Violin Forum/Message Board

[John Cadd]

My posts are getting lost.Excuse incorrect name spelling.Heron Allen.
The Sacconi book will have better plate tuning details.

[John Cadd]

Obviously very short messages get through quicker.
r s has shown a clear sign that varnish is not the key ingredient in violin tone.Bravo!

[Michael Darnton]

mr. violin, for your purposes, there's more good information in one Strad magazine poster than in any 50 or 100 year old violin book. The Kruse, Viotti, and Titian Strads would be good.

[Janito]

Amezcua said "r s has shown a clear sign that varnish is not the key ingredient in violin tone.Bravo!"

This begs the question "Have you heard one of RS' instruments?"

[CT Dolan]

"mr. violin, for your purposes, there's more good information in one Strad magazine poster than in any 50 or 100 year old violin book. The Kruse, Viotti, and Titian Strads would be good."

Yes, most definitely. And I would imagine the 3d aspect of the new strad3d DVD would be worth the price of admission as well (having as it does CT scans over the entire length and breadth of three great, classic instruments). I am not so sure how much utility I would find in the laser scans, but for someone interested in the three-dimensional aspect of these objects, the DVD seems a good resource. However, the Titian poster is a good start, as are all of the other ones mentioned. It is too bad there are not more del Gesu Strad posters out there now, but I believe there are some Bergonzi poseters available at the present moment, as well as some Amati (Nicolo and Andrea) and Guarneri (Andrea). I have to tell you, among my favorites has been the Amati posters. They're wonderful.

[mr_violin]

Thanks to all of you for the helpfull comments.

I thank, CT Dolan, to Janito, Michael Darnton,and Amezcua

[DonLeister]

Mr. Violin,
Since you asked I recommend Michael Darnton, attend his workshop that Jim Brown, Violinmaker, of Claremont , CA organizes and runs. Michael is a well known, active violin maker- not an anonymous, online, verbose armchair violin expert of which there are plenty of.
The workshop will save you valuable time, makers of may different skill levels go there, Jim makes things run super smooth and Michael is just a great teacher, he'll teach you from where you are at. You'll meet a lot of great people that love to make violins and talk about it. At age 54 you'll want to learn efficient methods of working that will not cause problems for your body
(I'm 50, I've made 40 or so instruments and gaining speed).
If the workshop is not possible then try to read Michael's posts, he has been very helpful over the years.

[John Cadd]

Janito
No ,I have not heard one of rs`s violins (his nickname is getting jolly awkward) .However we are living in an age of cars ,planes and trains .We can travel to live concerts.There are high fidelity broadcasts .etc etc. We all know by now what a fine instrument sounds like.We would all recognise a substantial improvement.Must we assume that every person in the world is telling whoppers when the instruments are there to try.
Maybe the argument style on this forum is like a game of draughts.You take my piece --You haven`t heard his violin.
I take your piece----you believe varnish is the key to good tone.
The method he has demonstrated is repeatable.His method will stand on it`s own feet if it`s correct.I would politely leave room for doubt without smashing his theory to dust at the first chance.
The case for varnish giving tone has not been tested in this way.That`s a double standard.
The Kruse violin mentioned interestingly has a very plain back.
Just thought I would put in a plug for that feature.

[John Cadd]

Mr Darnton.
We need to have your book selection as mine have just gone through the window.
One interesting comment on a Strad poster showing the Maria ex-Muir Mackenzie long pattern1694 violin .
"Cremonese instruments were apparently varnished after their original wedge-shaped boards had been finally fitted.The close proximity of these boards to the belly made it difficult to reach underneath,and as a result much of this area remained unvarnished".
That description was by Roger Hargrave.
Why did they do that? This sounds to me like the rs method.
These famous makers could not take a chance of sending a dull sounding instrument out of the workshop.Maybe they made tonal adjustments after the strings were fitted.Maybe the only areas available for adjustment were either side of the main obstructions.
If a layer of wood was removed by abrasive (sharkskin?) would that explain the corduroy effect so well known to us all.

[Andres Sender]

Michael has already made his book recommendation several times on this forum, including in the last few weeks.

Just because RS tunes a closed corpus doesn't mean he's doing it the same way the Cremonese did, if they did. There are other theories out there which are more plausible.

The fact they varnished with the fingerboard on is not a revelation. It's not controversial. It's not even odd, since the tradition they worked in included varnishing the sides of the fingerboard. So it actually isn't evidence in itself for any sort of post-closure corpus-tuning. There are stronger indications of the possibility out there. On a related note, Sacconi's 'Secrets' is not 100 years old, so you're only half out the window. Shotgun blasts do manage to hit things now and then remarkably enough.

[Michael Darnton]

The problem with books is that they really haven't kept up with the data that's come out in the last few years. There are a few good ones, but they concentrate on things that people who are looking for magic aren't equipped to appreciate. There's a lot on the web, but you have to track it down. That's one reason I suggested Maestronet, which is heavy with theoretical violin makers.

Also, brushing up on history is good. For instance, regarding tapered top graduation, that idea was tried around 1550 and discarded in Cremona by 1620 or so. The golden period of Cremonese violin making is characterized by tops that are essentially uniform, given the tools of the time. You have to think they knew something. Tapering is still taught in German schools, I think, though they may have discarded the idea now, too. Makers know what it does, and they don't want it.

The reason for Janito's comment, I think, is because people who think they've improved the violin are thick on the ground and usually they don't have the perspective to know what a good violin is, nor do they really appreciate the problem. Hearing concerts and CDs isn't enough, and even people who've played great violins often don't appreciate them. So the chances are for anyone who comes up with a new idea are first, that it's not new, and second, that it doesn't work as well as they thought. Especially when the idea contradicts what's already known about how violins work, and believe me, a LOT is already known! Put abruptly: everyone thinks he's a genius, but few really are.

[CT Dolan]

Just tonight I was reading my copy of Organic Gardening over dinner (having arrived home late from work), and in the back of the issue was an article on John Seymour (author of "The Self-Sufficient Life and How to Live It"). Anyway, the author of the article in Organic Gardening (Maria Rodale) was talking about John and one thing she learned from him early on, "...that philosophy and ideas are a dime a dozen and often don't hold water - but what is most essential of all are the skills and knowledge of how to do things...much of which has been lost over the past 50 to 100 years." So, it would appear other disciplines are not immune from the same. No surprise here!

[Michael Darnton]

When I worked at Bein & Fushi they had all of the issues of STRAD magazine, from the beginning, so I took a couple of months and read every one, cover to cover. In the earlier ones, most issues had letters and articles from a range of crackpots who knew the secret of the old Italians. There was a fellow here in Illinois who published a book about the "secret" of melting wax into the plates over a hot plate, but he was also one of the first to note in a general sort of way the thin centers in many Cremonese instruments.

The biggest flaw in many of these "solutions" is that they don't fit in the historical context of what was understood about sound and structure and how people in that time would have thought of the problem. If someone tried to tell you today that the Cremonese used electrical amplifiers, you wouldn't believe it, but people believe things which are equally anachronistic to the Cremonese makers of 300 years ago.

The other thing there was a lot of were patent bridges, designed to "improve" the sound of the violin. Did you know that the bridge model we use today might have come to us from del Gesu? There's a possible (debated) surviving bridge of his that's almost identical to what we do now. Certainly by 1770 or so the shape was well-established.

[CT Dolan]

Incredible, and if so my respect for the man just went up a few notches.

I have for a while now held my own definition of genius. I am not quite sure how to explain it, other than to say when one encounters such a person the fact is undeniable, the question simply does not exist. It is kind of a play on the old adage, "if you have to ask, you can't afford it." In other words, when it comes to genius the situation is either is readily apparent, or merely one of genuine admiration.

[rs]

The answers I gave were to the question of tone. It was not a viewpoint on ancient violin making. Nor was it given to state a superior way of violin making. Neither were the views any thesis on Cremonese construction. If any got such interpretations from my response, I wish that to be clear.

I have a very high opinion of the work many do in this field, both present and past makers. To these I am indebted. For this reason, I believe my comments to be simply straightforward contributions to help other makers improve the tone of their instruments.

The viewpoints I expressed are neither hypothetical nor philosophical. Rather, they are the result of many years of intense work and experimentation. This does not imply that others haven’t been equally committed. The expressions given are simply based on the belief that a maker can understand and approach a violin with as much scientific study as he would any other endeavor.

All makers know that there exists a difference in wood, but I never have found a qualitative nor quantitative observation about what this means in violin construction. Tonewood varies from sample to sample in wide degree. The maker attempting to capture a tone with it must consider the differences in the wood he has chosen. Many a maker has copied to the last detail an extant fiddle of note only to end in frustration because he lacked understanding of MASS and SPRING CONSTANT, whether he called these dynamics by these names or not.

The points observed about “spring constant” and “mass” of wood are designed to help a maker make sense of this discrepancy. From this observation he may infer that it is possible to replicate any tone he desires IF he understands these two dynamics in the samples he is using. He then may approach his violin with confidence, adjusting to these dynamics to arrive at his goal.

The observation on tuning a back in complement to the back instead of apart from it is fairly direct. Any wishing to duplicate my approach have plenty of information here to do so. I firmly believe the one who follows this on simply a “throw away” fiddle will be astounded at his outcome. I know I was. It quickly opened my eyes to tremendous opportunities and also was the control from which I could test the effect of varnish.

As to the uniformity of top construction, there are numerous spinoff commentaries that could be made. At this time, however, I wish to only make one more. One notable difference in tone between a poor sounding handmade fiddle and a poor sounding “factory fiddle” is that generally the poor sounding handmade fiddle will have several notes on it that sound pretty good. The factory cut ones, when they sound bad, almost never have any good notes at all. This usually is pointed to as evidence of the superior workmanship of the handmade one. At least some of the notes hit the tree on it anyway. This was my belief for a long time and was a red herring for me as it threw me off the scent in finding the importance of a uniform top to tone. The reason is this. When a top is uniform, the tone becomes uniform, that is, the registers tend to be balanced. This is for the good AND the bad. When a top is mass produced by pantographs of some sort or other, the tops are cut fairly uniform. They just are generally cut at incorrect thickness. They also almost never match the back. When cut by hand, there will be areas that are satisfactory for particular notes. But until the top is made uniform in construction, weaknesses will still exist. Uniform is more than just even graduation and hence I found two other very helpful practices to achieve this uniformity. I will share these points at another time, more than likely.

As for the notes on varnish, my experiments, to me anyway, laid to rest the idea that there must be a secret varnish to produce superior tone. Varnish is mass, and as such, must simply be treated as such. A maker when he is aware of this may simply adjust his “in the white” fiddle to compensate for the weight he will afterwards add with his ground and varnish. This is NOT to say that varnish is unimportant. I have become infatuated with varnish, as to me, especially in the use of ground, this is what illuminates the masterpiece. A beautiful varnish turns a simple “girl in the country” into the “Mona Lisa”. One note I will add on this for tone: I found that oil varnish when applied to wood, could never be dried adequately enough to undo the damping effect of the oil. Once the oil penetrates the wood, it takes a LONG time to restore the ring to the tone. When a non-oil ground was placed on the wood first, the oil could not penetrate the wood as the ground was impervious to the oil. The oil varnish, therefore, once adequately dried, had no more detriment to tone than a spirit based one. This one took me a while to unravel.

In answer to your other question, Amezcua, wood can be added to compensate if it is too thin as demonstrated by A. Stradivari on the Medici Strad (a late 17th century tenor viola). This is virtually never necessary in practice as very few fiddles actually exist with plates that are too thin.

Best wishes, and respectfully submitted,
RS Paco Shenefelt
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Randall Shenefelt