Jump to content
Maestronet Forums

Recommended Posts

Posted

I am not referring to expensive just because of provenance.  I’ve played some old Cremonese and Brescian instruments that underwhelmed.  
 

When playing a great, projecting instrument, how would you describe the sound under the ear?  I imagine a penetrating instrument with a carrying tone would be a bit intense under the ear.  
 

I find when trying instruments the ones that please me under the ear don’t sound as good when others play them for me during the evaluation.  Is my experience atypical?   I find a responsive instrument is intense and the feedback (aural) really tells me a lot about intonation, etc.  

-dimitri

 

 

  • Replies 69
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

Posted

I will quote David Burgess:

"From my conversations with Curtin and Tao, one of the things which stands out to me is that during their various tests, they haven't run across any instruments conforming to the legend of sounding soft under the ear, yet projecting well in a hall. Instead, loudness under the ear, and perceived projection in a hall seem to be highly correlated." (David Burgess).

Posted

All of the fine and important violins that I have played have been quite underwhelming under the ear and project in a manner unrelated to what is heard under the ear.

If you are playing for yourself, pleasant under the ear is most important, and if there is no audience, who cares how it projects. If you are playing for the audience, so long as you can hear yourself when you need to, who cares what it sound like under your ear.

Why great instruments project like mad and are quiet under the ear, I have no idea, but it is interesting.

Edit: Manfio was posting while I was typing. Perhaps it is all relative and personal perception of volume and projection is very difficult to quantify in a meaningful way. 

Posted

I've seen many projection tests in concert rooms...  In many cases, the "bad" instrument projected the same, but it was a hell to play, the player had to spend a lot of energy to make it sound properly, and would never use professionally.

I remember Roberto Diaz playing many violas in a concert room during a viola Congress, he imposed his sound to them all and they sounded about the same. Zukerman will do that too.

Posted
26 minutes ago, MANFIO said:

I will quote David Burgess:

"From my conversations with Curtin and Tao, one of the things which stands out to me is that during their various tests, they haven't run across any instruments conforming to the legend of sounding soft under the ear, yet projecting well in a hall. Instead, loudness under the ear, and perceived projection in a hall seem to be highly correlated." (David Burgess).

Instead of "loudness under the ear", I probably should have said "sound pressure measured with a close microphone".

I can imagine a scenario where a screechy violin might give the impression of being loud under the ear, but not actually measure very loud with a close microphone.

Posted

David, thank you (and to Mr. Manfio as well!).   I meant sound pressure levels, as in overall loudness measured with a microphone or SPL meter.   I’ve found that an instrument that can move air like mad will do so, and under the ear it’s intense!

Posted
9 hours ago, duane88 said:

1. All of the fine and important violins that I have played have been quite underwhelming under the ear and project in a manner unrelated to what is heard under the ear.

2. If you are playing for yourself, pleasant under the ear is most important, and if there is no audience, who cares how it projects. If you are playing for the audience, so long as you can hear yourself when you need to, who cares what it sound like under your ear.

3. Why great instruments project like mad and are quiet under the ear, I have no idea, but it is interesting.

4. Edit: Manfio was posting while I was typing. Perhaps it is all relative and personal perception of volume and projection is very difficult to quantify in a meaningful way. 

1. Matches my experience on a couple of fronts.

2. There are violins which sound wonderfully musical under the ear while weak and screamy at 20' .  I wish I could figure out why.

3. It's very simple physics which translates into a hard, intractable adjustment problem. 

4. That line of thought went nowhere for quite a while. Still does. 

Posted

I'm not violin player but among other instruments similar "truths" are widespread. Among mandolins Old Gibsons are told to be loud and "cutting" through the bluegrass band but not so loud when you play it but what I found after playing several hundreds of mandolins and jamming with everyone around when possible over 15 years is that it is not as simple as told. I believe I have good ear for judging sound quality of instrument and folks around me tend to come to me to play/test their instrunents and very often their own perception of loudness is very different from mine. Friend once brought nice mandolin that was really "woofy" and he considered it a cannon but in reality there was little "core" tone behind the initial woof and from other end of room the instrument was thin and quiet when the bass portion of tone just muddying the overal result. It takes years of ear training and perhaps some specific talent to learn to discriminate the tone and especially loudness that will be perceived on the other end of hall. Playing instrument yourself and being able to judge how well it carries is very hard skill. Many excellent players just suck at this but for luthier this may be the most valuable asset even if he doesn't paly at any pro level. Even listening across hall can be very dependent on the player as some players can just pull the tone out of a plank  while other may be less flexible with his technique. You need to know what the player is capable of with unknown instrument.

Posted
12 hours ago, duane88 said:

Why great instruments project like mad and are quiet under the ear, I have no idea, but it is interesting.

I think the questin is not stated correctly...

The question to answer shuld be:

" DO the great instruments project like mad AND are they quite under ear? Once that is confirmed by real authority, not just hearsay we can ask why...

Posted
1 hour ago, HoGo said:

I think the questin is not stated correctly...

The question to answer shuld be:

" DO the great instrumentsproject like mad AND are they quite under ear? Once that is confirmed by real authority, not just hearsay we can ask why...

You do get exceptions i.e. very loud instruments which are also loud under the ear. I think the question needs some work, still. You also get instruments which are not "great" and which are quiet under the ear, nay quite pleasant and project wonderfully. Unfortunately, the tone is not that special.

I don't think you can generalize. 

Posted
2 hours ago, HoGo said:

I'm not violin player but among other instruments similar "truths" are widespread. Among mandolins Old Gibsons are told to be loud and "cutting" through the bluegrass band but not so loud when you play it but what I found after playing several hundreds of mandolins and jamming with everyone around when possible over 15 years is that it is not as simple as told. I believe I have good ear for judging sound quality of instrument and folks around me tend to come to me to play/test their instrunents and very often their own perception of loudness is very different from mine. Friend once brought nice mandolin that was really "woofy" and he considered it a cannon but in reality there was little "core" tone behind the initial woof and from other end of room the instrument was thin and quiet when the bass portion of tone just muddying the overal result. It takes years of ear training and perhaps some specific talent to learn to discriminate the tone and especially loudness that will be perceived on the other end of hall. Playing instrument yourself and being able to judge how well it carries is very hard skill. Many excellent players just suck at this but for luthier this may be the most valuable asset even if he doesn't paly at any pro level. Even listening across hall can be very dependent on the player as some players can just pull the tone out of a plank  while other may be less flexible with his technique. You need to know what the player is capable of with unknown instrument.

All you say is in part, perfectly valid. The only problem is that you never heard/played/compared the "real deal" in proper concert hall conditions against a big piano or orchestra. My respectful suggestion is that you suspend judgement for the time being, until you gain some direct experience. 

Posted
2 hours ago, Carl Stross said:

3. It's very simple physics which translates into a hard, intractable adjustment problem. 

 

 

2 hours ago, David Burgess said:

If this is "simple physics", you'll be able to explain it, right?

 

16 minutes ago, Carl Stross said:

Yes, easily.

Then may I invite you to do so? :P

Posted

Eventually it is the player who pays for the instrument, and he pays for a quick response, clarity, a wide and generous dynamic range, an instrument that is easy to play, and in tune, good tone and yeah, good tone even under the ear.

If you can't notice thing like change of color and volume under the year, the audience will not notice that too.

Posted
1 minute ago, Carl Stross said:

You may but these are the kind of things I keep for myself. 

 

Maybe if they measure all the parameters of a readily available $100 student violin, and invert the signs..........  :lol:  [Bolts out the door yet again........  :ph34r:]

Posted

I experienced a soprano singing at a smaller hall, or should I say, auditorium, around 100 seats, and ceiling was 3 storey tall. Doesn't matter. There was a grand piano. Up close it's pretty balanced but I walked right to the back and the voice just towering the whole auditorium and overwhelming the grand piano!

Whether the voice was filling the hall or filling the ears, that's a whole different matter me think. ;)

I also had experiences where my quartet members had problem hearing me even if they're sitting right next to me, but video taken at a distance turned out that my sound was the clearest. I didn't use any particularly power house violin but seems like certain frequencies play our ears different than others. I do, however, try to "excite" the "frequency range" with my playing, always following the singers formant philosophy.

Posted
4 minutes ago, Violadamore said:

Maybe if they measure all the parameters of a readily available $100 student violin, and invert the signs..........  :lol:  [Bolts out the door yet again........  :ph34r:]

Yes, but not ALL the signs. :)   

Posted
4 minutes ago, Casey Jefferson said:

I experienced a soprano singing at a smaller hall, or should I say, auditorium, around 100 seats, and ceiling was 3 storey tall. Doesn't matter. There was a grand piano. Up close it's pretty balanced but I walked right to the back and the voice just towering the whole auditorium and overwhelming the grand piano!

That's EXACTLY it.    

 

Posted
12 minutes ago, David Burgess said:

It is what? Your very simple physics explanation?

Oh, it's very simple, just the superposition of some traveling waves (using partials between 0 and 22KHz), and calculating their modulation of the entire moving interior and exterior of the violin body with regard to the changing acoustic impedances of the external surfaces, to a grid on the scale of the wood's cellular structure, and a duration on the order of a Bach sonata.  Oh, and all the energy flow that produces the waves.  We could solve the Stradivari design problem along the way, too.  Give Carl and me $20B to work with, and it shouldn't take any longer than the Apollo project, and we could sell the quantum computer, and the other apparatus we'll have to develop, at the end of it.  See, simple!  smilie_roflmao2.gif.1c2f9cc4a87c289939fdc141c9cc650c.gif

Once we've got all that, for only another billion, we could tell you exactly how the sound will propagate in a given hall.  pirateship.gif.d6a3bdd4d34e5a8772fe6331d87f3a66.gif

Posted

When I hear tales of instruments that are quiet under the ear and yet fill a hall, I wonder how many measurements have been made of this phenomenon.  It is always a perception, and anecdote, and not hard data.  Sound pressure decreases to the square of the distance.  Now, building acoustics play a role and perhaps that is what people are hearing (again, not measuring).  

The scientist in me--I'm a chemistry professor--has studied violin construction, varnish, etc., and my hypothesis is that ultimately its wood and arching, craftsmanship, that truly matters.  The studies that new, high-end instruments hold their own when confirmation bias is removed proves that.  

In my own experiments, sound close up correlates with overall volume at a distance.  Violin research is my side hobby, and is currently hampered by lack of access to truly great instruments (Bein and Fushi did let me make a bunch of measurements pre-pandemic, but these days it's hard to travel to experience excellent instruments).  

Posted
7 hours ago, David Burgess said:

If this is "simple physics", you'll be able to explain it, right?

5 hours ago, Carl Stross said:

I think the question needs some work, still. You also get instruments which are not "great" and which are quiet under the ear, nay quite pleasant and project wonderfully. Unfortunately, the tone is not that special.

I don't think you can generalize. 

41 minutes ago, dpappas said:

When I hear tales of instruments that are quiet under the ear and yet fill a hall, I wonder how many measurements have been made of this phenomenon.  It is always a perception, and anecdote, and not hard data. 

I think it's complicated;  it depends on details of the response spectrum, where physically on the instrument the various frequencies are generated, and the listener's perception of all of that.  

Where matters and what frequency matters.  Some frequencies are predominantly generated in the upper bout, and will be farther away from the player's ears than middle frequencies that are generated predominantly in the lower bout.  In my measurements, the high frequencies mostly come from the upper bout, so an instrument that is strong in that range but relatively weaker in the other frequencies (a characteristic of the "Old Italian Sound") will not sound very loud to the player but quite clear.

Anecdotally, I have played a couple of Strads that sounded quite dead under the ear, but when someone else played them, the sound was quite clear.  Not gutsy powerful, but very clear.  Is that projection or not?  On the other hand, I have found that violins with very strong output in the 800-1200 Hz range (often strongly radiating from the lower bout) have been painfully loud under the ear, but don't sound like much farther away.

 

 

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.



×
×
  • Create New...