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Showing results for tags 'nasal'.
Found 3 results
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Are there any tricks to avoid a nasal tone when constructing the plates?
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By chance I happened to notice an interesting effect of the shoulder rest today when playing my #4 Guarneri copy. I noticed that the sound was strangely nasal ... l didn't like it. First I thought that this could be due to the room acoustic, this was in an old summer cottage where the acoustics was unfamiliar, cold the room dampen higher frequencies causing the nasal sound? I happened to notice that I had brought two shoulder rests with me, this was a shoulder rest I seldom use. When switching to the ordinary shoulder rest or playing without the shoulder rest the nasality disappeared. After some experimentation I noticed that I normally use the shoulder rest slightly diagonally over the bottom. The size of the other shoulder rest was different causing me to mount it perpendicular to the 'spine' of the violin across the lower bouts. This seemed to cause the nasality. When making the mounting more diagonal the sound brightened and the normal sound of the violin returned. Question: Is this a well known effect?
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The question arises because: 1. I have one viola (LOB: 435mm) with a pretty ‘forward’ kind of sound. The lower three strings sound great but…the A is really quite brash. 2. I have another (LOB: 444mm) whose sound is more mellow and balanced across the instrument, and the A is quite sweet. …which suggests to me that size alone does not necessarily dictate the character of the A string sound. 3. I am making a viola at the moment (LOB: 423mm). Sound….as yet undefined (currently working on the arching). Are there any measures that people can suggest to try to ensure the A string does not shout, and instead that its sound is in balance with the other strings? Thanks, Ed.
