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Is the research on violin acoustics a viscious circle?


Andreas Preuss

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38 minutes ago, Marty Kasprzyk said:

With a 30% commission a dealer would rather sell a $1,000,000 old Italian violin than a $10,000 modern maker's violin even though they both might sound and play equally as pleasing. But the dealer will say the old Italian one is better. 

 

Serious mistake here of how sales happen. Assuming you are being serious.

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Research comes in a variety of colors - the best stuff is either easily verified by others and/or can be turned into a machine that only works if the research is correct.  Reading a research report with an a priori assumption that the work will be good or bad (e.g. because of the institution producing it), for that matter with the a posteriori conclusion that all such research is pointless or wrong (e.g. because better tone is difficult to define), are biases just as bad as any.

One of the big things to watch for are vested interests especially where the researchers or their institution can realize significant financial gain prior to independent verification of their results, and the more so where reproduction of their work is difficult or in some way controlled by themselves.

If most listeners 'can't hear' the difference in tone between two violins, then it may be that the tonal differences either don't exist at the listener's ear, or they simply make no difference to the listener's experience.  You need to determine the question to be answered by your investigation, then set up an experiment that will answer it.  If you don't like the answer (e.g. they can't tell the difference! or  Nagyvary was right! ... or Mr. Darnton's new violin really is better than my Strad!) the only problem with the research may be that you don't like the answer.

I wonder what would happen if the market started to realize that the violins of MM Darnton, Burgess, Kasprzyk, Preuss,... really were better than Strad's?

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14 hours ago, Marty Kasprzyk said:

With a 30% commission a dealer would rather sell a $1,000,000 old Italian violin than a $10,000 modern maker's violin even though they both might sound and play equally as pleasing. But the dealer will say the old Italian one is better. 

 

With any level of commission a dealer would rather sell a $1,000,000 old Italian violin than a $10,000 old anonymous central European violin, never mind a contemporary violin - even though they might all sound and play equally as pleasing. 

What's odd about that?

Personally I don't make claims about which sounds better, and we see plenty of inexpensive violins that play and sound better than some 7 figure Italians. 

The idea that the dealers are plugging one rather than another is fanciful. Clients announce themselves "budget first", and people who have 6 or 7 figures to spend are not remotely interested in getting as good sounding an instrument for a tenth or a hundredth of the price.

Also in my experience the clientele for contemporary instrument is absolutely not the same as the clientele for antique instruments - the buyers have a very different philosophy and a very different set of requirements. Antique instruments are a dangerous obsession, and a sensible purchase requires a massive level of engagement and education on the part of the buyer.

So I would say they are totally different markets.

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21 hours ago, David Burgess said:


As far as a maker taking a 30-to-50% reduction in income goes, to sell through a dealer:
Why would makers like Zymutowicz, Joe Grubaugh and Sigrun Seifert, Feng Jiang, Jeff Pillips, Antoine Nedelec, or Burgess have either the need or the slightest interest in selling through dealers?
When was the last time you saw a freshly-minted instrument from any of these makers being sold though a dealer?

However, I do need to acknowledge your dealership for having recently re-sold one of my used cellos for a higher price than the original purchaser paid. ;)

Interesting thread.

I've sold instruments for the majority of the above makers on consignment, some relatively recently, and resold instruments for owners by all but one maker listed... and occasionally arranged sales (at no fee) from the maker to charitable foundations.

The makers listed above have a enough reputation and market access to make a decent living without help, though some may have received help from dealers when they started out.

Therefore, possibly among other things, I think makers of this stature working, or continuing to work, with a dealer or dealers depends on the personal/professional relationship of the maker with the dealer and the potential output of the maker (which may be a bit higher if they don't have to deal with the marketing a sales of every instrument they make, or the ability to move stock as the market varies).

Of course, I don't charge a 30 to 50% consignment fee. That sounds more like wholesale being justified by potential risk. I'm fine with the same consignment fee I've always charged. It's listed on my website.

I am not the only dealer who regularly recommends contemporary instruments to my customers, nor the only one who offers them.  They are often the most appropriate choice.

20 hours ago, David Burgess said:

Any buyer who has ever been interested in purchasing directly from me has always been welcome to show up with as many comparison instruments as they wish. Sometimes, I even arranged for them to access comparison instruments they  had special interest in, and arranged for them to test them all in a hall.

 

From what I've seen as long as I've known David, this is very true.

17 hours ago, Marty Kasprzyk said:

With a 30% commission a dealer would rather sell a $1,000,000 old Italian violin than a $10,000 modern maker's violin even though they both might sound and play equally as pleasing. But the dealer will say the old Italian one is better. 

 

I'm sure, like any business, there are sharks out there... but I've never charged a 30% commission to sell an instrument on consignment... and as prices approach 1 mil, commissions rates are generally less in this trade, not more (though the net fee would still be appreciably higher).

As mentioned by other members of the board, the problem here is like the comparison of apples to oranges. When a client walks in the door, they usually have an expectation/desire. Some just want a good fiddle, some have a budget they wish to use (sound, potential investment performance, romance or all of the preceding), some want an older violin even if the contemporary one can be show to be as good as or better than the old one.

Lastly, returning to the subject of this thread: In the last 40 to 50 years, I believe th sound of many of the major orchestras has changed, string technology has changed, the A pitch has changed... and the audience is changing. Seems natural new makers would alter methods reflect this change... with the confines of tradition.

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As the happy owner of a 2.5 figure modern Italian violin, that listeners keep telling me sounds marvelous, I'm enjoying the heck out of this thread.  popcorn-and-drink-smiley-emoticon.gif.db23668e9c38bee7f3a1ac752b6bce02.gif  :D

On 5/28/2023 at 5:11 PM, Christian Pedersen said:

Paraphrasing Sam Zygmuntowicz in a recent online acoustics talk, "The dirty secret of acoustics research, it's like planting acres of seed and one weed sprouts up." I find this quite telling!

That's entertainment.   :ph34r:

Guys, as in one of my "day" jobs, gold is where you find it.     :)

 

 

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19 hours ago, Michael Darnton said:

Serious mistake here of how sales happen. Assuming you are being serious.

I wouldn't describe Marty's description as a "serious mistake", because that is indeed the way some dealers operate.

I once went into a dealer (one with which you are well acquainted) to ask whether they would be interested in selling my instruments. One of the proprietors explained to me that with their teacher commissions, salesperson commissions and overhead expenses, they could only pay me about 50% of what I was normally getting.

So I moved on. :)

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19 hours ago, jezzupe said:

I don't know about a vicious circle, but I think a fools errand might be more like it.

One of the things that I ponder about this is that if we compare various different instruments, piano,guitar,saxophone as examples, one of the main things that stands out to me is how, from average to more sophisticated listeners, it seems that with any of those other instruments it's "easy" to hear the differences between good and bad ones, and that even novice listeners can markedly note the differences and pick "the better sounding one" , whereas the violin is much more subtle to "average" listeners and seems to require a developed level of sophistication to "tell" the differences and to be able to try to describe them.

True enough, and with a clear mind one might also say research goes ‘ad absurdum’ trying to explain something what can’t be explained. And this is part of the reason that it circles around itself.

There is imo a huge unexplored field of violin acoustics if we simply accept the idea, that a violin mustn’t be patterned after classic Cremonese models.

 

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13 minutes ago, Andreas Preuss said:

There is imo a huge unexplored field of violin acoustics if we simply accept the idea, that a violin mustn’t be patterned after classic Cremonese models.

 

How different? There have been many other schools and ideas tried. Acoustics is a broad area, and throwing science at something dosen't always get you farther. Does the current state of acoustic research give us an accurate reproducible Cremonese model? How would you broaden the scope of work if we can't do this yet?

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2 hours ago, Jeffrey Holmes said:

Lastly, returning to the subject of this thread: In the last 40 to 50 years, I believe th sound of many of the major orchestras has changed, string technology has changed, the A pitch has changed... and the audience is changing. Seems natural new makers would alter methods reflect this change

I absolutely agree with this. We are in the middle of a transition. 

 

2 hours ago, Jeffrey Holmes said:

with the confines of tradition.

But here I must put a big question mark. Tradition needs Evolution and if this evolution is taking place mostly on how strings are designed, something might be wrong.

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2 minutes ago, Christian Pedersen said:

How different? There have been many other schools and ideas tried. Acoustics is a broad area, and throwing science at something dosen't always get you farther. Does the current state of acoustic research give us an accurate reproducible Cremonese model? How would you broaden the scope of work if we can't do this yet?

Do we need an accurate reproducible model?

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One of the great complexities of the violin is how close it is to the body when being played.

In fact the player "hears" much of the sound through bone conduction, and the experience is very much skewed towards one ear.

So it's nigh on impossible to unpick this puzzle of what the player hears vs. what the listener hears.

I really think that most well made violins are good enough - it's the obsessive and competitive a/b comparison process and this intrinsic difficulty of near-field vs. projection that throws a curved ball.

I see absolutely no reason to try to improve on the Golden Period Strad model - but where's the fun in that? Where's the marketing spiel that sets you apart from the other 500 contemporary makers conducting deep research into the methods of the Classical Cremonese masters ...?

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2 hours ago, David Burgess said:

I wouldn't describe Marty's description as a "serious mistake", because that is indeed the way some dealers operate.

I once went into a dealer (one with which you are well acquainted) to ask whether they would be interested in selling my instruments. One of the proprietors explained to me that with their teacher commissions, salesperson commissions and overhead expenses, they could only pay me about 50% of what I was normally getting.

So I moved on. :)

I think you never worked as a salesman. It would usually be pure idiocy to try to *sell* a several million dollar instrument to someone who wanted to spend $20,000, regardless of the commissions involved. In fact Geoff Fushi suggested I show Strads to low end customers so they could see what to look for in their low-budget quest, knowing the two were far enough apart that there'd never be any interference in the customers' minds. I did so regularly and guess what, none of them EVER bought the Strad. So much for that idea.

But I did once sell a $35,000 new instrument to a $600,000 customer, and I may have done something like that more than once, I can't remember. And another time I sold two new $35,000 ones to a customer looking for a $125,000 instrument, instead! That one was pure sales brilliance!

That's what you pay your 50% for, and in both cases the maker was delighted, because there's no way he could have done that himself or even seen the possibility of doing it. Good salesmen are a precious thing.

Jewelry markups, +100 to +250%; art galleries, +100%, car parts, +100%. . .  I looked up a bunch of other similar businesses and they're all the same. However, if you're looking for a +10 to +30% market, there's always the possibility of selling your cellos in grocery stores.

 

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34 minutes ago, Andreas Preuss said:

Do we need an accurate reproducible model?

I would question that as well.
Example: While re-enactments of battles fought decades or centuries ago are popular tourist attractions, the weapons used are no longer effective, compared to modern weapons. Nostalgia, and "how things useta was", does maintain a strong niche though.

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12 minutes ago, Andreas Preuss said:

Do we need an accurate reproducible model?

Probably not, but what do you expect to achieve with acoustic research if we we can't accurately model the most studied instruments in a way that is produce able. I think the limitations of the current state of acoustics is the larger hurdle. 

Why not just make something different?  Marty Kasprzyk does.

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45 minutes ago, martin swan said:

One of the great complexities of the violin is how close it is to the body when being played.

Another great complexity of the violin is the bow. The contribution of the bow to the tone of the violin is significant, but generally ignored entirely in threads such as this one.

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23 minutes ago, GeorgeH said:

Another great complexity of the violin is the bow being used to play it. The contribution of the bow to the tone of the violin is significant, but generally ignored entirely in threads such as this one.

Not ignored in the sales room, however, where you're paying good money to a professional to sell your instrument. :-) Along with the violins I'd bring out a bunch of bows so the customer could see them at their best by finding the best bow for each, to see each violin's possibilities. Kroger's won't do that for you. But they only take 10%.

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I firmly believe that there is a huge aspect of psychology involved. Psychoacoustics if you will. The way players say the violin has opened up since started playing it has a lot to do with the players brain and muscles making the million or so unconscious adjustments to play the new instrument well. I firmly believe that living makers make instruments every day that are better than Stradivari. Does this mean I don’t want and eighteenth century viola? No because I’m an idiot!  
 

I'm also pretty sure that every instrument I own is waaaay better than I deserve! But they will live on after me in much more talented hands with young people in the North woods of Michigan. My son will put my ashes around some pine trees and deliver the instruments and bows.

 

”Hi, I’m Dwight and I have a viola problem”

DLB

I may do it for my seventieth birthday, all present are invited for a concert and dinner at The venerable Hoffbrau on Joe Maddy Parkway, concert and dinner is on me,

 

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1 hour ago, martin swan said:

One of the great complexities of the violin is how close it is to the body when being played.

In fact the player "hears" much of the sound through bone conduction, and the experience is very much skewed towards one ear.

So it's nigh on impossible to unpick this puzzle of what the player hears vs. what the listener hears.

 ( ... )

Not sure it is impossible, but agreement between players or listeners is the necessary work.

It could be argued that sitting in different chairs, listening to playback on whatever system ( behind a board or console ) and someone suggests the bassoon is fuzzy and not clear, the listeners might have had similar experiences upon agreement. What in that sonic spectrum is making it fuzzy?

So the difficult task of handling something and then offering it to another player is that their experience needs to be expressed in words. We might have to know each other well enough to agree or disagree on characteristics when similar passages or styles are played.

The process takes time.

As for education, the parents need to be prepped about three months in advance for those oblivious to sound. I have known fathers to not having any interest in participating because they believed that the differences were nominal. But again, back the original point, if the sound and object is more familiar, and the purchase is a reduced financial risk, that parent is less unhappy about the purchase.

From a player standpoint, most of us grab anything that makes most works ( if not the current concerto ) most playable. Sometimes the sound quality is not as important as the response, dynamics. Hell, renting and instrument for three months might be necessary to get out of some schools. Though that comment is far more complicated than the trivial spin on the difficulty on graduating recitals, there are variations on the theme. There are appropriate tools for any given task. 

Learning to listen and evaluate equipment somewhat objectively takes time.   

 

 

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1 hour ago, Christian Pedersen said:

I think the limitations of the current state of acoustics is the larger hurdle. 

Hmmm. Do you really think so? Which limitations? Methods and equipment have gone to a level which it is un-believable. The ‘hurdle’ is in our heads believing in an idea of the ‘perfect violin’ which in reality is not perfect. (Otherwise there wouldn’t be so much contradiction about it.) 

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