Can a good violinist always sound good?

[Garth E.]

I'm a little conflicted over the many not so positive comments directed at various violins presented here. I'm not interested in their monetary value but really more about their playability. Can a violin of lesser quality sound really good?  What is it within a good musician that can read an instrument's potential and draw out the best from that instrument? Obviously a violin of excellent quality is preferred,  but what if you had to put on a demonstration somewhere and the only violin available to you was one you would never want to play. My point being, if you could make that violin sound really good, wouldn't the playability far outvalue the criticisms ,whatever they were.  Just some thoughts, I know that a quality instrument is always best, I just think it's the quality within that can also make a difference. 

[GeorgeH]

Assuming proper set-up:

A bad violin played well will sound better than the same bad violin played poorly.

A good violin played well will sound better than the same good violin played poorly.

The good violin will sound better than the bad violin when played by the same player.

[David Burgess]

54 minutes ago, Garth E. said:

1. I'm a little conflicted over the many not so positive comments directed at various violins presented here. I'm not interested in their monetary value but really more about their playability. Can a violin of lesser quality sound really good? 

2. What is it within a good musician that can read an instrument's potential and draw out the best from that instrument? Obviously a violin of excellent quality is proffered,  but what if you had to put on a demonstration somewhere and the only violin available to you was one you would never want to play. My point being, if you could make that violin sound really good, wouldn't the playability far outvalue the criticisms ,whatever they were.  Just some thoughts, I know that a quality instrument is always best, I just think it's the quality within that can also make a difference. 

1. Generally, yes, but a lot will depend on the player's experience level with playing a wide variety of instruments, and whether or not the player can handle the additional workload of handling an unfamiliar, or difficult-to-play instrument.

2. Some top-level soloists have claimed that it has taken them as long as two years to learn, or get the best out of their loaned or purchased Stradivari. In general, people will not put that sort of time investment into a contemporary fiddle.

In general, I give a potential client around two or three weeks to put a fiddle through it's paces, and that's plenty of time to do stuff like have their colleagues play them, and do comparisons in a hall. If a supposedly good violinist can't figure a particular violin out in two or three weeks, I don't mind moving on.

[Garth E.]

4 hours ago, David Burgess said:

If a supposedly good violinist can't figure a particular violin out in two or three weeks, I don't mind moving on.

I wonder if a player puts mental blocks up that hinder acceptance of an instrument. Like Eugene Drucker in "The Violin Maker". I've also seen it with guitar players too.

[Rue]

 

48 minutes ago, Garth E. said:

I wonder if a player puts mental blocks up that hinder acceptance of an instrument. Like Eugene Drucker in "The Violin Maker". I've also seen it with guitar players too.

Of course! What we "think" greatly colours our perceptions.

There have been lots of anecdotes about individuals finding their "ideal" instrument/bow and then upon discovering that it is under budget, summarily reject it because it's too cheap - and consequently must sound cr*ppy.

And the reverse is true - players who think their  cr*ppy Big Name instrument is perfect! 

Individual concepts and perceptions of quality, for anything, are endlessly entertaining.

[JacksonMaberry]

In the same way a master carver can work with subpar tools if pressed, a top flight player can make anything sound good. 

[Pablo Saraví]

Hi to all!  

First, I must clarify that I have several violins and I am used to playing different instruments frequently. A well-known violin maker from New York told me that in his experience, the final sound of an instrument depends on 80 percent of the violinist. I don't know if it's that much, but in my opinion, as a professional violinist of over 40 years on stage, I think the sound depends on the violinist by no less than 70 percent. I am one of those who first look for my own flaws and try to make the instrument that comes into my hands sound with the best sound I have in my imagination. While doing this, I am adjusting what is necessary to achieve it, in my way of rubbing the bow and combining pressure, vibrato, etc. If the instrument is not faulty, the sound should be basically good. If it's a great instrument, the sound will be even better and it will inspire me to look for even more colors and subtleties. And of course, the bow is an essential tool, so it must "help".

[Andrew Victor]

I think most players who have a concept of "their sound" will do all they can to create that sound on a "strange" instrument. I know this happened to me in 1964, when I was principal cellist in our small community orchestra, my cello's neck had broken, ripping out the neck block, and I had to use an old WW-II surplus Navy Band* plywood cello from the orchestra's supply closet, playing it for the first time in the concert. There were some solo parts and in order to project them in that venue I had to vibrato so widely that at one point my left hand flew off the fingerboard. But I did "approach" the sound I was after.

I bought myself a new cello a few weeks later. It was another 26 years before the broken one was adequately repaired.

I moved to the violin section a couple of years later and became CM shortly thereafter.

* I know it was a Navy Band cello because it was stamped "U.S. Navy" on the back and we were rehearsing and performing on a Navy base.

[uncle duke]

13 minutes ago, Rue said:

Individual concepts and perceptions of quality, for anything, are endlessly entertaining.

Reminds me of the time when in high school I decided one day to open up and set up to play a trombone that been laying around for years - it was so old that when one would unlatch the case the case sides would flop down flat into four different pieces.  This was early 1980's and horn may of been approaching a hundred years agewise. 

So being a wiseguy I took my seat and hoped the teacher wouldn't notice or say anything.  Took him about a minute, I went through interogation about where my usual horn was and he says I'll allow it just this one time.  I'm like alright, let's get to work.  

Well, all during class I'm thinking while playing there's no volume, slide positioning is a little off, second t-bone player is louder than me and after the end of the last tune for the day I'm thinking I ain't gonna do that again with this instrument - right at that time I get a "thank you, I have not heard that horn played like that in a long time, a very long time" from my teacher. 

He'd been there teaching since the fifties.  

[Brad Dorsey]

7 hours ago, Garth E. said:

...Can a violin of lesser quality sound really good?...

It depends somewhat on what you mean by "lesser quality" and "sound really good."  But I think the answer is yes, because whenever a professional-level player tries my cheap fiddles they all sound good.

[Pablo Saraví]

I agree with you, Brad. On one occasion, Nicolás Chumachenco, an excellent violinist and teacher, during a masterclass, when he heard that a colleague of mine from the violin class commented "Ah, but the Maestro plays on a Stradivarius", he (Chumachenco) said that before looking for a Stradivarius, we had to learn to be (or sound) ourselves like an Stradivarius without depending on owning one. And if we had money and luck, maybe we could get to have it. A very good advise...

[Garth E.]

2 hours ago, Brad Dorsey said:

It depends somewhat on what you mean by "lesser quality" and "sound really good."  But I think the answer is yes, because whenever a professional-level player tries my cheap fiddles they all sound good.

It's always the ones I least expect to be brilliant that pull that stuff off. It's always so cool.

[Violadamore]

17 hours ago, Garth E. said:

I'm..........not interested in their monetary value but really more about their playability. Can a violin of lesser quality sound really good?

Yes.  GDG's in particular.    You'd never see toolmarks like that on anything Chinese. 

IMHO, what injects confusion into a lot of our discussions is that many of the posters here automatically equate "monetary value" with "quality".  Violins are such individual objects that "gold is where you find it" in terms of performance.  Provided they are competently made according to one of the generally accepted design traditions, there is no objectively demonstrable direct relation between violin price tags and their quality as tools to make music.  Whether it's a Strad or a Saxon, you have to play it to know if it works for you.

10 hours ago, Brad Dorsey said:

It depends somewhat on what you mean by "lesser quality" and "sound really good."  But I think the answer is yes, because whenever a professional-level player tries my cheap fiddles they all sound good.

Yup.  Ditto. 

[matesic]

13 hours ago, Brad Dorsey said:

It depends somewhat on what you mean by "lesser quality" and "sound really good."  But I think the answer is yes, because whenever a professional-level player tries my cheap fiddles they all sound good.

Even in my hands some very ordinary fiddles can sound good enough in a recording, sometimes quite hard to tell apart from pricier ones. I don't know how they sound in my hands at a distance (shame!) but what rules them out is that they don't sound good under my ear (shrill, boxy, limp etc) and I have to work much harder to get a decent result. And (probably most importantly) I'm only playing easy stuff.

[FiddleDoug]

There's a story about a great violinist (Perlman, if I remember correctly), who was approached by a woman, backstage, after a concert. She said, "Your violin sounded wonderful tonight.". He held the violin up to his ear, listened for a couple of seconds, and said "I don't hear anything.".

There are many violins made by "lesser gods" that, when set up properly, can be comfortable to play, and sound great. When I'm setting up a violin, one of the things that I strive for is player comfort. Correct string heights, fingerboard and nut edges are a little part of that. Add correct strings for the instrument, and good soundpost placement, and you are likely to have a nicely balanced instrument that players will enjoy playing, and one that they can make sound great. If a very good violinist picks up one of your violins, and plays it for a good long test (more than a few minutes), you can be pretty sure that they are enjoying the instrument and the sound.

 

[Marty Kasprzyk]

43 minutes ago, FiddleDoug said:

>

>

If a very good violinist picks up one of your violins, and plays it for a good long test (more than a few minutes), you can be pretty sure that they are enjoying the instrument and the sound.

 

Yeah, That's what I do too.  I have a very good player try my instrument and I count   "one one thousand, two one thousand....."

[rudall]

16 hours ago, Rue said:

There have been lots of anecdotes about individuals finding their "ideal" instrument/bow and then upon discovering that it is under budget, summarily reject it because it's too cheap - and consequently must sound cr*ppy..

Rumours of hearsay are hardly worth mentioning. 
 

> And the reverse is true - players who think their  cr*ppy Big Name instrument is perfect! 

Who are they? Citation?

[rudall]

1 hour ago, FiddleDoug said:

There's a story about a great violinist (Perlman, if I remember correctly), who was approached by a woman, backstage, after a concert. She said, "Your violin sounded wonderful tonight.". He held the violin up to his ear, listened for a couple of seconds, and said "I don't hear anything.".

The last time I heard this it was Kreisler. 

[David Burgess]

28 minutes ago, rudall said:

The last time I heard this it was Kreisler. 

I'd heard it attributed to Heifetz.

But whoever said or didn't say it, it does have some educational value.

When I was working at "the firm", David Soyer (Guarneri Quartet) came in, tried a bunch of Suzuki cellos, and selected the one he liked best, and played it on tour for a while.

Why? He had grown weary of people coming up after a performance and saying, "Your cello sounds wonderful. What is it"? He was honestly able to say that is was a Suzuki cello.

[deans]

1 hour ago, Marty Kasprzyk said:

"one one thousand, two one thousand....."

I suppose its better when the thousands you're counting are dollars, all the way up to 25-30.

[David Burgess]

41 minutes ago, deans said:

I suppose its better when the thousands you're counting are dollars, all the way up to 25-30.

Don't fiddle prices go much higher than 25-30K, all the way up to 16 million or so?

[Garth E.]

I suppose it's really about the confidence one has. This is all that you have...make it work. That Stradivarius made this violin would stun me more than it's 10 million dollar value. Unless I was working on it. Confidence at that point would be your only friend.

[Rue]

1 hour ago, rudall said:

Rumours of hearsay are hardly worth mentioning. 
 

> And the reverse is true - players who think their  cr*ppy Big Name instrument is perfect! 

Who are they? Citation?

These aren't rumours.  These are bona fide anecdotes  (or one-one conversations) deriving from conversations with countless decent violin players - whose names don't matter, because you wouldn't know them anyway.

Here's an example of my 'real' story:  I watched, and listened to, an awesome fiddle player play his fiddle (which was truly awful) - then test drive a 'better' violin.  The 'better' violin was so much better.  The difference was quite amazing.  However, he maintained that his was way better.  He was the only one. No accounting for personal taste.  Seriously though - what we think, or want to think, is a powerful factor in our choices and perceptions.  And really, since it's all so personal, how can you argue against what a person thinks?

And the anecdotes about Big Name instruments?  If you demand names - you'd have to track the anecdotes down, then track down the person who offered them up, then get the names from them.

I can offer up one 'real' story.  An awesome professional classical violinist won a competition.  Could have picked a Strad . Settled on a Vuillaume.  It was a better instrument.  She didn't care about the 'prestige' associated with the name.  She cared about the violin as a performance tool.

And no.  Not offering up names.  I don't mind sharing information, but I won't violate privacy.

[Rue]

17 hours ago, uncle duke said:

Reminds me of the time when in high school I decided one day to open up and set up to play a trombone that been laying around for years - it was so old that when one would unlatch the case the case sides would flop down flat into four different pieces.  This was early 1980's and horn may of been approaching a hundred years agewise. 

So being a wiseguy I took my seat and hoped the teacher wouldn't notice or say anything.  Took him about a minute, I went through interogation about where my usual horn was and he says I'll allow it just this one time.  I'm like alright, let's get to work.  

Well, all during class I'm thinking while playing there's no volume, slide positioning is a little off, second t-bone player is louder than me and after the end of the last tune for the day I'm thinking I ain't gonna do that again with this instrument - right at that time I get a "thank you, I have not heard that horn played like that in a long time, a very long time" from my teacher. 

He'd been there teaching since the fifties.  

LOL...well...it was high school, with high school instruments...

But you deserved the praise!  High school students who make an effort with shoddy instruments are few and far between!

[deans]

35 minutes ago, Rue said:

I can offer up one 'real' story.  An awesome professional classical violinist won a competition.  Could have picked a Strad . Settled on a Vuillaume.  It was a better instrument.  She didn't care about the 'prestige' associated with the name.  She cared about the violin as a performance tool.

Yeah, sticking it to the system and going with $350,000 violin. Changes the whole perspective doesnt it.