A432 Posted February 4, 2022 Report Share Posted February 4, 2022 Mr. Swan -- we may both be right. Checking to see how many different species of crickets there are (probably having different sound characteristics), google page one listings said 11, 900 and 2,400. And the image of one was a grasshopper (not an eastern NA cricket). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
martin swan Posted February 4, 2022 Report Share Posted February 4, 2022 10 minutes ago, A432 said: Mr. Swan -- we may both be right. Checking to see how many different species of crickets there are (probably having different sound characteristics), google page one listings said 11, 900 and 2,400. And the image of one was a grasshopper (not an eastern NA cricket). I think that you will find that the sound of all 11,900 possible species of cricket attenuates over distance. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A432 Posted February 4, 2022 Report Share Posted February 4, 2022 1 hour ago, David Burgess said: Your suspicion is incorrect. They found this on the valuable old Cremonese instruments they tested as well. The plot sickens here. Many of the ca. 1727 Strads beloved by violiinists like Fransciscatti & Vengerov, and most del Gesus can be attacked forceably (if done the right way) without crushing their voices (loud under the ear), so proof by selected instances is possible. (Famous Ricci quote: "A Strad must be coaxed; a Guarneri can be raped.") Extend the generalization further though, and the wheels come off. Want an easy case in point that illustrates my contention ? Watch the you tube of Yehudi Menuhin playing Beethoven 10 with Glen Gould, focusing attention on how lightly he's holding the bow, and how big the voice of his Khevenhuller Strad (personal all-time favorite Strad) is. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A432 Posted February 4, 2022 Report Share Posted February 4, 2022 1 minute ago, martin swan said: I think that you will find that the sound of all 11,900 possible species of cricket attenuates over distance. Again incontestible if carried beyond the parameters intended (and assumed). No sound carries forever undiminished. But within a concert hall or a house (fiddle and cricket) the phenomenon is striking. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stephen Fine Posted February 4, 2022 Report Share Posted February 4, 2022 42 minutes ago, A432 said: a magical component that is immediately apparent from tone one with them. I don't believe in magic. A really nice violin is really fun to play. It's not an experience akin to magic. Hearing one of the world's great violinists up close? THAT is like magic every time, irregardless of the violin they are playing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blank face Posted February 4, 2022 Report Share Posted February 4, 2022 36 minutes ago, A432 said: a Guarneri can be raped. Considering your history on the board you shouldn't use such quotes: If it's true at all, I doubt that Ricci would repeat it actually. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jluthier Posted February 4, 2022 Report Share Posted February 4, 2022 I am playing my recently completed violin (pics in makers' gallery). I like the tone and it is really fun to play. BUT...then I pick up my 70 year old Becker and well...that's magic. Dang. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A432 Posted February 4, 2022 Report Share Posted February 4, 2022 2 minutes ago, Blank face said: Considering your history on the board you shouldn't use such quotes: If it's true at all, I doubt that Ricci would repeat it actually. Quote was widely repeated around the time "The Glory of Cremona" (recording of him playing numerous great Cremonese fiddles) came out (1960s as I recall). I.e., before the instilled obsession rendered the suggestible incapable of confronting "sex" outside stereotyped cliches without going into hysterics. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stephen Fine Posted February 4, 2022 Report Share Posted February 4, 2022 Just now, A432 said: Quote was widely repeated around the time All sorts of stuff is "widely repeated". Misattribution was common long before the internet. As for the quote, it's stupid, doesn't make sense, and doesn't add anything to the discussion here. But, hey, it sure is unpleasant, so thanks for including it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Burgess Posted February 4, 2022 Report Share Posted February 4, 2022 “Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy” Mis-attributed to Benjamin Franklin (true source unknown) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A432 Posted February 4, 2022 Report Share Posted February 4, 2022 Searching the internet, I see even Yandex has censored (or can't find) it (google expected). Find the feature article record review in the New York Times though, and there it is, bolded as an eye-catcher. It struck people at the time (and still does some) as funny - like any good joke, releasing emotions held in check. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blank face Posted February 4, 2022 Report Share Posted February 4, 2022 Just now, A432 said: like any good joke, releasing emotions held in check. You will find another place where's nothing more funny than rape jokes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A432 Posted February 4, 2022 Report Share Posted February 4, 2022 33 minutes ago, Blank face said: You will find another place where's nothing more funny than rape jokes. I've long noted that any time some obsessional responds to a joke withTHAT'S NOT FUNNY !, it is funny to anyone whose mind hadn't been hacked and reprogrammed. Psychiatrist Robert Ornstein famously observed that any given personality, conventionally regarded as coherent, was, on examination, more nearly a committee of morons that took turns in the driver's seat, writing checks that one of the others, in turn, would have to cash (and sometimes be unable to). That, IMO, is the case here. As everywhere. Inability to laugh at a joke touching on "sex" is, again IMO, diagnostic. As is the compulsion to mount the missionary pulpit and preach in response to it. (Otherwise known as Virtue Signaling -- regurgitating the progamming occupying the area of the personality involved by reflex action, like the lower leg twitches when the doctor taps the knee tennon with the little hammer). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jedidjah de Vries Posted February 4, 2022 Report Share Posted February 4, 2022 Can you please explain what you find funny about equating playing a violin with rape? I honestly don't understand what the joke is supposed to be, or even what the comparison is supposed to be. Is it that having sex with a human is like using an object? Or that sometimes you have to ignore consent to…I'm not even sure? Pardon my hacked and reprogrammed brain but I'm not getting it. I entirely believe that you find rape funny (even if I don't understand why). Please believe me when I say that I do not. (Also, sex can be hilarious! But weird rape analogies are not jokes about sex now are they.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A432 Posted February 4, 2022 Report Share Posted February 4, 2022 3 minutes ago, Jedidjah de Vries said: Can you please explain what you find funny about equating playing a violin with rape? I honestly don't understand what the joke is supposed to be, or even what the comparison is supposed to be. Is it that having sex with a human is like using an object? Or that sometimes you have to ignore consent to…I'm not even sure? Pardon my hacked and reprogrammed brain but I'm not getting it. I entirely believe that you find rape funny (even if I don't understand why). Please believe me when I say that I do not. (Also, sex can be hilarious! But weird rape analogies are not jokes about sex now are they.) Why ask me when you can join a SM (sadomasochism) board and ask the women there what it is they find so appealing about it ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jedidjah de Vries Posted February 4, 2022 Report Share Posted February 4, 2022 "I think all women want to get raped," is not the defense you think it is. You're being gross, not funny. My apologies for dragging this thread further off topic! I just wanted to help make it clear to A432 that they did not have the tacit support of the room on this. Back to our regular programing now, yes? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A432 Posted February 4, 2022 Report Share Posted February 4, 2022 3 minutes ago, Jedidjah de Vries said: "I think all women want to get raped," is not the defense you think it is. You're being gross, not funny. My apologies for dragging this thread further off topic! I just wanted to help make it clear to A432 that they did not have the tacit support of the room on this. Back to our regular programing now, yes? Those are your words, Jedidjah. Not mine. PS: FWIW, I'm (apparently unlike you) a "he." Although your clever reference to Orstein was brilliant (IMO, of course). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Don Noon Posted February 4, 2022 Report Share Posted February 4, 2022 Lots of carrying-on about a crude description of how a violin needs to be played. In a far more boring and lengthy translation: Strads tend to be thinly graduate, compliant, and therefore best played with higher bow speed and less pressure. GdG's tend to be thickly graduated, stiff, and therefore best played with higher bow pressure. Another thought that I don't see so far in this thread is the fullness of the overtone content and how it relates to the frequency response of the instrument. It's complicated, but my observation is that newer instruments often have a more spikey frequency response in the frequencies that matter for projection (i.e. above the signature mode frequencies). When playing a given note, some overtones are strong, and others are weak... so it can sound loud, but some of the information is missing that defines the note. With age, it is my opinion that the frequency response tends to get less spikey and more even... not necessarily higher amplitude... which then translates to more of the overtones in a note being present, and a more clearly defined note. "More colors" might be one way of translating it to the visible spectrum. You can't get the full picture if some colors are missing, even though the colors you DO have are very intense. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ctanzio Posted February 4, 2022 Report Share Posted February 4, 2022 Cremonese violins made before 1800 defy the laws of physics, I guess. Probably the magical incantations and demon rituals Tony Strad performed to make his ground and varnish. Or maybe we are being trolled, yet again? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Burgess Posted February 4, 2022 Report Share Posted February 4, 2022 1 hour ago, ctanzio said: Cremonese violins made before 1800 defy the laws of physics, I guess. Probably the magical incantations and demon rituals Tony Strad performed to make his ground and varnish. Sadly, the woman who made Strad's ground and varnish took her secrets to the grave when she was executed, shortly after emigrating from Cremona to Salem, Massachusetts. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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