separate them. Certainly over a short period of time, the atmospheric conditions come into play, with or w.o. much playing. Changes in humidity, temperature, maybe even air pressure all have their effect. We can't discount our musical mood either, whether playing/listening live or on a recording. Sometimes we're just predisposed to notice the glass as half-empty or half-full.
But take this example. One of my violins (and it's helpful that I have a collection for comparison) was just born in September, and shipped to me right after completion. When I first played on it, it needed a lot of 'throat clearing'. Within an hour, it was a different violin! I used another as a basis of comparison with it, which I felt was most similar to it in my collection. There's nothing like the steep curve right at the get-go. Then the process is more gradual. I used it a lot through most of December. I really played the heck out of it in almost all of my many gigs during that period.
I've given it much less playing since then - about 20 minutes twice a week. I have a system of rotation wherein I give all of my active violins at least some playing twice a week. I used a different violin for 3 recent solo performances and the practicing for these events beginning at the end of December. Lately the one in question has seemed fine, if not great, for the purposes of technical practice.
Then I recently got hired to play principal 2nd for an all-Mozart orchestra gig next week, and decided to use it for this gig. In some of those often awkward 2nd violin accompanying passages, responsiveness and fluidity are most important, more so than in many solo passages. All of the sudden my relative neglect of that fiddle came to the fore, as I started looking over some passages a couple of days ago. The same fiddle that sounded fine in scales and bow excersises suddenly felt and sounded stiff, dry and unyielding. But with just a couple of days of intensive practice and breaking-in excersises it's become more responsive, supple and fluid. And I'm sure that after the coming 4 rehearsals and concert next week, it will really be much closer to where I want it.
BTW, a friend seconded the motion about playing 2nds for breaking in. I've tried that in addtion to what I've already mentioned. I think it does help. But I wonder about the long-term effects on quality. Does anyone remember that experiment with sand? They put sand on a surface and excited the surface with consonant sounds. The sand formed beautiful patterns. Then they repeated the experiment with dissonace - maybe harsh noise. I'm remembering this very imperfectly. The sand scattered about helter-skelter. Now if the violin plates react similary...
Hello,
I realize a remarkable improvement of sound during breaking in a french violin. I compare the development continuously to a good reference instrument. (I´m sorry for my bad english.)
More than one year ago, I bought a violin "Victor Joseph Charotte", Mirecourt, 1918. I followed a recommendation of a professional belgian Quartet-Player, who told me, that Charotte is definitly underestimated. Its a Del-Gesu-Model with flat archings and a thin and smooth oil varnish.
The remarkable fact is, that the violin has been played only for a short time in spite of his long life. In the beginning, the sound had a good character, but was very unfocussed. Now, after intensive breaking in, which is not finished yet, the sound is beautiful, complex, clear, responsible and strong.
This is my method:
The principle is: to activate the instrument as strong as possible, especially for the high harmonics and the noise range.
So: put an ear-protection. Take a good Carbon Bow, tighten it till the stick is straight, take it with the whole fist at the frog and play as loud as possible near the bridge. (Sorry to the sensitive players and makers, but this is still an adequate treatment for a healthy violin.)
These are my exercises:
- open strings
- open fifths
- chromatic scales over two octaves each string, on E string to the end of the fingerboard.
- single notes: bring a clear sound to the pure noise by enhancing the bow speed and pulling the bow to the bridge
- diminished octaves: play chromatic octaves 1st-3rd finger by pulling back the 3rd finger for about a quater tone, so that the dissonance generates a fast vibration. This low frequent component seems to have a good influence on breaking in the intrument.
This daily treatment takes 10 - 15 minutes. After this, the violin will sound notedly better than before.
It´s difficult to find out the reasons for the improvement. My best violin is a new one (M. Schleske, Munich, 2001), which sounded beautiful from the beginning and gets better and better. Here I think, that the hardening of the varnish has an important influence.
For the 90 years old french instrument, whose varnish has matured, there must be of course other reasons, which influence the sound.
Martin
And for the viola players, here's how to break in a viola
This discussion has been archived and is no longer accepting responses.
Violinist.com is made possible by...
International Violin Competition of Indianapolis
Violinist.com Holiday Gift Guide
Dimitri Musafia, Master Maker of Violin and Viola Cases
Johnson String Instrument/Carriage House Violins
Subscribe
Laurie's Books
Discover the best of Violinist.com in these collections of editor Laurie Niles' exclusive interviews.
Violinist.com Interviews Volume 1, with introduction by Hilary Hahn
Violinist.com Interviews Volume 2, with introduction by Rachel Barton Pine
February 7, 2005 at 10:48 PM · An instrument needs to be exercised on all strings daily to "open up". An external sound source will not significantly affect a violin's sound. So, start playing!