How does a violin open up?
I recently bought a 'modern-ish' viola, made in 1965. I'm not sure how often it was played, so I'm interested to know how the sound develops.How exactly do the vibrations from playing the instrument alter the wood? Does the molecular structure or stiffness of the wood
change? I've heard people say that playing in tune helps, but wouldn't that mean you have to always play at a certain pitch like 442?
Replies (124)
In the long term, wood undergoes a well-documented aging process that typically reduces the natural damping. Some mechanical properties, like stiffness and sound speed, tend to increase over the first 100 years or so.
Longer than 100 years, many mechanical properties very slowly decline.
Because of the decrease in natural damping, the instrument can become louder and more responsive to the bow, and its timbre can change, not always for the better.
There is zero scientific basis to support the theory that playing or playing in-tune (whatever that means) has any affect on wood structure. There is plenty of scientific basis to contradict such claims.
For an instrument made in 1965, your best shot at opening it up is to vary your bowing until you find something that works.
The reality is that the perception of sound is subjective at best. There are probably microscopic changes to the wood over time, but more likely it is the microscopic changes to the musician as she works to tease out a particular sound by adjusting finger positions, force on the bow, angles of attack, et cetera. Lets call it mutual development.
FWIW: I did have a violin that I simply did not get along with. It was anything but an instrument that "speaks easily" and another musician is able to get more out of it than me - that is why I sold it and got my old instrument tuned and worked harder to get the most out of it.
Anyway, NEVER get a viola you don't like with the hope that it will sound good after playing in. Good instruments sound good from the very beginning.
What I have learned rather recently (in the last 10 - 15 years) is how much the character of some instruments (at least to the player) can be improved by experimenting with different strings. Knowledgeable players and especially luthiers can be very helpful in this by their recommendations.
Another thing that has made some changes to the character of some instruments that had defects (at least to my sense of hearing) has been experimenting with a KRENTZ WOLF ELIMINATOR appropriate to the instrument involved (violin, viola or cello). This device can be moved around to test how it changes the sound and response of an instrument (as well as to eliminate wolf tones). To my mind it may be similar to the effect of some regraduation of the top plate.
Newly applied oil varnishes based on linseed oil will experience dramatic changes in mass due to absorption of air-borne oxygen over the first 30 days at least.
Previously unstressed wood plates subjected to the constant load of strings will undergo dimensional changes due to low level creep for some weeks after first being strung up.
The humidity of the room in which the instrument is kept will affect these changes in measurable ways.
I do not know how much additional stress a Tonerite device applies to a viola, but it certainly possible that it affects these initial aging processes.
Hard Fact: Apart from the seasonal changes due to climate, the violin sound changes over time. The changes are more pronounced in the beginning.
Subjective addendum: Most people regard that change to be "for the better".
Hypothesis:
1. The materials (wood, glue), age and mature changing their sound qualities.
2. The violin structural forces and vibration capacities change under the constant tensions of strings and regular movement of use.
3.- The sound lengthwaves of the playing "arranges" the violin to lessen the resistance to those lengthwaves. (Highly speculative).
Without experimentation that allows to isolate one cause from the others, all we can do is bet for one cause or the other. Personally I think that what opens the violin (by use, not just aging) is to be constanly under the strings tension. A stored violin looses that tension, whilst a played one is always under the max tension it can take in that setup.
I am trying to think about structures that are affected by sound vibration (usually they get affected by what causes the sound; not the sound itself) and can't think of many. And certainly, if a structure would be susceptible of change by sound vibrations, it would be very much changed by stronger forces like carrying it around or touching it.
What is a hard fact though, is that with most people their hearing changes over time, and not for better. There is also the likelihood that a violinist adapt to the instrument he has and finds ways to make it sound better.
I'm not 100% resistant to the notion that a new instrument changes over time as the wood gets older and dry, but I wonder if that's something an individual can hear. Especially as there is such a need in people to hear just this.
The most extreme changes I have noticed are when an instrument is first put under string tension. It will play and sound quite differently when it is first strung up, than it will a day later. The rate of these changes diminishes over time, but they can easily continue for a month or much longer. And much much longer, if the varnish is still changing, from thr maker not having taken it to "a plateau" in the drying curve. Even years.
Oh, some of this can happen after restorations too, or even after a period when and older instrument has been without string tension.
Naturally, there is excitement to see what either a new or recently restored instrument sounds like, so people start playing them. They may notice that the sound is changing, and it's easy to attribute that to the playing, since the passage of time happens to coincide with the playing.
Science? She confirmed the effects in her workshop with acoustical measurements before and after intensive use.
Hypothesis? She suggested that the resins in the fibres are fragmented after playing, but tend to re-form when the instrument is at rest.
Not to mention the drying out of the sap into a more crystallised form over time, allowing freer vibration.
The fragmentation may not be the same for different players, hence the strange impression when someone else has used your violin!
To me it is a "hard fact" that a violin will usually change over time, and I have measurements to back that up. Also, in "The Acoustics of Wood" there is a chart showing changes in damping over time after application of a static force (i.e. stringing up a violin for the first time, after repairs, or after a while without strings).
I had assumed that play-in was a real thing, and invested quite a lot of effort in tests to prove it. The proof never materialized. Sure, after playing a gig, I thought my fiddle sounded infinitely better, but I'm convinced it was all on my side of the chinrest. And the Tonerite... no.
Adrian, an awful lot of water has passed under the bridge since Hutchins reached that conclusion. I think it would be safe to say that many of the measurements which led to her conclusions have since been found to be in error, or soundly refuted.
The effect of vibration on wood fibers and resulting effect on tonal characteristics should in theory be possible to observe and measure in a lab-controlled experiment if one is so motivated and has the right equipment to measure and observe the minute changes with a degree of statistical rigour, and perhaps that has been done already, and if not should be if only to establish the existence of the phenomenon.
Then there will be a debate about good vs bad vibrations. Some argue that power tool vibrations destroy the tonal qualities of wood (which would prove that vibrations do affect wood tonal qualities), while the artful play of a master will improve it, arguing that wood can be "taught" in sort of a way to optimally vibrate when played in tune! ... here I see an interesting follow up research project from the one above, however, surely someone has attempted these in the past.
https://www.violinist.com/discussion/archive/14280/
Just consider the number of movable and replaceable parts in a violin and bow that DO change the sound of a violin, and you will recognize that none of these can be held constant over the period of time required to detect subtle changes caused solely by aging wood.
Considering the various ages of woods likely to be in my various instruments (covering instrument ages of 14 to 141 years plus stories some of "my" makers have told me about how their woods came to be in their instruments) I would have difficulty saying that the AGE of the woods (other than adequate natural drying before cutting) had much to do with anything - or even the amount the instruments have been played.
If I were to consider the mechanism of the TONERITE and the change in the instruments over short-term use of it I would tend to think that it might improve (or at least change) the fit of a bridge and/or soundpost. Maybe it even cracked a bit of glue around the edges.
There was some discussion a couple of decades ago about the usefulness of cycling a new instrument through widely varying humidity levels (i.e., take it into the bathroom while you shower, etc. and then to a dry place). I don't know how that worked out. I did try it. The result was -- ???
Concerning the varnish of golden-age instruments having hardened over time, my experience is limited to the time 55 years ago when I was told to press my thumb into the belly (top) of an ex-Olé Bull Stradivarius violin and watch as the visibly impressed fingerprint slowly vanished.
One thing does seem quite likely; as an instrument is played those unvarnished interior surfaces that are moved the furthest during vibration are likely to lose more wood than those that are moved less. This will change the graduation slightly over time and perhaps those slight changes are all that is needed to "age the sound."
The tone of one of my violins really bugged the cellist in my string quartet almost 50 years ago and he even induced me to buy another violin for chamber music. I took the first violin to the maker of the 2nd violin and he said he could regraduate it - (however I do recall that he had a Francois Pique for sale at the time that wss quite similar in tone). When I contacted him again 6 months later he said he decided not to open it and do any cutting. He said if I just played it for the next 100 or 200 years enough wood dust would come off to change the sound. About 20 years later I did get a later one of "my" violin makers to regraduate it. It is sweeter sounding now (although people back in the winds of our orchestra still seem to think they can hear it). But I'm still not sure I did the right thing.
To get meaningful results, I think a minimum of two conditions must be met:
1. Finding a way to differentiate changes which are due to playing or vibration, from those which would have happened anyway, without playing or vibration, such as those due to the passage of time, or humidity changes.
2. Finding a way to minimize or eliminate changes which are due to placebo effect.
In a "playing in" or "opening up" experiment, one way of reducing expectation effects would be to record excerpts on a violin both before and after the playing or vibration, and have listeners assess the recordings without knowing which was which.
Another way would be to start with two instruments which a group of players find very similar, expose only one to playing or vibration, and then have the same players test them again, without knowing which was which. This is similar to the protocol used in the Australian playing in study:
http://newt.phys.unsw.edu.au/~jw/reprints/IntaViolin.pdf
Basically, all materials have various, microscopic defects in their structure. In most cases, loading the material causes stresses to intensify around these defects.
Subjecting the material to extended vibrational loading can cause the defect to change dimension and the material about it to reorganize in ways to reduce the local stress level.
What is not clear is how vibrational aging would cause an instrument to "open up". The only scientifically validated effect is that certain types of defects tend to slowly grow under such loadings until they eventually cause a fracture to propagate through the material.
My experience is consistent with what David posted: there are typically other, more significant effects that are happening while "playing in" that may give the illusion of it having some effect upon the violin.
OTOH, Manfio's violas are spectacular to the eye, pleasing to the ear and played by accomplished professionals. You can find videos on YouTube if you are curious.
If he feels that some part of that success is due to the use of a Tonerite device on a newly made instrument, then, as my old tennis coach use to tell me, "Never change a winning strategy." >grin<
Carmen, when I was trying to find information on the effects of vibration on wood, one thing I looked at was what happens with wooden aircraft components, since there is so much data and experience with that. I was unable to find anything about a service life or recommended replacement interval for wooden aircraft components, with the exception of wooden helicopter rotor blades, which can be seen going through extreme bending when viewed in slow motion. Wooden airplane propellers, on the other hand, seem to suffer most from degradation due to moisture and weather, and runway debris impacts, and can last indefinitely if adequately protected from these things. That may not be directly related to the effects of vibration on violins, but was still interesting, I thought. Do you have any other data like that on wood which might be applicable?
>>November 23, 2018, 9:54 AM · Yet, when some accomplished soloists were given a sampling of old and new violins, they were unable to reliably guess (without looking at them) which were new, and which were 300 years old.<<
If you are referring to the Curtin/Fritz test in Europe, there was mention that one player apparently was able to tell the difference. In my opinion, if the test were honest, the next step would have been to tell the others "thank you, you may leave" and then continue to test that one player to see if the ability was real or just one-off. It he were proven to be able to reliably accomplish this, then the difference between those instruments would have been proven, regardless of what the others failed to hear.
What they did, however, was similar to taking a bunch of people off the street and asking them to run a four-minute mile. If one in 100 was able to do it (and the actual figure is quite a bit lower than that), they would have mixed that in with the other 99 trials, and "proven" that by the statistical probability it was not possible to run a four minute mile.
In research this is an instance the white crow effect, named by researcher William James in 1896. It isn't necessary to have a statistically significant test to disprove the hypothesis that all crows are black; all that's necessary to have is a single white crow. Curtin and his research partner discarded the white crow and went with the statistics. . . . and "proved" nothing. They saw the path to understanding. . . . and discarded it.
Find ten such people who can past tests regarding identifying individual violins, and one would be on the way towards understanding violin tone. Using hoards of unfiltered participants who are qualified only because they can play one single violin well, not because they have shown any ability to tell one violin from another, is a dead end.
Further discussion: http://amnap.blogspot.com/2007/05/white-crow.html
I agree that it would have been nice if they they could have taken the experiment several steps further, to to try to nail down whether the one soloist who scored much better than the others at differentiating old from new, was a fluke, or whether he could repeat this with some consistency.
Perhaps they'll have a chance to do this during some future experiment.
Here's a link to the paper about that set of experiments, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, for anyone interested.
http://www.pnas.org/content/114/21/5395
Concerning Michael's last point, it would be interesting if one could assemble a group of "golden eared" individuals who can detect differences inaudible to the rest of us, but as David says this addresses quite a different issue
A couple of weeks ago, I spent several hours with one of the researchers while he was making recordings of a contemporary instrument, to analyze using this method. A while later, the researcher texted me, saying that the violin had "really nice vowel sounds". I'm not sure what that means, at this point, but maybe something will come of this someday.
From 0:35-0:50 perhaps you can see what I mean between the differences in the two cellos. Capucon's cello sounds seriously nasal, in a good way!
I'm yet to play a modern instrument which has both incredible depth+nasality, but I also have played many plain courteous round sounding old instruments!
When trying to asses how to design components, like airplane propellers, that will be subject to extended cyclical loads, the material is subjected to "cyclical loading" tests.
A test sample of the material is subject to some modest cyclical (vibrational) load and the number of cycles the sample can sustain until it suffers structural failure is recorded. The result is a plot called an S-N plot.
You go along the x axis to find the N (number of cycles) the material will be subject to during the life of the component. You then go up until you intersect the S-N curve. The value of the curve along the Y axis (the S) is the maximum stress the component can handle. You then design the "thickness" of the component to make sure the stress does not exceed that value.
Many materials exhibit an "infinite cycle" stress. Meaning that if you limit the stress on the component to that stress or lower, it will not fail due to the vibrational loading.
You should be able to find lots of studies of the effect of cyclical loading on all sorts of wood properties. Applying those results require some way to measure or compute the stress in the violin shell under typical playing conditions.
Vowels are "formants", increased resonance over limited ranges of frequencies, which "colour" and refine the rather raucous sounds emerging from the vocal cords.
They can be a neat way of describing the formants of a violin, although we more often use, boomy, hollow, honky, tubby, nasal, harsh, screechy, brilliant, metallic, silky etc. It is perhaps easier to agree amongst ourselves on vowel descriptions, though.
I use "nasal", for the zone either side of 1kHz, "agressive" either side of 2kHz, and "projection" around 3kHz, but there is no complete agreement.
Cheap violins ($500 and below) almost always have a nasal sound, in all strings. Personally I don't really like it because it feels like the sound is trapped a bit inside the violin (no matter how big or projecting the volume). But as far as I know, a nasal sound is more likely to go with poor projection and volume.
Kudos to you for citing a video that greatly differentiates this quality!
Boxy sound is easier to describe. It's quickly saturated and the instrument starts to MOOOO like a sick cow. There is no grace from warm piano to MOOO and while it sounds loud under the ear, it does not have the low end nor the shimmer - hence - it does not carry well.
Nasal sound is like if Kermit (the frog) was trying to sing. In the lower register it's usually more throaty and in higher register more nasal. This sound can be quite annoying, because it also lacks depth, but to my experience - there is depth, only not as loud. Conversely - this sound carries better and is not as annoying when it reaches the audience.
Nirvana may be harder to find in a random sampling of new instruments, since new violins are being cranked out at previously unprecedented rates: Three-hundred-thousand per year, from just one factory alone in China. Versus maybe 100 per year being turned out by the world's high-end contemporary makers. So a search for an exceptional contemporary instrument needs to highly focused.
But in general, I think it would be hard for nasal sound to be commonly accepted as attractive. Most cheap violins have it. People tend to regard anything cheap and common to not be desirable.
Also, nasal sound appears in not only common but humble situations. I immediately recall some instances: someone talking with a blocked nose, car horn honking (old models), and your neighbour playing trumpets.
No offence meant to James' preference. @Tony thanks for the insights!
I don't understand this. Are you implying that the world's high-end makers are collectively turning out 100 violins per year? Seems a bit low. Or do you mean that high-end makers are producing 100 violins each? Seems a bit high. How many makers in the world qualify as "high-end?
My French JTL viola was bought in London. It is narrow-bodied, with a strong peak at 1kHz, which is more common on violins.
I have two bridges, the one supplied in London, the other fitted in Paris which is lighter and more cut away - and sounds more nasal!
I went back to the London bridge.
Opening?
After a major repair, the tone was more muffled until I had played hard for a few months.
Obviously I can't speak for DB, but it's clear that he meant to say that there are many more factory-made violins than high-end instruments. It all depends where you draw the 'high-end' line. Five hundred violins, violas and celli per year, made by the best makers (each making max. ten instruments per year) would have sounded reasonable too. Th e point was, one Chinese factory makes a thousand times more violins.
I've owned several modern instruments-none have experienced a real change of tone. A violin sounds like it sounds, with only marginal differences obtained by strings or adjustment etc. However, while the TONE remains the same, they can be capable of improvement in response, especially in the higher positions.
It also happens to be where the uncunscious micro-adjustments in our technique have the biggest impact on tone and playability. That seems to supports the theory that the biggest change is the player adapting to the instrument rather than the instrument changing over time, unless this change is observed by someone who isn't playing the instrument regularly.
No matter what anyone does, someone can always claim that it fails to be proof, or that it is too "unscientific" to be regarded as proof, even if it has passed enough peer scrutiny to be published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
You, I, and Lyndon are not scientists. Don Noon was a NASA engineer/scientist, and my opinion is that he has contributed much to to the endeavor of violin making.
But isn't that the kind of change we are talking about? "Opening up" the tone, rather than fundamentally changing it?
But I agree that such minute shifts can have multiple causes.
I had the pleasure to share stage with some wonderful violinists and we switched instruments for fun. I distinctly remember playing a Klotz (or perhaps steiner) with a deep somewhat subdued tone... when I played it it sounded bright and shimmering with zing, when a felow violinist (Ljubljana symphony orchestra) played it, the instument sounded deep and misterious.
Again, when I played my Vilim Demsar 1991 (which is slightly nasal), I was bright and zingy, he was deep and throaty.
Only last week I tried a new masterpiece from Daniel Musek - and he told me this is as deep and as bassy as he is willing to go on a violin, without making it sound like a viola. I played it for 10 minutes and it was zinging like anything I touch.
So the sound is (given a good instument) more in the player’s hands than we want to admit.
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Yes, he has, and that's one of the things I really admire about Don, since he has a foot in both worlds, and seems to realize the strengths and weakness of both.
Anyone in the violin-making or dealing or expertise trade who asserts that he/she has everything figured out already, should be disregarded, in my opinion. It takes courage to say, "I don't know, yet", in a field where there is so much posturing.
I am still learning, and expect to be doing so for the rest of my life.
I later bought my current Italian violin from Tarisio. Came with the same dead sound. No volume. I thought to myself, "F***!! What a waste of tens of thousands of dollars." Well, I didn't give up. I had a local shop adjust the sound post and bridge, but the tone was still closed. Then, I just kept playing it. After about 3 months of playing, it got significantly louder, perhaps 40% where it is now. After about a year of ownership, it's pretty loud and very, very responsive. But whenever I don't get a chance to play it for a week or two, volume dips slightly.
How long does it take for a violin to lose this much volume? I don't know. I had a French violin that sat in the closet for 18 years, and it lost perhaps 30% volume. This Italian might have sat there for 30-40 years without playing. Volume dropped to about 10-15% its present state.
I don't have a Tonerite, but I do have a 81g cello bow. Took that mutha and dug into the open strings as much as I could. To try to get the wood to break free from it's stiff state. I don't think the molecular state of the wood changed at all in the last year, but the wood just had to re-learn how to vibrate again.
http://knutsacoustics.com/files/hutchins-on-playing-instruments-in.pdf
I have a good basic grounding in acoustics, and have read many of the contributions of Ms Hutchins, and those of Don Noon. Those of William Fry have a very "fuzzy" logic, but on his video I can clearly hear the changes in tone he obtains, even on my desktop monitors....
@David, the last paragraph mentions that there was a difference in the change after being played versus being exposed to music playback.
Perhaps it just took you that long to learn how to produce a good sound on that particular violin. Not sure how you would rule that out.
I'm especially not buying the stuff about "wood breaking free from its stiff state" and "wood re-learning how to vibrate again." There's just nothing to support that kind of supposition.
"I'm especially not buying the stuff about "wood breaking free from its stiff state" and "wood re-learning how to vibrate again." There's just nothing to support that kind of supposition."
....Especially if we are determined not to look for it?
But then I suppose we are not going to cut the plates open on a good violin to examine the fibres under a microscope before and after playing!
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/238380043_An_experimental_study_of_changes_in_the_impulse_response_of_a_wood_plate_that_is_subject_to_vibrational_stimulus
From the abstract:
"A preliminary analysis of the data does not reveal any significant changes in the acoustic response of the plates."
I thought this part might be the most directly related to various notions about violin sound:
"Actually, the vibrations caused by sound can be recorded in matter, and they can affect the air around it in certain conditions. Have you ever listened to a recording of a congregation singing praise and worship to God… and the atmosphere around you changed? God inhabits praise… even recorded praise."
I appreciate your link: at last trials triumph over suppositions.
I should like the trials to be repeated using violins, though, with all their interacting parts.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_flat_Earth_societies
If a cause is "unseen, untestable and unknowable", then what is the difference between that and the cause not existing at all? It is also an invitation to make up any fantastical explanation we wish and dismiss all objections because, by definition, the unseen, untestable and unknowable cannot be disproved, which also means we make use it to prove anything we please.
However, I once had someone come in to look at a violin I had for sale. After looking at it for several minutes, she wanted to write me a check and leave with it. I suggested that she play it first. She declined. I suggested that she take it home for a couple of weeks, and then decide. She declined. I suggested that she think about it for a while, and I would hold the violin for her. She declined, explaining that God had told her this was the right violin. So I offered to her (and her adult son who was with her) that they would be welcome to bring the violin back for a refund.
While this was a such an unusual way of selecting a violin that I was very uncomfortable with it, I guess it must have worked out, because they never returned it in the years since.
I did have one other person (a minister) say that the spirit and prayer had led him to me, but I didn't have any of my violins available, so I don't know how that one would have turned out.
These are true stories, and not something I made up for the purpose of ridicule.
On the other hand, the violin has sometimes been called "the devil's instrument", so watch out! ;-)
Old Carl had finally let him pay!
In the "modern era," when I take home an instrument or bow on trial the seller has my credit card info. Even if I haven't paid yet, it seems I really have!
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/320041676_Sound_Enhancement_of_Musical_Instruments_by_'Playing_them_in'_Fact_or_Fiction
The title is a bit click-baity, since the author doesn't really make a verdict regarding "fact or fiction", but at least it's a nice overview of scientific studies that have been done on the topic.
...we don't even know. We don't even know the quality/thing to be measured. The first thing for you violin makers and scientists should do is to first IDENTIFY the particular quality to measure. (timbre, frequency response, time delay, whatever, whatever, whatever) After you identify whatever quality you deem important, then you can measure that quality over time.
The measure I looked at with my own personal violin ...is VOLUME. It made no sound when I first played it, likely because it hadn't been played in many, many decades. Volume is something measurable and noticeable. One year ago, my violin had 10-15% the volume it does now. It didn't take me a year to learn how to create volume on that violin. Don't be retarded. I'm a former All-State player. I know how to generate sound from a friggin violin. I have other violins that produced full sound. It just took me a year for that particular Italian violin to re-learn how to produce voluminous sound.
Please don't overlook our main objective here. The goal is to keep the conversation alive so that we can watch David and Lyndon going at one another. Peanuts here! Cold beer!
Player: I am positive this violin has changed markedly.
Researcher: I can not find any objective measurements to confirm it.
As was, and ever shall be, post infinitum. (with the exception of the first few days after string-up, where some of us DO find measurable changes)
For example, consider the claim that a violin is suddenly 7 to 10 times louder after a year of playing (a violin at 10-15% of its current volume at the start of the year).
Was a controlled, repeatable test performed with sound equipment throughout the year? Or is this more of "Hmmm, my subjective feeling is the violin was much less powerful a year ago, oh, perhaps 10-15% quieter."
People commonly make such statements but it conflates a quantitative scientific claim with an ambiguous observation. That makes the claim sound suspicious and dismissible, when it should pique the interest of makers and players. An experienced player noticed a dramatic change in playing volume over a year of playing. No formal loudness test was performed over the year, but it might be worth asking for more information.
That doesn't mean we should feel free to abuse science for our own purposes. As a chemist with 25+ years of professional experience, however, I object when the unknown suddenly becomes "known" because someone feels like they need to clothe their perceptions in science-speak and start churning out wholly unsubstantiated nonsense about the molecular structure and viscoelastic behavior of wood, etc. That's where I draw the line.
But not long ago I bought a carbon fiber violin. And this one also "opens up". It is becoming more open, and you can notice that in every session of playing.
Which is absurd because I know what is carbon fiber.
The conclusion can't be other than: Its not the violin, it's me. And if it's me in this one, it would be dumb to asume that it's not me in the other one.
My personal experience doesn't proof a general fact, but supports my belief about that fact until proven otherwise.
A violin that reaches 200 years its because it has been taken cared by professionals along its life, and passed from pro to pro. So it's not that it's good because it's 200 years old, it's that it's 200 years old because it's good.
If it hadn't been good enough, it would have been left in the attic, eaten by wodworms and rodents and eventually rotten.
I think natural selection is not sufficient in explaining the overwhelming number of centuries-old instruments being used in professional orchestras. And all the international soloists that I know of.
Not to mention the improvement in modern luthiery, machinery and automation, etc. which theoretically add to modern instruments'advantage.
An antique instrument can fare 100K or more. I doubt if any modern makers could ask for that price. The bewildering gap could hardly be explained on the basis of 'antique value' alone.
Have you guys ever encountered that situation where an old violin doesn't make any sound? Or at least so little that it puzzles you? The first time I encountered was with an Enrico Marchetti violin, with a 65k price tag from Carriage House. My first response, how tha hell did he win so many gold medals when he makes this crap? Then a local luthier told me, the highest quality tone woods tend to lock up if it's not played. You have to keep playing it, and it'll come back.
How many people out there have already claimed, a 100 yr old violin sounds so much better than a brand new violin. Now, the question is...how do you confirm that with something measurable?
"An antique instrument can fare 100K or more. I doubt if any modern makers could ask for that price. The bewildering gap could hardly be explained on the basis of 'antique value' alone."
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A 1963 Ferrari 250 GTO sold for 70 million. It is not fast at all by today's standards, but it probably has a great sound.
A Leonardo da Vinci painting sold for 450 million. It must have an amazing sound! ;-)
"How many people out there have already claimed, a 100 yr old violin sounds so much better than a brand new violin. Now, the question is...how do you confirm that with something measurable?"
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We don't have a definitive measuring system yet. Evaluations are still based on player and listener impressions. However, these impressions can be very different, depending on whether the age and maker of the violin is known, or not disclosed. That's where the blind and double-blind experiments come into play.
I have a nice Strad copy, which also has a very legible copy of a Strad label. It is well done enough that most people can't tell the difference from a real Strad, visually. You can imagine the fun I've had, handing it to players and asking them to try it, without telling them anything about it. And then watching impressions morph, after I tell them what it really is. This isn't saying anything negative at all about players, it's simply human nature, and something we are all susceptible to, whether we are aware of it or not.
The market for old violins are a lot bigger. I think the antique, sentimental value of old violins do not fully account for their high price, and I doubt if it is the deciding factor for a majority of violinists.
Of course as master of the trade David must know a lot more than me (about how musicians make their purchase and what influence them, and to what extend). But putting myself in the shoes of a violinist, between two violins of 'nearly' identical sounding quality, one made by David Burgess at 20K, another by Mr. Someone in 1900s at 100K, I'm gonna hug a David for sure. Most musicians are on a tight budget, and even if their budget allows it, may not go with the expensive antique.
I never think modern makers are somehow lesser than their predecessors (maybe better!), and I'm sure in 100+ years my great-grand children (if I had one) can sell Mr. David for 100K ;-)
http://www.futuresmag.com/2017/01/21/investing-rare-violins
I think it's the main reason why such foundations as Nippon Music give loans of Strads to young aspiring soloists. Otherwise, these superb instruments will never be sung in the most deserving hands and best fulfill their intended purpose - most would end up as display items.
The downside is that frequent use inevitably involves some wear and deterioration of irreplaceable historical objects, so it's nice that we have some that aren't out in regular use.
"Wilfred Cote, professor at Syracuse University, has worked extensively on the microstructure of wood. He has provided Hutchins with photographs of wood at a microscopic level, and has indicated that when wood is vibrated under stress by sound waves, like a violin being played, the long-chain polymers in the wood break. With changes in temperature and humidity, however, the polymers repair themselves. This is what happens in the process of "playing in" a violin so that it responds more easily. When it is left unplayed for a period of time, the chains tend to repair themselves, but not entirely. Violinists recognize this as an instrument left idle for a few months that needs to be "played in" again. Hutchins has shown this experimentally by vibrating a number of violins continuously for 1500 hours, causing the B1 body vibration to decrease some 25 Hz, making the instruments easier to play and "more friendly." When allowed to rest for three months the B1 body vibration goes back up about 15 Hz, but not all the way."
Nobody really knows how it works, but the best theory is that the structures of the top plate breaks apart at the molecular level, making it more flexible.