So what exactly is a "nasal" sound?

[tango]

Is this an example of nassal or "some treble" sound:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgFIe6ax7j4

 

A sound worth more than hundred of words

[Peter K-G]

Here is another one

 

Woody.mp3

 

 

So, not Woody?

 

 

Ironwoody, maybe...

 

That's not a good sounding violin. 

 

Yeah, It needs re-tuning! It's too thick and the B1 modes are a little too high. Send it to my bench I'll fix it. But someone needs to ship it to me from Genova.

[Carl Stross]

Is this an example of nassal or "some treble" sound:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgFIe6ax7j4

 

A sound worth more than hundred of words

 

That's a nice example. It has a fair whack of nasality but in the same time Francescatti plays "the French way" - he's got tone intensity. The two compete. Great violin player by the way. My favorite after Jaques Thibaud.

[Carl Stross]

Yeah, It needs re-tuning! It's too thick and the B1 modes are a little too high. Send it to my bench I'll fix it. But someone needs to ship it to me from Genova.

 

Someone can send it to you from Mars but it is still not a good sounding violin. Sounds to me like it might benefit from a properly fitted and adjusted soundpost and a new bridge. It battles to pick up the string, it's colorless and inflexible. Must be a bitch to play.

[Bernie R]

You are suppose to approve. Nasality gives a violin tone width and supplies a sort of reference for the ear.

Ok, well I am an Irish fiddler and not attuned to the "classical music" sound, but having said that I don't approve of the sound of the violin on that clip, it sounds a little dull.

[Carl Stross]

Is this an example of nassal or "some treble" sound:

 

 

 

A sound worth more than hundred of words

 

You'll like this one - I'm sure :

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6nKaLfdUVY

[Peter K-G]

Someone can send it to you from Mars but it is still not a good sounding violin. Sounds to me like it might benefit from a properly fitted and adjusted soundpost and a new bridge. It battles to pick up the string, it's colorless and inflexible. Must be a bitch to play.

 

The "flaw" you hear can't be fixed by just fitting the soundpost and a new bridge. It is because it's too thick. A lot of people like this violin.

[Carl Stross]

The "flaw" you hear can't be fixed by just fitting the soundpost and a new bridge. It is because it's too thick. A lot of people like this violin.

 

MN is a place where we all have an opinion.  Mine is that this violin is miss-adjusted. I don't hear the "thick". I hear a s/p asking to be moved a bit.

As to "lots of people like this violin", that's their prerogative. Is that a Vuillaume ?

[Peter K-G]

MN is a place where we all have an opinion.  Mine is that this violin is miss-adjusted. I don't hear the "thick". I hear a s/p asking to be moved a bit.

As to "lots of people like this violin", that's their prerogative. Is that a Vuillaume ?

 

It's owner called it

 

Il mio cannone violino

 

And I still think it's thick, but I could be wrong

[Carl Stross]

It's owner called it

 

Il mio cannone violino

 

And I still think it's thick, but I could be wrong

 

Oh ! This beauty putting up such a fight with maestro Accardo ?

 

 

I think it needs fixin' and lots of playin' . 

[Violadamore]

Someone can send it to you from Mars.

You may on to something.  Ship it round trip from Earth as hull pod/container cargo and perhaps the radiation effects en route would create an incomparable tone.  Wasn't Madeira wine accidentally discovered in a similar fashion? Virgin Galactic, take notice! [sips a well aged Malmsey and smiles happily]

[Carl Stross]

You may on to something.  Ship it round trip as hull pod/container cargo and perhaps the radiation effects en route would create an incomparable tone.  Wasn't Madeira wine accidentally discovered in a similar fashion? [sips a well aged Malmsey and smiles happily]

 

It's a good idea. It's already worth a fair whack of money. Add to that the "added value" of a round trip to Mars and it might start neighboring the Billion.

And THEN you'll hear what tone it's got.   

 

P.S. Now that I know what it is I keep on convincing myself it's Great. I'm half way there..   . Poor, it's just cross-eyed, fat and downright ugly. Add a couple of millions and " I could work with that". 

[Kallie]

My definition of "Wooden" sound is this:

 

When I listen to recordings of new/old violins, and have to guess if it is old or new, I try to hear that first "A" on the G string in my head. I use this video as reference alot.. It is exactly the sound which I love in a violin.

 

 

Another video which I would classify as "wooden sound" is this, however this video is polished with reverb, which might change what it sounds like live.

 

 

 

Lastly, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lic9Z6yCbRU... That G-String is remarkable.....

 

 

Nasal and wooden are 2 very different sounds in my opinion.

[DMartin]

 

P.S. Now that I know what it is I keep on convincing myself it's Great. I'm half way there..   . Poor, it's just cross-eyed, fat and downright ugly. Add a couple of millions and " I could work with that". 

 

Sheepishly, I similarly admit that after Peter dropped the "Genova" hint I listened to the whole clip and found more to like in the fiddle. I go for the more varied and difficult sometimes ugly landscape it appears to offer.

 

Did not Paganini play a lot in a light whispy manner? The campanelli performance seems insistently strident. 

[Carl Stross]

 

Did not Paganini play a lot in a light whispy manner? The campanelli performance seems insistently strident. 

 

Officially all we know is that he was not famous for a big tone. "Critics" say he had a very beautiful tone. But what does that really mean, I'd guess nobody knows. They used very little vibrato, if any. That says something. Also, they were capable of very slow bowing with perfectly seamless bow changes. This was somehow a fashion of the times which lasted into the early 1900s. My guess is that he played with a small to medium tone, very clean and like others that time and later, had great left hand crispness. 

[DMartin]

My guess is that he played with a small to medium tone, very clean and like others that time and later, had great left hand crispness. 

Ahh. I wonder if there are recordings with that style on that instrument.

 

Michael Darnton, has posted favorably about hearing the Cannone.

Maybe Bruce Carlson has heard a number of players with different styles. 

 

And then there is "the bridge":

 

http://www.maestronet.com/forum/index.php?/topic/328948-block-height-rib-taper/page-7

Post 130

[Marty Kasprzyk]

Officially all we know is that he was not famous for a big tone. "Critics" say he had a very beautiful tone. But what does that really mean, I'd guess nobody knows. They used very little vibrato, if any. That says something. Also, they were capable of very slow bowing with perfectly seamless bow changes. This was somehow a fashion of the times which lasted into the early 1900s. My guess is that he played with a small to medium tone, very clean and like others that time and later, had great left hand crispness. 

What's a small to medium tone?  I suppose I should ask what a big tone is too.

[Carl Stross]

What's a small to medium tone?  I suppose I should ask what a big tone is too.

 

Menuhin would be "medium" tone. In the extreme, Sarasate if you can make sense of his recordings, would be "small" tone. "Big" tone would be Oistrakh. Renee Chemet whom nobody remembers played

with a small but wonderful tone.

 

I could hit a bit closer to home but then I'll rub certain sensitivities the wrong way.

[Carl Stross]

http://www.peter-sheppard-skaerved.com/2009/12/work-on-il-cannone/

[Violadamore]

What's a small to medium tone?  I suppose I should ask what a big tone is too.

I'd hazard a guess that much of the disagreement around here is over things like this that lack a definition based on a standard that everyone can compare something to.  Though a number of people posting here often approach what we are all doing as if it is a scientific or engineering discipline, there simply isn't a "standard violin" sitting in a case at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, nor is there a "standard player" sitting in a cage somewhere to observe.  And, no, I don't have any answer to the problem, but we need to be aware of it..  It probably means that the Holy Grail will remain a moving target.

[Carl Stross]

 there simply isn't a "standard violin" sitting in a case at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, nor is there a "standard player" sitting in a cage somewhere to observe.  

 

What a terrifying thought.   I believe however that you are somehow wrong on both counts : some hard work is being done to "establish" a standard violin and "standard players" are a dime a dozen.

[Violadamore]

What a terrifying thought.   I believe however that you are somehow wrong on both counts : some hard work is being done to "establish" a standard violin and "standard players" are a dime a dozen.

I would disagree on the "standard players" in particular because both music pedagogy and listener taste are in continual flux in the "classical" area as well as in "pop".  Trad and folk are special cases.  On the other, you can't have a "standard fiddle" acoustically with as many different types of performance as one can currently successfully sell a recording of, and that situation is likely to continue as well.  

 

My basis of comparison here is the other sort of crafting I do, which is making reenactors' supplies.  That area, while extremely broad, is firmly based on historical and archaeological scholarship, and you don't have a great deal of latitude on a given item.  Either it's exactly right, or you get flogged senseless by your peers as making farby, out-of-period, Hollywood fantasy trash,  Compared to that, this arena is the realm of Chaos herself   Lots of fun, too 

[Watches someone pick up a helmet, tap it gently with a dagger hilt, listen carefully, and remark, "Milady, that's a strong nasal!. Whaddaya want for this helm?"  ]

[Marty Kasprzyk]

An update to my trials and tribulations....I hope someone here can lead me into a right direction so I kill less trees through discarted wasted bridges

 

Since I don't know what the official meaning to nasal is I have categorised it into 2 types:

1) Higher nasality - like holding nose and saying "eeeee"

2) Lower nasality - like holding nose and saying "awwww"

 

Anyway, I found that bridges tuned to sound with a fair bit of lower nasality with a little higher nasality sounds really good to the audience but really nasal under the ear (finally got someone to play for me). To the audience it does lend a little of that old violin sound and sound carries better and richer....the nasal sound is not heard from the audience's point of view.

 

Conversely, reducing the nasality under the ear so it sounds just right to the player results in a sound that audience hears as abit thin, not full, like you hear mostly the strings not the violin (ie. does not sound like an acoustic instrument as much) and does not carry as well.

 

I tune lower nasality by varying thickness and taper of wood at the waist area and tune higher nasality by trimming the part of the ear around 10-11 o'clock for right ear and 1-2 o'clocck for left ear.

 

Any feedback on other places to trim/shave that affects nasality is most welcome.

 

Oh also, where to trim to reduce a slight metallic buzz sound in some violins around 4,000Hz to 6,000Hz

 

thanks in advance

Apparently there are indeed two different definitions of "nasal" being used.  Attached is a paper by Claudia Fritz describing her test results.  Also attached is a paper by Mores which shows that instrument "nasal" isn't the same as speech "nasal".  These are serious studies and they're nothing to hold you nose about.

how violinists evaluate violins.pdf

Nasality in musical sounds–it is not a frequency band | Robert Mores - Academia.edu.pdf

[Carl Stross]

I would disagree ..............

 

 

You shouldn't. The effortless availability of good quality recordings for the past 50-60 years or so and the almost extinction of national schools have both driven sufficient nails into the coffin of different.

And it's not only that : I can cope with ( and actually like ) academic but for the past 20 years or so we are not able to even tend to that.

[pzull]

But then it helps to listen to proper violins. Here is a good example of nasal :

 

Yeah that's what I am referring to a hint of woodiness that I like. and under the ear it has nasal "awww" sound mostly and just a little "eeee" nasality.

 

The mp3's attached is not the sound I was after. Anyway I got 2 violins to sound that way. The new violin was tough but my teachers old italian was easy as it was just a soundpost shift.

 

I used to do multitrack recording and loved to EQ as mics & venues screw up the real sound. A proper parametric equaliser works wonders as frequency and bandwidth can be zeroed in. Can't get that out of my system that's why I still think of bridge tuning as an EQ device but just that the knobs are hidden in mysterious places. Of course, string height and scooping of fingerboard I do for each players' preference and choice of music. No I am not a pro of any sorts, just like to dabble and told my teacher he can bring me all his students instruments for tune up based on what he or they are looking for. Fun. Of course I ended up with 4 moderns and 2 19th century olds violins of various price ranges. MOST important discovery, price does not dictate tone  quality/versatility.

 

Big influences that got me into this was reading about the  Zygmuntowicz"s Gluey project and then reading all those physicists' papers, Maker's papers like Darton's, Curtin's, etc. Have tried searching in vain for something Morel wrote but cannot. Just anecdotal one liners about the New York setup (which most less than the best players hate, as I discovered as I experimented on them).

 

Have compiled notes consolidating all the wisdom discovered from these sources as well as maestronet and own experience. Still building my database.

 

Thanks guys for the insight. At least now I know what the industry means by nasal (well kinda, still a little uncomfortable conversing with the true pros in the industry in case i use the wrong terms)