Why are Stradivarius Violins considered so good?

[Taverner]

I mean sure there's the antique value - but violinists who have ever had a chance to play one say they're one of the greatest ever made.

You would think with today's technology they could improve upon those...

[Haole Girl]

1. The fine and unique craftsmanship of Antonio Stradivari

google. :hi:

[Taverner]

6. I googled. They said wood. That does not satisfy.

The best skis used to be made of trees from the Black Forest. Then carbon fiber and fiberglass came along.

[Haole Girl]

12. Here is where I found that info:

http://www.stradivariusviolins.org

[crimsonblue]

2. It's the wood...

They were made from trees that had experienced especially cold winters. This caused the wood to be denser than most other wood used for violins. This is why the best Strads were made in a short 10 year or so period. The especially dense wood used gives the Stradivarius its perfect sound.

[Taverner]

4. Hmmmm - then couldn't one use wood made from tundra trees

Or better yet, a composite of materials?

[crimsonblue]

9. No, they're made from ordinary trees... The trees used had very closely packed rings.

using tundra wood wouldn't suffice, because they are not hardy, nor durable enough for the shaping process. Stradivarius violins are surprisingly springy, yet extremely resilient. This may be why so many have lasted for hundreds of years.

[TZ]

10. I doubt a composite would give as good a sound.

Really.

[crimsonblue]

13. composites do not have the same harmonic and reverberation characteristics..

composite violins sound like shit compared to a Strad.

[Taverner]

17. What about polymers?

Could you get the same effect with those?

[crimsonblue]

20. not likely...

you'd have to do a very fine layering of polymers, preferably a couple of microns thick at a time. Even then, you wouldn't have the same resonance, because the compounds in wood vibrate at a different wavelength then do polymers. The reason that composites are used is because the fabrication process is faster, and involves much less hand-working.

[jmowreader]

38. Wood also gets harder over the years

There's sap in wood, and as the instrument ages it gets harder, making the wood harder.

You can see it even today--a 1950s-vintage Stratocaster sounds better than a new one.

I think the real answer to the original question is Mr. Stradivari knew how to integrate all the various pieces of his instruments into a whole better than anyone before or since.

[applegrove]

39. That's what I heard too. It was the seasons that the wood went through

while it was still a tree.

[Reverend_Smitty]

3. probably a combination of wood and craftsmanship

[redqueen]

5. The wood, I think. (In addition to his craftmanship.)

The trees he used for wood grew during a harsh winter, IIRC... or some other uncharacteristic climatic situation that caused the wood he used to be more dense.

I dunno, I pretty much half-remember most things I read for pleasure. :P

[TZ]

7. Now not really

Because the construction of these instruments is not an exact art-the imperfections are part of the construction. There was just something about the way the wood was cut and joined on these that make their sound wonderful.
Its hard to explain to someone who has never played a stringed instrument (I played viola). The idea of a mechanically constructed violin/viola/cello..ugh. Its like saying machines could construct a sculpture or painting better...

[Taverner]

8. Ahhhh an Analog Nostalgic in the Digital Age

[Shakespeare]

15. Handcrafted guitars are considered vastly superior to assembly line guitars.

It's really not an analog v. digital thing (or a luddite thing, as you seem to be hinting). There are simply some cases where man does better than machine.

[TZ]

18. yep!

:thumbsup:

[Taverner]

19. Not a luddite thing at all

I've long since believed people can be broken into binary or analog in terms of preferences.

some of us are hybrids.

Anyway, my little neuroses, not yours :)

I am interested in this man v machine thing you speak of...

I do know hand crafted beers taste better than assembly line beers. This is because a good brewer can tell by the color, smell, or some other non-measurable whether the beer might need a little more yeast or not...but I always attributed this more to the inconsistency of the ingredients more than anything.

[Shakespeare]

26. I think you just answered your own question with the beer analogy.

I can't say it any better than you just did! :7

[Taverner]

29. Yeah but that's solving an analog problem with a digital answer

If we could train the instrumentation to be aware of such things...they could do its job

[crimsonblue]

24. btw... analog kicks digital's ass... that ain't no luddite thing either

it's the truth.

[Taverner]

30. Which analog and which digital

Yes, I will agree Miles Davis "Kind of Blue" sounds much better on vinyl than on CD.

But I will argue that its because of the corner cutting in CD production that does this, not the medium itself.

A good deal of sound is cut off from the upper and lower ends of the sound wavelength on most CDs. The argument is that the human ear can't hear these noises, so why include them? BUT, just as a second note will affect the perception of that wavelength of the first note - perhaps those inaudible frequencies cannot be heard, except in how they affect the perception of the wavelength as a whole.

Please - If I'm talking complete BS let me know. I failed Physics :)

[crimsonblue]

31. The sound from vinyl is fuller...

With good speaker / receiver combos, you have a a sound wall. With CDS and other digital formats, the wall is farther away from you than with vinyl. With my speaker / recvr combo and my phono blaring, it feels live.

[Taverner]

32. That must the the effect I was just thinking about

[Aristus]

11. The unique sound quality is ascribed to the combination of woods he used,

and the special resin he coated them with. No one is really sure how he made it, or what gives the instruments their special resonance.

Could be hype. That sells instruments, and drives up their value. But I'm a romantic. I prefer to think that the instruments do possess a quality imparted to them by a man touched by the divine. B-)

[Taverner]

21. I wonder if there are any sites that do compare contrasts?

Say, piece played by the same violinist on a Stradivarius and then one made of polymers.

[harmonicon]

41. I don't know if there are sites...

but I heard a radio piece a few years ago comparing a stradavari to a new violin made by a master luthier, and even over FM radio, I could tell the difference. No serious violin maker would make a violin from polymers. No one would ever play it, and it would sound like crap.

[mike_c]

14. the tone and volume of wooden instruments is affected by many things....

Not just the design of the instrument itself, which can obviously be copied down to the thousandth of a millimeter with modern CNC machinery. It also depends on the cellular structure of the wood itself, on the way the wood structure was modified while it was stored, on the way the luthier uses his or her tools, on the nature of the finish, on how the wood and finish age, on how vibration is transmitted through the various components and how it propagates within the sound box, and perhaps most important of all, on how those various factors, and doubtless others, interact with one another.

There are lots of theories about why great violins and similar instruments sound so good and play so beautifully, but no one has been able to fully replicate the combination of factors that create such instruments.

[Taverner]

22. Not yet at least!

At least that's MY dream

[jobycom]

43. I think you're basically right. You're saying that technology could one day master

the art of violins or beer or recording sound to equal or surpass the finest hand-crafted examples of each.

I agree that it can one day, and might one day, but the hangup isn't just in the machine, it is also in the human understanding. Read the posts on why man-made is better, and what you see is that no one knows exactly. Why does beer taste better with some imperfections but not others? Why does vinyl sound more full than CDs even when the sub or super sonic frequencies are included as much as they can be?

There are intangibles involved that are only intangible because humans don't know how to quantify them. Taste is a series of chemical reaction, for instance, but simply replicating the chemical reaction between beer and tongue wouldn't be enough. You'd have to replicate the chemical reactions in the brain caused by the reaction of the beer. And there are elements of memory and culture in our preferences that are completely separate questions. We don't even know what all would go into the equation.

What I'm saying is, yes, digital technology can master everything that humans can do, but it can only do what humans can tell it to do. The shortcoming isn't the technology, it is the human understanding of what triggers our own reactions. We don't know how to quantify the perfect love poem, the perfect musical euphoria, the perfect tasting beer. If we did, we could make a machine to recreate those, and maybe even exceed what humans can do. Then again, if we understood these things that completely, they might cease to move as as they do. Perhaps part of the secret to human art is that we are creating that which we cannot explain or understand in any way other than through the creation itself. Good literature cannot be paraphrased, as the old saying goes.

Don't know if that made sense.

[Ptah]

16. Chemistry, worms and fungus

Texas A&M Professor Nagyvary spent years collecting wood shavings for his experiment.

http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/local/01/26/0126violin.html

By Mark Lisheron
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Monday, January 26, 2009

Thanks to Joseph Nagyvary and a small band of confederates at Texas A&M University, worms and fungus may now be added to the list of those responsible for some of the world's most rapturous and everlasting music.

Nagyvary, a 75-year-old Hungarian refugee, thwarted concert violinist and chemistry professor emeritus at A&M, has spent more than 30 years trying to pinpoint why the violins and cellos of Antonio Stradivari and Guarneri del Gesu sound like no others. In the current issue of the respected journal Public Library of Science, Nagyvary presents a scientific argument that the instrument makers were the beneficiaries of an apothecary with a keen understanding of wood preservation.

The findings are the culmination of a decade of various tests done on minuscule shavings taken from four 18th-century instruments, two Stradivarius and two Guarneri, based on theories developed more than 20 years earlier by Nagyvary. Put simply, the wood used by these great instrument makers was changed substantially and irrevocably with chemicals to ensure that they would outlast wood worms and fungi, Nagyvary said.

Those chemical changes, he theorizes, give the instruments a different sound from contemporary instruments and others made in the same period in different places. Nagyvary's research did not test specific differences in the tonal quality of different instruments.

[Taverner]

27. Thank you - this is amazing

[NJmaverick]

23. Your question is intriguing

My first reaction was to respond about the wood and the cold etc. Then I thought about it and realized that, in theory, your right. Materials science is such that it's possible there could be wood substitutes that perform even better. I wonder if anyone has made a serious study of this.

[tigereye]

25. sometimes old, warm, well- used and loved instruments simply sound better

and they were better made than a lot of crap made today.

[HopeHoops]

28. It is both the wood and the craftsman - there has been no match.

My grandmother's bow was made by a great craftsman, sorry but the name escapes me, and while her violin was appraised at $8,000 after her death, the bow was appraised at $15,000. I'm not joking. My dad loaned the bow to the BSO and it is regularly used by guest musicians. It floored me to think that something resembling a marshmallow roasting stick could be worth that much, but apparently it is both the wood and the craftsman who created it. I just tried to look up the name, but I couldn't find anything that looked like a match. I'll e-mail him and ask.

[Wapsie B]

33. I remember a study done way back that claimed part of it's value as an instrument

was due to the finish in conjunction with the wood. IIRC the original finish had chicken poo in it.
I've talked with violin makers and they claim the Magini violins are every bit as good as the Strads.

[Pierre.Suave]

34. Secrets Of Stradivarius' Unique Violin Sound Revealed

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/01/090122141228.htm

Joseph Nagyvary, a professor emeritus of biochemistry, first theorized in 1976 that chemicals used on the instruments – not merely the wood and the construction – are responsible for the distinctive sound of these violins. His controversial theory has now received definitive experimental support through collaboration with Renald Guillemette, director of the electron microprobe laboratory in the Department of Geology and Geophysics, and Clifford Spiegelman, professor of statistics, both Texas A&M faculty members. Their work has been published in the current issue of the scientific journal Public Library of Science (PloSONE).

[Bucky]

35. There was a movie I saw once about a violin. "Le Violon Rouge". I strongly recommend it.

It will answer your question in ways you hadn't ever considered. Rent this movie!

[Pierre.Suave]

36. The Red Violin

Saw that too, it is an odd movie.

[Shakespeare]

37. The Red Violin is a GREAT movie.

Another recommendation here. :thumbsup:

[MilesColtrane]

40. They are revered because of the tone they produce.

And, that sound was achieved by a combination of materials and design that hasn't been surpassed since.

[harmonicon]

42. something that hasn't been brought up so far:

ok, sure, the wood that was used was incredibly important, as was the finish, and of course the craftsmanship is unequaled. I've even heard theories about it having something to do about how the raw wood was transported to the mill having something to do with it.

What no one has mentioned is the simple fact that the Stradivari was one of the first great violin makers, along with Amati (quite a bit earlier), and Guarneri. For the past 300 - 400 years, all good violins have essentially been copies of violins made by one of those three great makers. Their expertise, and it's emulation, has meant that the instrument, it's playing techniques, and repertoire written for it have all been based on this model. That is, a piece written for violin, played by a violinist, would ideally be played on one of those three instruments. That's a hard thing for another maker to go up against. It's possible to get an amazing instrument for 20 - 100 grand made recently (though all string instruments do improve with age), but it can never have the edge over the original, because it will always be just a copy. That's just the way it is with violins and celli. The case is slightly different for violas and contrabasses, as those instruments have a far more sordid history, and thus not so few ideal models to be based on.