palousian

The reason that European classical music is played in many countries is a direct result of Europeans having gone to these places and dominated them. This process is most powerfully demonstrated in the 19th century, when the globe was divided up by European powers (and increasingly with the US joining in), their raw materials were extracted, the people were turned into markets for European goods, and European culture was imposed. Violin-playing and -making in these places is a symptom, not a cause. For more background, read history.

Well, the OP agreed with me, so there's that.

Musician/composer who taught world music at a major university for decades (though with only a Masters in composition...long story) here--I was struck by the Eurocentric agenda of your inquiry, given your training. While there is a lot of information about the professional European instrument makers all over the world, that global presence is of course the direct result of European imperialism, though you might be able to discern subtle cultural difference in luthiers working in different contexts, I suppose. I would urge you to discuss your question/ideas with instrument builders in other cultures, and consider the difference between instrument building for a professional class of musicians versus, say, homemade instruments made by non-professionals in non-European cultures, or even folk music traditions in Europe and America. Anyway, I'd discuss your project with you. Cheers, Paul

While you're preparing, here is the 1937 Lomax recording of William Stepp that Copland listened to. Aaron made a nice piece, but he missed a lot here. If you want to figure it out, it helps to know he's in an odd scordatura--Ddad'--but, what a wonderful sound! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yeQucos9-M&list=RD1yeQucos9-M&start_radio=1

So, Oscar... Is it your plan to keep repeating this comment every few months? I think we got it the first time.

I don't think this is a very good video for learning Irish ornamentation... She plays with pretty good phrasing/bowing, so overall there is some good advice here... but the "light speed mordant" is kinda BS, and especially bad advice for violinists interested in Irish music. She shows herself actually fingering the note. Nope, don't do that. First off, it isn't a mordant. No one in Ireland calls it that. The Irish call this a "cut" because it imitates the "cuts" done on whistle, flute, and pipes. Done properly, you speed up the bow a little and TOUCH the note--do NOT push it down. It should pop a bit, and you shouldn't really hear the pitch of that adjacent note. This is hard for violinists because you're trained always to finger the note, but... not how it's done. Also, she fingers the adjacent note to her first finger, and (though she mentions it in passing) the third finger, not the second, generally cuts the first finger note, though the second finger is used, depending on context. The roll she demonstrates is, I'm sorry, a disaster. For one thing, on the first finger, it is virtually always the third finger that plays the upper note, but again... DON'T push it down! Then the lower note involves just barely lifting the first finger. Again, the ornament should "pop," with a little more bow speed. The way she is showing this will make violinists play all the five notes, like a "turn." You will never, ever get that fast enough. Oddly, she seems to have a lighter touch when she speeds up, but she fingers it incorrectly, and her description is a mess. But her sound on it is in the ballpark. I have seen two descriptions for doing a roll that are more helpful than what you see here. The first came from my teacher, Tomás Glackin, patriarch of the mightly Glackin fiddling clan--he taught me that a roll is a cut, plus a light triplet. So on the first or second finger, you generally use the third finger to cut, then immediately lift the first finger, just barely, to produce the lower note. On the second finger, your first finger is sitting there for the same purpose. The second explanation comes from Kevin Burke, who might have the most elegant rolls on the planet. He also describes it more or less as Tomás Glackin did but sometimes he'll say that each note gets faster in a roll, along with the bow. He also does not finger the upper note, and the lower "triplet" is the light touch I describe. Anyway, you don't hear five notes in a properly-played roll. I just found a video of Kevin Burke showing how to play a roll. THIS is how you do it!! Good luck out there!

These photos are pretty inadequate for attribution. I can't see anything, besides it apparently being a violin. Take some decently-sized photos so we can actually see details, and here is a handy guide to tell you what we need to see. https://maestronet.com/forum/index.php?/topic/333119-how-to-photograph-an-instrument-for-identifcation-purposes/

Wow, well. For $50K you could do a lot better. Why would you spend that kind of money on something you are unable to verify? Why rule out a scam? Seems kind-of scammy to me. Go to a good violin shop and buy from an honest professional who knows what they're doing, and perhaps seek professional/legal remedies to your situation. By the way, sound is sort-of worth nothing, though we all want it. This is strange enough that I wonder what is really going on here.

I was a Kaplan fan, but for a more responsive e string that doesn't whistle, the Warchal Amber e is lovely. Though... if you broke a standard e string putting it on, the Warchal Amber e, with its spring on the end, takes some massaging to get it set up.

Great old examples! Beautiful sarangis! The middle instrument in the top set of three is not a bowed instrument, though. Yes, even with those c-bouts, though that reveals that this type of lute was originally bowed. That is a rubab, originally from Afghanistan, played with a plectrum. They generally have more strings. Here is mine, which is a very old small version (for easy transport), but with the full complement of 18 strings.

I'd suspect that the formidable string instrument experts here will be thrown by a wooden flute. Maybe not, but the people who are still actively using flutes like this are traditional Irish (and related) musicians. There was someone playing a flute not unlike yours at an Irish session I was playing in just a few weeks ago. I'd suggest contacting these folks (I have not done business with them, just found them trying to find someone specializing in Irish flutes on your behalf). Good luck! https://www.irishflutestore.com/collections/irish-flutes

These are pretty frustrating photos to look at. You should have read the helpful advice about photos for instrument ID at the top of the forum (https://maestronet.com/forum/index.php?/topic/333119-how-to-photograph-an-instrument-for-identifcation-purposes/. ) Still, the corners and back of the scroll point to what is called "the usual" around here, which is to say, one of the many thousands of "dutzendarbeit" violins from the cottage industry in Saxony/Bohemia, c.1900-ish. Some of these sound and play weirdly well, while others... not so much...

Bullet dodged, seems to me.

He was Stefan Dymiter (1938-2002), a Roma street musician. https://ruj.uj.edu.pl/server/api/core/bitstreams/65cd9535-2959-4797-8aac-87a0b95e2913/content

On #1... Yes, open strings are part of the style. I'm a fiddle player who loves to play Bach, but controlling the sound of open strings is like any technique--you just work at it until you can make it work. Open strings are essential in most fiddle music traditions, and you can get a sweet sound with it. Of course, you could try gut strings. I have not played on a gut E, but that's a direction you could take; still, you can make a metal E string work. #2. I generally start with what Bach wrote in the manuscript, and often find that what he wrote is the way to go, as far as I'm concerned. I am often struck by the latitude that good violinists take with Bach, because my first experience of Bach was as a pianist/harpsichordist and there... you do what he wrote. I find a lot of those long slurs to be playable, and also I think it's true that they can be regarded as an indication of the desired sound--you're the artist and you can do what you want. I have been working on the Grave from the Am Sonata, and the end is a good example of the problem. It seems pretty clear to me that he intended that both notes in those double-stops have trills, and the usual rule there in the baroque style is that trills start on the top note, trilling down to the notated pitch. When I've gone to examine how other players do this passage, I realized that not many do it (I haven't yet found someone doing it, actually). They trill up from the notated pitch, or only trill the upper part, etc. I figured out how to finger it, requiring that the upper D had to be fingered with the third finger on the A and E strings as if I were trying to play a D-A fifth double stop. Then there's enough room for my second finger to get the G note on the D string. It's not ready for prime time, yet, but I know that if I keep at it, I'll get there.