sospiri

I believe that playing skill is so fantastically intricate by necessity because we have to tickle the strings node points just so to deliver the intended tone and volume. A good comparison I believe is walking or running on uneven ground. The physics of the of the intricacies of the movements are so fantastically complicated... ...and the message signalling of the brain and the millions of neurons to achieve these movements also... So yes, I wouldn't like to measure it or try to explain the how either.

That wonderful pun only works in American English, it doesn't work in British English because we call them hills. It doesn't work in Walloon, French or Flemish either, so whoever attributed it to Eddy Merckx is lying. But yes he was an obsessive tinkerer with his position on the bike and helped others with their positional adjustments too. I don't tinker. I set up and go, every time I aquire a new machine. All done very quickly and I adapt very quickly. I have the same approach with violins and bows. I don't obsess, I accept different nuances readily. For example, I don't give the bow balance point a moments thought, whereas some players do.

I used to think that I could tell the difference, but now I don't notice. Maybe I just got better at accomodating any changes? This thread is unusual in that all the evidence being supplied is anecdotal and weak. No actual science to back it up. But then again tone is a highly subjective judgement, impossible to accurately describe or measure objectively.

I was making a hypothetical argument to point out your implied argument that these apparently unacceptable changes in sound are due to changes in relative humidity, which I fail to find. Surely the beautiful violin is designed to accommodate these changes. And the player practiced in responding also? [ So my assertion is that psychoacoustics and kidology are at play here. Especially so, since a player with an important concert coming up is bound to feel pre-performance anxiety which can affect their confidence and suggestibility.

A few hours? Just like the humidity changes during the day take a few hours? I will do some measurements to check this though. Well look at the hourly weather charts. They are getting more detailed with the rise in programming and information sharing. They show huge fluctuations in relatively dry periods also, such as we have been experiencing here in England over the past few weeks. Today for example a variation of RH of 55% and I looked at the chart for Ann Arbor and yours is even more variable over the last 2 days. Meanwhile in Cleveland Ohio, very stable cold temperatures and stable RH recently.

So essentially, you are adjusting for changes in relative humidity which regularly varies enormously outdoors and maybe half as much indoors in just a few hours from morning to afternoon. So essentially, to maintain the supposed 'optimal sound post tension', you would have to adjust the position at least twice a day, when the humidity is variable.

Maybe he's trying to remember where he left them?

Fast spicatto or sautillé?

Isn't it more true to say that time is relative to gravity?

Because days of future passed.

He does like to invent stuff.

That's good to know. I was wondering if someone else was going to make an attribution.

Thanks for the extra pics. That's a lot of growth rings, a very old tree. I assume that it was made in Mittenwald?

It's very nice. More pics please.

I don't even understand the question. Can you explain it please? The reason why I started experimenting with not cutting string grooves and simply using the natural indentation caused by string pressure is because I considered that the top of the bridge has very short fibers, and cutting a groove makes them even shorter. And anyway, a groove will still be compressed.