Stradofear inspired epiphany and a question...

[Craig Tucker]

After a few weeks of that, coming back to mature works of Strad , Bergonzi, and late DG I find they all look incredibly modern in style and are almost as detached from the Amati as we modern makers are.

In fact, Melving, your most recent violin (well, the photos of it that you posted) went a long way towards convincing me fully that very exacting workmanship need not displace or diminish the artistic content of a modern violin, executed in the "classicical" style.

I need to look that post up again...

[Torbjörn Zethelius]

The brothers' F-hole is based on geometry and proportions and that's why it's beautiful. IMO

[David Burgess]

So then, in theory;

Regarding this Amati ff design.

If you could, and you can if you want to, what lines/proportions would you change?

How would you refine this further, that would result in an aesthetic improvement?

If the goal was not to copy, but expose the "inner maker" there are a couple of things which could be tried.

By the time many people make a pattern, and then execute the idea on a top, it will have changed anyway. When copying an ff hole, choices are made, like, "What part of the ff edge do I want to consider the edge?" A pencil tracing on a rounded edge can be indistinct, or change the outline. And how do you determine how much of what is seen is the original hole, and how much is rosin and crud buildup? If taken from a frontal photo, there will be some distortion when the pattern is laid on the arching. So some judgments are already involved.

More interesting though is to take an existing pattern that one likes, trace it with a not-to-sharp pencil onto the top, and then complete the ffs without referring again to the pattern. Most people will wind up with significant deviations. Can't say with any one person whether this would be considered an improvement, but it's one way of forcing ones-self to pull more information out of their head, and see if the result is interesting. If doing this on a real top is considered too risky, one could try the exercise on the thin plastic film that many use for ff hole patterns.

I've had some fun when making my own ffs, like seeing how far I can deviated from the pattern, and still maintain the same overall look and spirit. If one gets an interesting result, one could make a new pattern. Or not. If the semi-freestyle has worked, it may work again.

When cutting ffs, I don't refer to my own patterns nearly as much as I once did.

Strategically speaking though, if the goal is to be a mainstream maker, it could be wise to learn to execute the traditional before branching out. The "inner maker" might not be quite ready to be exposed.

[Dean_Lapinel]

Strategically speaking though, if the goal is to be a mainstream maker, it could be wise to learn to execute the traditional before branching out. The "inner maker" might not be quite ready to be exposed.

Generally true in all fields but then you get visionary type folks that skip this step and do well. Usually these people have creative backgrounds. Sam Maloof used the bandsaw to carve unlike anything you will ever see in the literature. His furniture was exceptional and unique. Currently I keep my eye on Barry Dudley who posts here with his 5 string violins. Barry has a unique vision and style and is an incredible photographer (film & digital). He does study traditional work with a guitar maker and violinmaker but he jumped right into a unique style.

Some of us like me, prefer the traditional and fear the inabilty to sell something that strays far from the expected look.

[Craig Tucker]

Some of us like me, prefer the traditional and fear the inabilty to sell something that strays far from the expected look.

It is an intriguing thought though, isn't it?

[Dean_Lapinel]

It is an intriguing thought though, isn't it?

Seductive at minimum.

[David Burgess]

Some of us like me, prefer the traditional and fear the inabilty to sell something that strays far from the expected look.

Can't blame ya. No matter how good a musician is in other areas, if he wants a major symphony position, he's gotta be able to play their repertoire.

[Craig Tucker]

Seductive at minimum.

I have always imagined that there would be modern-ish possibilities with an Art Deco/Art Nouveau slant. Such a thing could be made to work.

Sort of in the style of some of the early archtop jazz guitars.

[TimRobinson]

Should this discussion have been about beauty, rather than art?

This has been, and is, a valuable discussion. I have not contributed before because I fool myself that I know my limits

What has prompted me to join the fray? Some of the statements and comments have poked my grey matter into activity. Stradofear (I always have the image of someone cowering before an electric guitar when I read that name) I think was spot on with the distinction between beauty and art. To me art, has always signified something that was created in an attempt to explain or understand what it is to be human - the social, political and cultural context within which the artist lived. "Beautiful" objects (as a subset of all human artefacts) can tell us a great deal about the society and individuals who created them - but they do not necessarily go that next step - understanding and/or explanation. The creation of the violin was absolutely the product of the time and place and does tell us things about the culture and society, but its prime reason for existence was to create music - not to explain or understand the human condition.

So, for what it is worth, I think we are firmly in the realm of aesthetics.

Regards,

Tim

[Craig Tucker]

Strategically speaking though, if the goal is to be a mainstream maker, it could be wise to learn to execute the traditional before branching out. The "inner maker" might not be quite ready to be exposed.

Yes, the absurdity of new ideas...

I have to wonder if the goal of being a "mainstream maker", doesn't wind up (usually) being more of a business or financial consideration - than an artistic one...

Outside of the necessity of learning what the masters of Cremona have to teach us, which, I must agree, should be learned first, for any real classical understanding of the form to come about; as Dean mentions above, innovative artists are always breaking out of such molds - where, the first reaction, is usually incredulity or even distaste by the established "elite". (if, in fact such innovators were ever formed or constricted by such "molds".)

Remember Bob Dylan?

The "elite" I speak of here would be the actual elite of the violin making world, and not a sarcastic reference to something "bad" or "wrong"... Such a level of understanding and accomplishment does exist, in violin making and every other field.

The opinions of the elite are still what hold everything in place. Everything that is worthwhile, and everything that causes things not to want to change also.

It's a pickle, I tell ya.

[Craig Tucker]

This has been, and is, a valuable discussion. I have not contributed before because I fool myself that I know my limits

So, for what it is worth, I think we are firmly in the realm of aesthetics.

Regards,

Tim

Yes, we are firmly in the realm of aesthetics, and in that realm, in my opinion, the sky is (or should be) the limit.

[stradofear]

I know I will be in the minority in this group of free thinkers who chafe at rules for violin making and believe, against all evidence, that a violin is a free-form, wing-it type of thing where anything goes and everything is good, but I don't believe that the art and attractiveness of the violin is entirely cultural or arbitrary. A decade or so ago I gave a lecture at the Guild of American Luthiers convention, speaking about the circle in Cremonese design. I focused on the idea that the straight line, and circle are the only geometrical shapes that can be identified from an incomplete piece, and that the beauty of Cremonese design was the obviousness and repetition of recognizable circular elements. (The flip side of this is the pointless shape, with no specific definition.) One of the universal characteristics of humans appears to be their desire to find patterns in their surroundings, and the security of finding them. Security is pleasurable. This is not cultural or arbitrary.

As a starting point for the talk, I used this article-- http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-63125052.html --"Against Smoothness", by Mark Kingwell. The initial paragraph outside the paywall states (I'm paraphrasing and compacting the article--you can read most of the first paragraph at the link) the problem well: the infantalization of design, the removal of titillating and complex patterns from our life in favor of a non-threatening, inartistic blur [perhaps the visual/design equivalent of living in a perpetually drugged/drunk state, which is how much of our culture lives now].

[~ Ben Conover]

A question.....

You know those scoopy edges and high vaulted cross arches on some violin backs.....well that's something I'd like to try.

Does anyone here use that sort of arching ?

[Craig Tucker]

I know I will be in the minority in this group of free thinkers who chafe at rules for violin making and believe, against all evidence, that a violin is a free-form, wing-it type of thing where anything goes and everything is good, but I don't believe that the art and attractiveness of the violin is entirely cultural or arbitrary.

I don’t believe that having a personal opinion - as everyone here has , is going to put you in the minority.

For what it’s worth, neither do I think this is an accurate assessment of what anyone here has suggested.

[~ Ben Conover]

Agree with CT, who bears a curious resemblance to this famous guy :

http://images.google.ie/images?q=walther+m...ved=0CCcQsAQwAw

[stradofear]

Craig writes:

I don’t believe that having a personal opinion - as everyone here has , is going to put you in the minority.

For what it’s worth, neither do I think this is an accurate assessment of what anyone here has suggested.

Of course my point wasn't that I was unusual in having a personal opinion--everyone does--but rather, what that opinion is.

David suggested, a couple of posts ago, the idea of nudging f-hole lines around to personalize them. That's not an uncommon strategy, and how a lot of makers have developed their "personal" models. In many cases, it's simply meant smoothing out and blending the junction bumps of the various circles in the Cremonese outline, as so many 1800s French makers did in a way that makes that school of making immediately identifiable. I would hardly have thought that whether this is [intentionally] done is a debatable issue! Not in this thread, but do I need to remind you of the people who've said they don't need no stinkin' math when I've brought up arching, because they believe they can eyeball it just fine?

After the speech a couple of graphics guys came up to me and commented that up to the era of computers, a lot of graphic and product design was based on straightedge and compass, but the computer encouraged people to just push things around until they liked them. They felt (and I agreed) that once underlying structure had been compromised, designs lost much of their meaning.

The presentation was before Francois Denis' publications, and when I saw what he was doing, I was delighted: he's given us a beautiful design method to create new outlines based on solid drafting and musical principles.

I finished the talk with this illustration, which is a breakdown of a hyper-modern guitar design by my favorite modern guitar maker, Steve Klein. Relying on circles certainly doesn't limit him!

[David Burgess]

David suggested, a couple of posts ago, the idea of nudging f-hole lines around to personalize them. That's not an uncommon strategy, and how a lot of makers have developed their "personal" models. In many cases, it's simply meant smoothing out and blending the junction bumps of the various circles in the Cremonese outline, as so many 1800s French makers did in a way that makes that school of making immediately identifiable. I would hardly have thought that whether this is [intentionally] done is a debatable issue! Not in this thread, but do I need to remind you of the people who've said they don't need no stinkin' math when I've brought up arching, because they believe they can eyeball it just fine?

Uh oh, looks like I have sinned.

The Cremonese never nudged their lines around?

They never finalized their ffs by eye?

I know I will be in the minority in this group of free thinkers who chafe at rules for violin making and believe, against all evidence, that a violin is a free-form, wing-it type of thing where anything goes and everything is good, .....

Oh dear! That's your conclusion from all the diverse opinions expressed here?

Speaking of "rules", if yours happen to differ from the opinions of my earlier partial list of "experts", whose guidelines should one follow, and how does one make the correct choice?

[Dean_Lapinel]

"the infantalization of design, the removal of titillating and complex patterns from our life in favor of a non-threatening, inartistic blur "

Thanks for the reference. I have to sign up to see the whole article but I think that line probably says most of what is to follow. We have become pretty lame as a society. I don't think we will ever see buildings like the Chrysler structure in New York City ever being built again.

This post was initially pretty lengthy but when I hit a comment on realty TV I found myself leaning too far toward cynicism. I cut most of what I wrote. At least this cultural downward spiral is, in a way a geometric form

[stradofear]

Speaking of "rules", if yours happen to differ from the opinions of my earlier partial list of "experts", whose guidelines should one follow, and how does one make the correct choice?

That's a good question, isn't it? I'd say that the closer you can get to directly observing universally acknowledged great violins, without a lot of intermediaries putting their own spin on things, the better off you are to develop good guidelines. That's why at my workshops I try not to enforce my style, but rather help people see what the really great makers were doing by looking directly at photos and the real violins, when available. Aren't the violins themselves the real authorities?

[JimMurphy]

Not sure about nudging f-hole lines around, but f-hole shape sure changed over time.

Anybody else notice a resemblance ?

Jim

[stradofear]

"the infantalization of design, the removal of titillating and complex patterns from our life in favor of a non-threatening, inartistic blur "

Thanks for the reference. I have to sign up to see the whole article . . .

Suscribe to Harpers Magazine for $17 well spent, and you can get the original article from their archive, plus enjoying a year of a great magazine.

[TimRobinson]

One of the universal characteristics of humans appears to be their desire to find patterns in their surroundings, and the security of finding them. Security is pleasurable. This is not cultural or arbitrary.

I suspect we are in furious agreement

Apart from survival, what human being do is to attempt to make sense of things. This migh be an ultimately pointless activity, but it doesn't stop us from trying...

I'm being cautious here, because this is not something I know enough about to make strong statements I can necessarily adequately defend (mind you, this isn't soemthing that seems to bother some people) and it is a very long time since I did aesthetics at uni. However, I think that the development of the violin was a product of what had gone before, contemporary ideas of design and a good dash of genius. Context is everything, the settings have to be right to allow new ideas to flourish.

Regards,

Tim

[David Burgess]

Aren't the violins themselves the real authorities?

Of course, but when people draw different conclusions from the instruments, who's right?

[stradofear]

Of course, but when people draw different conclusions from the instruments, who's right?

The violins.

I'm pretty sure you're always better with primary sources than secondary ones. It's a big mistake to believe someone's opinion just because he happens to be famous; such a big mistake, in fact, that there's a logical fallacy just for that: appeal to authority. As this source comments, there's another dimension to it, too.

I'd rather just stick with discussing the facts.

[David Burgess]

The violins. I'm pretty sure you're always better with primary sources than secondary ones.

I think you've shuffled around the question, but OK.

Reminds me of the results I got when trying to clarify what you meant when you said you'd only been involved in a "handful" of teacher commissions.

Handful of golf balls, or handful of sand?