The Violin Beautiful

I’d consider a few things for the bridge size: 1) spacing of upper ff eyes 2) bass bar placement. I’d like the bridge to be 1-1.5 mm outside the bar ideally. I agree with Davide’s comment about bar inclination. 3) fingerboard width. If the bridge is especially wide, you may end up with the strings closer to the fingerboard edges or you’ll have a string spacing in the bridge that leaves a lot of wood at either side. 4) projection of the neck. If it’s lower, a wider bridge may end up looking a lot more stubby and you may not have much wood above the heart. Make sure the projection is adequate for the blank 5) c bout clearance. This is related to 5), and it’s also important to have enough clearance for the bow so that it’s not running into the bouts. As far as the tailpiece, I tend to gauge the size by the proportion to the vibrating string length, not the body length. I would choose a tailpiece that allows the right ratio and comes close to the saddle without touching.

I’d probably lean toward trying to make it work for a future instrument as well. You could use wood from the offcuts or from rough arching to make some patches that would match well with a very fine gouge. If the damage ends up being much more extensive internally, then you may need to start over, but at least you won’t be left wondering if the piece would have worked.

Yes. That was what I meant when I said people have been immortalized.

According to the Washington Post, Bell made $32 and played his Strad at the time. They wanted him to be using a Strad so that when it got little attention they could make it look more dramatic. The idea was to say “Look how people don’t pay attention to a great violinist playing a great violin who can charge $100 a ticket in any major concert hall if he isn’t presented the right way. Clearly this means that people only appreciate beauty if you tell them when they’re looking at it.” So, yes, Bell did make a small amount from his busking and was actually recognized by one person, but the Post wanted this to be glossed over because most of the commuters didn’t stop to listen and didn’t shower him with money. But if you look at buskers in general, this argument starts to crumble pretty quickly. There are some who make careers out of playing in public and never end up in the “proper” frames, yet their music is appreciated by countless people and sometimes enters into local or national history. There was a busker in Georgetown who was famous for putting out a large tambourine when he played instead of a hat or case for tips. He ended up immortalized as “Mr. Tambourine Man.” What’s more interesting, though, is that buskers will sometimes find opportunities to play gigs elsewhere when passersby are impressed by their playing and offer them paid opportunities. A good number of musicians talk of having started by busking and then finding success as audiences showed more and more support. A while back, the band Old Crow Medicine show was busking in North Carolina when Doc Watson discovered them and said they played the most authentic Old Time music he’d heard in a long time. They have found a huge amount of success. As another example, a good friend began his fiddling career by busking on weekends and gradually grew interest in his playing until he was offered paid gigs. As he started to build up contacts, he moved to different platforms to advertise his playing and eventually found that his schedule was so solidly booked that there was no longer time for busking. People often do perceive beauty in different frames. Isn’t that what things like street art are all about?

The whole thing was devised by the Washington Post as a “social experiment” to suggest that people couldn’t perceive value in artistry if it wasn’t presented in the correct setting. Joshua Bell was recruited to be the performer. There was a suggestion that the fact that he had given sold out concerts in major concert halls at $100 a ticket but wasn’t recognized and monetarily rewarded by commuters was a testament that art only has value in how it’s presented and that the public essentially isn’t smart enough to ooh and ahh if you’re not holding up cue cards for them and charging enough for tickets to convince them that they must be paying for art. As an attempt to “redeem” the public for its reputedly shameful failure to forsake everything to gape in wonderment at a violinist they probably couldn’t hear very well during the peak of rush hour, a second “experiment” was set up several years later. This time Bell picked a better spot and didn’t try to disguise himself. This was presented as a better outcome, although it was still necessary to dumb things down for the public by making Bell’s presence better known.

That experiment was more of a stunt than a real experiment, and it was not thought out well. The headline about a concert violinist not making money playing in a Metro station was useful as clickbait for the media, but it certainly didn’t prove anything or make any salient point. Bell played in the busiest Metro station at peak rush hour time, the most hectic time of the day. At that station, many people are actually running to make a transfer to a different line, and if you’ve ever ridden the Metro regularly, you know just how horribly it’s maintained and how often trains break down or get delayed for any number of reasons. Rush hour on a weekday morning is a mad dash to make it to the office on time even though you left early enough that you should have had some cushion. The fact that few people paid much attention to a musician in the midst of that chaos was completely unremarkable. Playing in such a crowded spot where there‘s so much train and passenger noise is a mistake that buskers know enough not to make. There are stations and spots that are ideal for playing and have more space and less noise. I used to see a quartet that sang on platforms all the time. They knew just where to set up so that they could be heard but weren’t in the middle of the crowd. They timed their performances so that they could sing numbers in between train arrivals, and they deservedly got a huge amount of attention. And although Bell might not have made much during his appearance, other buskers who play classical music have been much more successful. It’s not about being the best player or using the greatest violin in that setting—it’s about drawing an audience in by choosing the right repertoire for the scene and by making the performance eye-catching enough that people want to stop for a while. Long before Bell played in a DC metro station there was a professional orchestral player who was well known for playing in subway stations as well with more success. Bell wore a disguise to avoid recognition that he assumed would take place if people could see his face clearly. Given the spot for the stunt, I suspect he could have skipped the disguise and still have gone undetected. But with his choice of disguise, he also did something that tends to work against buskers: he deliberately avoided a look that stood out. Many successful buskers wear costumes that get attention as part of their persona and they make eye contact with people to engage them. Of course a costume is not a necessity for busking, but a visual element that adds to the intrigue or makes a passerby stop to look more closely can make a big difference. The question of the reasoning behind Stradivari’s modifications and developments in violin design is an interesting one, but I don’t think using the Metro “experiment(s)” as a BELLwether is useful. I’m inclined to think that Stradivari was indeed looking to make some changes to the character or tone of his instruments through experimentation with the forms and arches, but I also don’t think that this was a trait unique to him. In his day the violin was still a relatively new invention, and forms were anything but rigidly standardized. There is an argument to be made for there having been working methods and proportional relationships that were largely consistent in Cremona, but there was nonetheless quite a lot of variation in making, not just when comparing different makers, but looking at the violins from the same maker or shop over time.

I’m not disagreeing with you. My point was just that if it were true, it would be a great thing for players. So often in these discussions there’s a lot of complaining that great violins are expensive and cheap violins aren’t, but to me it seems odd to be frustrated that a cheap violin isn’t more expensive if it sounds good. While I don’t believe there are cheap violins that are truly great, I do think there are plenty that sound rather good, and that in itself is a benefit to players. Really cheap violins aren’t at that level unless you spend a lot of time and effort to make them a little better.

I have to say again, if it’s true that cheap violins are as good as great ones, isn’t that the greatest possible gift to players? It would mean that just about anyone would have easy access to an instrument that was capable of performing at the highest level. It would also mean that players could more easily amass collections of great instruments than ever before. On the other hand, it would also mean that players would no longer be able to blame the equipment when the sound was mediocre or didn’t carry well. It also seems to me that the market would be inverted; if the secrets to making great instruments were known so well by factories, then whoever could manage to make a violin that for the bill the most cheaply would be the market leader and everything else would be overpriced. The undercutting between manufacturers would be intense and I can only imagine how that would affect the workforce producing the instruments. There would be no accumulated value in instruments anymore if they were entirely replaceable. If the magic and mystery were gone, I wonder if people would remain as interested in and passionate about the violin as they are now. It could be a blessing and a curse.

I’m glad to hear you mention that about the Akusticus. I’ve always thought the same but some people absolutely swear by them and cannnot be convinced that the Wittner is an improvement.

That’s very wishful thinking. The idea of repeating the work of great makers by artificially aging wood has been tried over and over. And copying the dimensions of an existing violin does not reliably produce a similar sounding instrument, whether that’s a copy of an old violin or a second new violin made with the same materials as the first and made to the same form by the same maker. I think one of the greatest mysteries about violin making is that violins can look so similar and fall within such a narrow distribution on a sound spectrum when compared with other objects that are more reproducible, yet their sounds are recognized as so vastly different, so much so that you would expect the physical characteristics to be much more disparate if you were less familiar with violin making. I should add that I hear all the time that it’s getting harder and harder to find good wood, not just for violin making, but for all kinds of purposes. I hear over and over that lumber is nowhere as good as it used to be and that contractors are plagued by an abundance of boards that are twisted badly by grain that’s not straight enough. Wood dealers are constantly lamenting the difficulty of finding good quality wood to stock. The Aubert factory has been experiencing major production issues for years as they’ve struggled to find enough suitable wood for cutting out blanks.

I agree completely. To me the tests only accomplish one thing—getting people to talk about violins and compare subjective opinions. That’s not a bad result, it just isn’t what the tests purport to accomplish.

Greater familiarity with the instruments is certainly an advantage for being able to distinguish them. That doesn’t detract from the result if one can identify them when played by other people against a group of different instruments. In many blind tests players are allowed to play violins before being asked to determine which violin is which. Audience tests are typically based on listening alone, and I would suggest that that is why the results vary so drastically from test to test. For every conclusion that modern makers are as good or better, there’s another that old makers are better. Each new test is conducted in an attempt to definitively settle the score, yet that goal remains unmet. In the end, these various attempts at testing violins in artificial conditions have not resulted in a determination of the value of instruments or in establishing any maker as superior. The highest value tends to be placed on instruments that receive the endorsement of respected players or happen to be in their collections when they die. Even though many of the great violins are now more commonly bought by collectors, the demand for them was originally established when they were championed by notable players.

The key word there is “attempts.” Like all the previous experiments, the more recent ones were only quasi-scientific and don’t really demonstrate or prove anything meaningful. What’s of interest to me is not the group of people who can’t tell violins apart, but rather those individuals who can. There was an informal experiment conducted by TwoSet with Ray Chen several years ago for a YouTube video. They had several violins ranging in price and all played them to see if it would be possible to discern which was which according to sound and price. While the YouTubers couldn’t always tell which violin was which, it was rather intriguing that Ray Chen seemed to be able to get it right consistently. Expertise is based on uncommon ability and greater familiarity with the material. It’s no surprise, then, if the majority of listeners don’t have the expertise to discern subtle differences. That doesn’t disprove the existence of those differences, and if someone can be shown to be able to tell the difference, it suggests that the subtle identifiers for specific violins likely do exist. I think the “great violins are only in the hands of the super-rich collectors” argument is a bit misleading. Yes, prices for these violins have increased to dramatic levels and players have largely become unable to purchase them. However, a very good number of these violins are being played by players through loans from the buyers or through foundations set up to grant these instruments to players who are deemed the most promising. It is lamentable that players can’t own collections of great violins as they once did, but putting the blame on the people who are willing to pay higher prices for them doesn’t solve the issue. The places that sell the instruments for increasingly astronomical prices are quite happy to boast about setting new records, so it’s not a problem with one part of the equation alone. Looking at the history of the Cremonese violins, it’s important to keep in mind that so many of them were commissioned by royalty or nobility. These violins weren’t being handed out to local players. Court musicians might have the opportunity to play them if they were employed by the courts that kept the instruments. The resale market for these instruments really took off once Tarisio started tracking them down after they’d faded into obscurity and carrying them to Vuillaume to market in Paris to a new audience. As several top-tier players chose these instruments for their concertizing, the demand for them grew rapidly. There have always been limiting factors to owning these instruments. At one time, you generally had to be a noble to own one, now you have to have $5-$25 million at your disposal.

This is the reason for the testing that the acoustics folks have been doing for years. Because the player is so hard to separate from the instrument when you listen, they’ve designed methods for testing without a player in an effort to detect a violin’s capabilities and character from a repeatable impact (like a piezo hammer). Whether that amounts to anything meaningful is another topic. While I agree that the player is critical to what you’re hearing, I do think that violins have personalities. Some of that changes with age, use, repairs, and adjustments, but there does seem to be an overall character. A player will have a sense of “home” for an instrument, and this is something a good adjuster can hear during adjustment when the instrument is familiar. Violins can be fairly consistently classified as bright or dark, or open or nasal. So I don’t think that the entire sound comes from the player. Good players can often adjust their playing to make the best of a poor instrument, but when they play a really good instrument, it tends to make them shine. I think that is the reason why players sometimes choose instruments that they find to be tricky to play—it’s the sense that they can get something extra out by playing them. I do think how the player feels about the instrument is important, but it can be misleading in some cases. A violin that sounds weak under the ear may project admirably. Or one that sounds harsh may sound sweet once you’re a few feet away. This is why I think it’s so valuable to temper a personal opinion by comparing it to that of another person who has a good understanding and ear.

I think the use of the word “master” confuses things. It’s used in advertisement to promote higher tier factory violins, sometimes to deliberately fool the buyer into thinking it means a single maker is responsible for the instruments, but in a more historical sense, it meant an instrument produced by a maker who had achieved recognition as a professional maker in the guild system. When we talk about Strads or Guarneris as “master violins,” the sound may play some part, but it’s mostly related to the workmanship exhibited in the instruments and their ability to survive centuries with reputations that only increase. That’s a completely different concept. The problem with trying to sort out violins by sound alone is that there isn’t enough agreement for that to work. Even if it were somehow possible to reach consensus on tone quality, just imagine how difficult it would be to set consistent prices. Maybe one Strad would sound like $20 million but another might only sound like $20 k. Who would set the price? And how would anyone be able to maintain any sense of consistency? Imagine being a modern maker finishing one violin and being told “That’s a $30 k violin and then making another and being told “This one is only worth $3 k.” It would be impossible to have a reliable income that way and it would be unbearably stressful to have your prices fluctuating constantly and not know for sure that you’d be able to pay your bills. Luthiers struggle to make a living already, but this would make it exponentially worse in my opinion. As it is, even makers who try their best to make the same thing over and over find a fair amount of variety in their instruments. It’s completely reasonable to want a violin that’s a good deal and sounds better than its price tag suggests. If you find something that satisfies you, I think there’s every reason to be happy. I just don’t think it’s possible to take that one subjective opinion of what’s good or valuable and then try to make an objective comparison to other instruments. I don’t believe true objectivity is possible in quantifying sound quality in violins. I do believe that individuals are capable of forming their own subjective rankings of instruments, and I believe that some individuals have subjective opinions that are informed enough that they come closer to objectivity than most. Therefore, I tend to believe that the most qualified subjective opinions are the best we can expect and we’re better off trusting those than trying to establish a new order that’s built on the shaky assertion that there’s consensus on what sounds better or best. If one disagrees with the current way of ranking violins and is convinced that cheaper violins are better, in a way that’s a wonderful benefit because it means that one doesn’t have to worry about the problems of an old and rare instrument—there’s no need to insure it because it’s not worth enough to take out a policy, it’s easily replaceable if it gets lost or stolen, and even though it doesn’t accumulate value, it makes it much easier to amass a collection of similar excellent violins without having to be fabulously wealthy. When I see this type of discussion I always wonder whether the reason for wanting to rearrange the hierarchy is really about violins or whether it’s more about wanting to feel validation in one’s subjective opinions (the fantasy of reaching true objectivity).