Can you make a great sounding violin by mistake?

[mendel]

Hey, everyone just curious, I'm in middle of making my first violin and I've made many mistakes especially with the arching. then came to my thought, can these mistakes actually make it sound better? or there is just one way that the shape must be and if not it will sound bad?

[Deo Lawson]

Good, yes. Very good, possibly. Great never happens by accident imo.

[matesic]

Can you make a great sounding violin deliberately? If not, then it has to occur by  mistake, or a fortuitous confluence of unrelated factors.

[Brad Dorsey]

I think that the theoretical answer to your question is “Yes.”  Out of the hundreds of thousands — if not millions — of cheap instruments that have been made over the last few centuries, there are probably some that sound great.  But the chance that yours will be one of them is vanishingly small.

[Shunyata]

If you made a sublime sounding instrument, could you do it again?

Can you imagine a worse hell… that you can never top the sound of your No. 1?

[Don Noon]

2 hours ago, matesic said:

Can you make a great sounding violin deliberately? If not, then it has to occur by  mistake, or a fortuitous confluence of unrelated factors.

From attending (and entering) numerous violinmaking competitions, I think it is clear that some makers can consistently make excellent sounding violins as evidenced by winning tone awards.  That has to be deliberate, and something most makers (particularly beginners) never achieve.  Not impossible, though, but there are a lot of deliberate decisions that the good makers have learned from years of experience that chance is unlikely to bring together.  A beginner might think he made a mistake that the pro would say doesn't matter for sound.  But then the pro might say, "Yikes, don't do THAT!" about something the beginner doesn't even think about.

Now, if you were making a viola, that's a different matter.  

[GeorgeH]

3 hours ago, Deo Lawson said:

Great never happens by accident imo.

Actually, it does. It may not be predictable, but it happens. Never say never.

[Riccardo964]

Your mistakes will even out by the things you did (or thought of doing) correctly and in the end, it will be a normal sounding violin.

Sorry.

Riccardo964

[Violadamore]

On 5/15/2026 at 4:56 PM, mendel said:

Can you make a great sounding violin by mistake?

Turn that around for a moment, and consider it.  Can you work your buns off trying to get everything exactly as it should be, and produce an acoustic disaster?   

[martin swan]

I would speculate that some of the greatest artistic, creative, practical and scientific achievements are the result of accidents that happened to be well observed.

[Marty Kasprzyk]

I don't have the patience to wait for fortunate accidents to happen.  I deliberately make changes or iterations to see what happens. There are no failures --they're data points.

 

[Don Noon]

7 hours ago, Violadamore said:

Can you work your buns off trying to get everything exactly as it should be, and produce an acoustic disaster?   

Sure.  It just means that your idea of "should be" is mistaken, or some important item is missing.  A good, experienced maker I think would have an idea of "should be" that consistently works well, and the items that they give attention to might be more numerous or different compared to a novice.

[Will Turner]

I aim for mediocre, so every instrument that is excellent is entirely a mistake.

But as a learning maker, I learn from each mistake, so I will eventually have the consistency of mediocre eventually.

The exceptional ones create an expectation that each new one will be even better.  Problem is that I am at a loss as to what resulted in the final product, nor how to repeat the results.

I thickness to the suggestions from Davide Sora and others here, even using his hand drawn diagram of where to hold and tap for each node.   But outside trying to get to the recommended node ranges, I still haven’t grasped the intuitive feeling of the wood and flexibility that experienced makers have learned.  I use wood I probably have no reason to carve yet due to the lack of experience and pay for fittings, bridge blanks and strings I really can’t afford.

Enhancing the experience of imposter syndrome.   Each exceptional mistake makes me feel like more of a fraud.

Then my musician friends tell me enough validation to keep calm and carry on.

[Kevin O]

Absolutely. Some of the best sounding violins I have ever heard were cottage, mass produced, or factory. Some of those factories even became fairly consistent with good sound such as Stratons. So in short, definitely. 

The only difference is while it can happen at any level, the higher up you go with a makers skill that tendency of being "good or great" tends to happen much more often. Instead of being a diamond in the rough so to speak. 

[deans]

In my experience there are lots of cheap mass produced violins that sound good. But closer inspection usually shows that they were actually made with care by skilled workers. The ones that were poorly made, with no consideration for tone, never sound good, even by a random fluke. But I suppose if you looked at an infinite number...

[Violadamore]

9 hours ago, Don Noon said:

Sure.  It just means that your idea of "should be" is mistaken, or some important item is missing.  A good, experienced maker I think would have an idea of "should be" that consistently works well, and the items that they give attention to might be more numerous or different compared to a novice.

What I was pointing out is that "mistake" (or "accident") can go in either a good or a bad direction.  Given that this forum has many examples of folks seeking help with build difficulties, it's quite possible that there are at least as many cases where Divine Providence unexpectedly smiled, and an accidental acoustic miracle occurred.  The latter cases, however, will go unreported, because the makers involved would credit their own brilliance for the glorious result.  Right?    

1 hour ago, deans said:

In my experience there are lots of cheap mass produced violins that sound good. But closer inspection usually shows that they were actually made with care by skilled workers. The ones that were poorly made, with no consideration for tone, never sound good, even by a random fluke. But I suppose if you looked at an infinite number...

IMHO, even an infinite number of "beaver-chewed" (top internally unfinished) Markies won't yield a single Strad competitor, unless regraduated.   

[Don Noon]

23 minutes ago, Violadamore said:

IMHO, even an infinite number of "beaver-chewed" (top internally unfinished) Markies won't yield a single Strad competitor, unless regraduated.   

Having practiced and experimented on a number of these, it seems like there is a narrow band of tonal possibilities that can be achieved.  Bass/treble balance, yes... but something in the wood, arching, or whatever... retains some tonal character and power capability.  If you start with a dull, muddy VSO, it's never going to get out of the slow lane.  If you have a screamer, maybe.

And it depends on which Strad you're competing against.  I remember Fan Tao commenting on one of my early violins, "It sounds like a bad Strad." 

[Andreas Preuss]

No. 
 

Wishful thinking is the biggest enemy for building really good instruments. 

[MANFIO]

34 minutes ago, Andreas Preuss said:

No. 
 

Wishful thinking is the biggest enemy for building really good instruments. 

Yep! Every instrument is a battle...  You can take for granted that it will sound good, even if you have lots of experience.   You have to do the right things from the begining to the end.

www.manfioviolas.com

[Don Noon]

If the wishful thinking is for the result to not sound bad in spite of mistakes, there's a reasonable chance of that.  But a "great sounding violin" for a beginner would most likely require wishful hearing. 

[LCF]

4 hours ago, MANFIO said:

Yep! Every instrument is a battle...  You can take for granted that it will sound good, even if you have lots of experience.   You have to do the right things from the begining to the end.

www.manfioviolas.com

... but the next one is always going to be 'the one'. That new idea you've been chewing over, daydreaming, sketching on scraps of paper, it's going to give the results that you have been hoping for. 

Until the next one after that.

[HoGo]

By judging some of the violins on local market I see there are makers whose violins can sound great ONLY by mistake.

[MANFIO]

7 hours ago, LCF said:

... but the next one is always going to be 'the one'. That new idea you've been chewing over, daydreaming, sketching on scraps of paper, it's going to give the results that you have been hoping for. 

Until the next one after that.

Yes, but these new ideas in general are very small changes. 

[mendel]

Thanks all for you answers 

[MikeC]

On 5/18/2026 at 5:49 PM, mendel said:

Thanks all for you answers 

You should post pictures of your build, get feedback and correct mistakes as you go.