Graduating a Milanolla model

[ispirati]

Quote:

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I think the key is that when you play a Strad each sounds different.

What's this hang-up with consistency? I don't worry about that, and the idea of doing so confuses me. Strads sound good, in my opinion, because he was the ultimately artistic maker, and the ones that sound right have incredibly beautiful archs, as do the great del Gesus. They sound different because the arches are slightly different, but beautiful, and not the same. The problem is that in this day people think you must be able to quantify and describe everything, including beauty--give it a size and a number.

Put that against the Octet instruments--a group of instruments with hideous archings, all different, all bad. That's why the whole thrust of tuning fills me with distain--it's based on the idea that a person with no taste and no art can make a beautiful sounding instrument by skipping directly to a set of numbers.

As far as I'm concerned, this pursuit of quantification is for people who have nothing else to draw on and no real concept of beauty, and who are looking for a shortcut. There are no shortcuts to being Stradivari.

So what do I do? I try to make each instrument more beautiful than the last, and sometimes it works. If you are looking to become the next Rembrandt by using the paint-by-numbers plan, it ain't gonna work.

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Michael... Nicely put.. I am also a believer of beautiful violin will sound beautiful.

But I am also very confused by your statements. The question here is how to make the "graduation" beautiful, not archings and shapes. You seem to suggest that there is no systematic way employeed by the old masters to produce their graduations.

In your past posting of "Tonal Quality and Arching/Graduation" and "To regraduate or not" , and you suggested that we should simply follow the numbers on the poster. Then, in the thread of "Who can make violin sound like/close to Strad", you seems to imply the fact that you graduate by mass and mass distribution. I recall in the pass postings you said that you made sure your top is near something like 65g, the back is something like 100g, and you employ some creative method to match the thickness and the mass to the original. And now that it does not work for elderthomas, you are saying these graduation-by-number ain't gonna work. Can you explain?

Did I misunderstood something?

Sorry to put you on the spot like this. But I am very confused.

[Craig Tucker]

What more do you want to know, ispirati?

I don't want to answer for Michael, but:

There comes a time when you have to stop worrying about what everyone else thinks and does, and simply decide what you will do yourself - then do it.

Life is short, I say, when in doubt, build!

To continue to want to know every aspect of why someone else thinks a certain way is not really very productive.

[Regis]

Quote: "There comes a time when you have to stop worrying about what everyone else thinks and does, and simply decide what you will do yourself - then do it.

Life is short, I say, when in doubt, build! "

Pretty profound there CT. I like it. Maybe you should have some kind of 'hotkey' for this statement. I've seen a number of places over the last couple years that this would have fit perfectly.......and will again.

[MANFIO]

Yes ct, that's it, I see violin making as kind of solitary journey, you can talk a lot with other makers, discuss etc. but eventually you will be alone with a gouge in your hand and the wood in front of you!

[Michael Darnton]

I think graduation is interesting, like all problems of violin making. I do not think it is the answer to all of our violin making problems. I think that people who insist on quantifying want it to be more than it is, because they can understand it.

The problem I had with the "heart" stuff is that it was too much about voodoo, too much about American-style simplistic religion for personal gain, and not enough about education and hard work.

[MANFIO]

Yes Michael, there is trend today that everything can be scientifically and practically explained... Technology is replacing religion and tradition...

By the way, I'm relieved with information about the octet you gave, I will definitly stop of feelling "guilty" for not using science and phisics and "englemodes" and so and forth for making my violins.

[Mark_W]

"Do you remember if any conclusions were drawn from, first "real" good instruments?...were these compared to admittedly bad instruments?"

Hutchins and Frederick Saunders did have access to famous instruments. Whether they were the absolute best, I was not and am not qualified to say. Saunders's research in the 1950s definitely included so-called bad violins.

"...when I saw the Octet at the National Music Museum, and played them. They were horribly made..."

Maybe so. The Octet was an engineering effort to move the principal resonances close together in instruments of disparate size. Hutchins rather humorously numbers her instruments "SUS___(#)" a Latin joke. (The word means 'Pig'.) I don't think workmanship was the point. She did study part time for eight years with a 'real' violin maker, whose work I've seen.

I think Hutchins and the CAS over the years have made an honest and useful effort, but not a decisive one. After several decades of research, we know how to avoid constructing distinctly bad violins, but have not learned how to make great ones. There is no specification for a 'perfect' violin, and there probably never will be.

[Craig Tucker]

"Pretty profound there CT. I like it. Maybe you should have some kind of 'hotkey' for this statement. I've seen a number of places over the last couple years that this would have fit perfectly.......and will again."

Well, regarding what to do when thicknessing or arching, many discussions get to the point where I think:

This is odd, why doesn't this person just build something rather than continue to not understand or agree with some particular point. It isn't that I don't enjoy the discussions either, because I do, but there is only so much to say about something before it becomes a matter of endless, pointless reiteration.

At that point, one might as well flip a coin in order to determine which course of events is the correct one to follow - then you have to put the chisle to the wood in order to find out for yourself which school of thought is correct based on the results you get yourself.

Who knows, perhaps one of you out there will find out that tuning plates is the most workable method that there is...? But you won't find that out by talking about it.

[Dean_Lapinel]

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[Ron1]

Dean, I think we're in agreement too. Heart was probably a poor choice of words. the bottom line seems to be that Knowledge (which has to include all the quantitative info too) is the primary requisite, but beyond that (or maybe along with it) an artistic sense and ability is required to take making to the highest levels.

[Arte]

My teacher taught me to go for beauty first, sound second. Sound is subjective. Beauty is a little more allusive to attain. It falls in line with "artistic sense and ability". You know it when you see it; when you see it you feel it. I can't define that feeling in English; "duende" is as close as it comes. Achieving it, yeah well that's the dream. That's living like Strad.

[Ron1]

I guess we've really drifted off-subject and into far-off space with this thread. Call home, ET.

[Arte]

You're right, I drifted.

[Ron1]

You were in-line with the current discussion- I'm the culprit.

[Oded Kishony]

Ron1 wrote:

> Knowledge (which has to include all the quantitative info too) is the primary requisite, but beyond that (or maybe along with it) an artistic sense and ability is required to take making to the highest levels.<

Some makers have a deep intuitive intelligence-if you ask them how they make great instruments they simply shrug their shoulders-not because they are being coy but because they have no clue. Other makers have a complete engineering concept of the construction process, it can be wrongheaded yet result in a great instrument-or not. Every maker finds their own path depending on their strengths and talents. I believe that there's enough valid engineering/ physics information on instrument acoustics that the interested luthier can read, learn and rely on to help improve the sound of their instruments. But it can't be done inside the head it can only be validated by making instruments.

My suggestion to elderthomas is to make a new top for his violin with different graduations and see if it results in a better sounding fiddle- right now we are all assuming that the problem is caused by a too thin top, but you can prove it by making another top and getting actual results that you can test rather than endlessly speculating and wondering about it.

For me, being 'scientific' about instrument making isn't about using computers or sophisticated equipment but more about finding valid ways to test ideas. To apply double blind controlled experiments when possible, to apply the scientific principle to my work. All great artists have always been scientists.

Oded Kishony

[elderthomas]

Oded, I am going to follow through on your suggestion of making a new top for the first Milanolla model that I made. That is the one with the top graduated to Strad poster specs (about 2 mm). It really isn't a horrible sounding instrument now, since I put in the heavier bass bar, but as you say I want to see if the main problem is with the top. I will try and arch it as close as I can to the first arching. The wood I will be using will be European spruce, instead of the Englemann. I still haven't finished the second violin. I am leaving it's top at 3 mm because of suggestions by Michael and others in this thread, and because at 3 mm the top "feels" to me (based on flexibility and tap tones) as if it should not be made thinner. I will post the results of both when I'm finished. Thanks everyone for the interesting discussions.

[David Tseng]

Violin is a real entity, a craft, and a musical instrument. The technique to build good looking and good sounding fiddles is a tangible thing and can be taught and learned. I always repel those fuzzy terms such as art, beautiful arch, and artistic graduation etc. People using these terms have 2 purposes: (1) Don’t want to hand out the trade secrets with a silver platter; (2) Don’t know what the heck they are doing.

This thread is about graduation. One uses a compass, a ruler, a dial caliper and a set of numbers. It is a vivid quantification. If Stradivari can use a 2mm top, why others cannot? Perhaps someone can enlighten us by pointing to, such as, “ It’s the ground, stupid.” (after President Clinton).

[Michael Darnton]

If you don't understand it, it doesn't exist, eh? Wow, what a philosophy!!!!

[David Tseng]

Michael, my comment above is not personal. We all know certain arches work better than the others. I wouldn’t say that Nicolo Amati’s arches are not beautiful. Why these arches work better, I am sure there is physics behind it, whatever that be.

[elderthomas]

"If Stradivari can use a 2mm top, why others cannot?"

I have a naive question. I have heard a lot of comments suggesting that many of the old Strads were regraduated. So I guess it is possible that the Milanolla was one of those. Is it possible that this type of graduation was done because certain players liked a deep hollow tone? I have a very uneducated ear so what might be bad to me might be just what some good players might want.

[Michael Darnton]

It may be ungraduated, it may have been graduated by someone who didn't know what he was doing, and sound bad; it might sound good. There's really no way of knowing exactly what's going on. If it sounds hollow, it's almost certainly not intentional.

I've seen only one other Strad with a top this thin, and it didn't work well. Someone had done quite a bit to reinforce the top, with long diagonal straps, and that still didn't make it sound like much.

[nertz]

I know this violin fairly well and have played on it and also seen the inside, as far as I could tell it hasn’t any obvious signs of regraduation. The only patch on the frount is a sound post patch about the size of a chicken egg and other then that it has a few studded cracks but is in pretty pure condition compared to many Strads I’ve seen.

As far as the sound goes it’s a very nice violin, it’s not the most spectacular Strad I’ve played but its far from the worst and I’d be very happy to make a violin that works that well.