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Topic: New violins just as preferable as Stradivarius (Read 7871 times) previous topic - next topic
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New violins just as preferable as Stradivarius

A better experiment has been done addressing some of the complaints of the first one discussed and linked here before.

http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/20...ones-round-two/

Quote
The study was published in 2012, and Fritz says that the reactions ranged from delight to anger. Critics were quick to point out the experiment’s limitations—see the comments here for a sampling. The violinists only tested six instruments, and they played them for just 20 minutes in a dry hotel room. That wouldn’t do. To get the most out of the violins, the players needed hours—maybe weeks—of testing, and they needed to play in a concert hall. One distinguished violinist reportedly said, “You don’t test a Ferrari in a parking lot.”

Fair enough, thought Fritz. Let’s go to a concert hall.

“We couldn’t address all the issues in one study anyway,” she says. “We needed the first one to attract attention, so we could do a better one. This time people were really happy to loan me some instruments.”


And before the same discussion as the first time around arises: they "couldn't tell the difference" in the sense that they could not identify the old ones from the new ones. It was not a test to see if there was an actual difference in the sound.

New violins just as preferable as Stradivarius

Reply #1 –
Thanks for posting. Very interesting (again). Just a pity that downloading the complete pdf "...requires a subscription to Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences."
Well, I suppose the higher the price for a study, the higher its quality.

New violins just as preferable as Stradivarius

Reply #3 –
You can't test mojo!

New violins just as preferable as Stradivarius

Reply #4 –
"In the equivalent of a blind taste test, 10 "renowned" violinists tended to prefer new violins over Stradivarius violins after playing them without being able to see them, a new study has found." - CBC Canada
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?  ;~)

New violins just as preferable as Stradivarius

Reply #5 –
Sad.  The musicians' comments were stunningly obtuse or  recitations of mystical subjectivist babble.

one prefers older violins because they 'resonate with the sound of each player'

another says instruments 'change and develop', as if it was impossible to mimic that end-product of 'development'.

a third says  older violins can sound 'tired' because of the 'sheer number of years they've been played'.

another -- the dude whose Strad  was stolen and returned a month or so back -- trots out the standard audiophile goalpost-moving trope -- if only the subjects were allowed to live with the instruments for a few months,  *THEN* the stunning differences would manifest themselves.

New violins just as preferable as Stradivarius

Reply #6 –
Quote from: krabapple on
a third says  older violins can sound 'tired' because of the 'sheer number of years they've been played'.


Of course wear can affect a musical instrument ... at least for the worse. Maybe the Strad should be retired, then?


Quote from: krabapple on
another -- the dude whose Strad  was stolen and returned a month or so back -- trots out the standard audiophile goalpost-moving trope -- if only the subjects were allowed to live with the instruments for a few months,  *THEN* the stunning differences would manifest themselves.


It isn't so farfetched for musical instruments, which the players need to get used to anyway.

But even so, who could tell it were not placebo - in a much stricter sense: knowing (or being tricked into believing) that someone gave you the opportunity to play really precious piece of instrument-making history, could very well affect your qualities as a musician.

New violins just as preferable as Stradivarius

Reply #7 –
Quote from: krabapple on
one prefers older violins because they 'resonate with the sound of each player'

As a musician myself, I've heard quite a lot of violin-players say that violins improve with age. Nobody could tell me why, but I'd think the viscoelasticity of the adhesive and the wood might have an influence. It might be a bogus claim too. However, I've always wondered why violins/violas and bows don't lose their value if handled with care, while wind instruments do. My clarinet was once (30 years ago) top of the line, but for some reason it's not worth a whole lot these days. Maybe it's the environment. If a violin player says he just bought a bow from 1885, that's business as usual. If a saxophone player says he bought a saxophone from 1885, he either has something special or is frowned upon.

Still, seeing the result of this test, no one can deny that Stradivarius', Guarneri's and similar violins are very well build, as they apparently keep up with today's top violins. Sure, perhaps they are overpriced, but aren't old paintings too? I still don't see why some people pay millions of dollar/euro/pound for certain old paintings. I can't understand why people pay that much money on a violin either.

Quote from: Porcus on
knowing (or being tricked into believing) that someone gave you the opportunity to play really precious piece of instrument-making history, could very well affect your qualities as a musician.

Very true indeed.
Music: sounds arranged such that they construct feelings.

New violins just as preferable as Stradivarius

Reply #8 –
Quote
Still, seeing the result of this test, no one can deny that Stradivarius', Guarneri's and similar violins are very well build, as they apparently keep up with today's top violins. Sure, perhaps they are overpriced, but aren't old paintings too? I still don't see why some people pay millions of dollar/euro/pound for certain old paintings. I can't understand why people pay that much money on a violin either.


Exactly...  It's value goes way beyond sound.    A better-sounding modern violin is never going to have the value of a Stradivari, and the existance of a better sounding violin is not going to detract from the Stradivari's value.

I can understand the attraction...  Personally, I would't collect expensive art or expensive violins if won the lottery...  But I might collect classic cars, which are like art to me!    And,I might hang a strat on the wall, but not a strad!      (But, I don't think I'd collect million-dollar cars.)

I'm sure most violin players would take the Stradivari over a better-sounding violin to play in concert if ever given the chance. 

Quote
I've heard quite a lot of violin-players say that violins improve with age.
That could be true...  There's no way of knowing if the sound is better now than it was 300 or 100 years ago.  I've heard that about old concert halls too...  The practical explanation is that old poor-sounding halls were torn-down while the great ones were maintained & preserved.      I'm sure there are/were plenty of old violins that would never become great-sounding, no matter how long you age them. 

New violins just as preferable as Stradivarius

Reply #9 –
Strads tend to be owned by rich people who aren't musicians by profession.  They are collectible antiques/objets d'art on their own (though IMO  the current price frenzy is wretched excess driven by people with way too much money, as it is for a lot of art these days).  But the test wasn't about the motivations of collectors. It was about the musicianly claim that Strads *sound better* than fine modern instruments.

New violins just as preferable as Stradivarius

Reply #10 –
Quote from: ktf on
However, I've always wondered why violins/violas and bows don't lose their value if handled with care, while wind instruments do. My clarinet was once (30 years ago) top of the line, but for some reason it's not worth a whole lot these days. Maybe it's the environment. If a violin player says he just bought a bow from 1885, that's business as usual. If a saxophone player says he bought a saxophone from 1885, he either has something special or is frowned upon.


You mean "value" and "worth" in the price tag sense, or that an old sax is actually inferior?

A sax has more moving parts though, and it could be that there has been quite a bit of improvement there - any players around who can tell? Back in the day when I tried to learn, I saw a few old clarinets with mechanics that were certainly not for novices like myself (and noisy they were!). Maybe a bit of oil would have done miracles though, and that these old instruments need not be outdated if maintained well. OTOH, if that would boil down to replacing most moving parts ...

For violins, there aren't valves and such, maybe the pegs have improved over the century, but apart from that ...?

New violins just as preferable as Stradivarius

Reply #11 –
I've always been suspicious about the claim that some instruments sound better with time, because it always appears to be expensive high-brow "rich people" instruments. Why a violin, and not a classical guitar?

New violins just as preferable as Stradivarius

Reply #13 –
Quote from: andy o on
Why a violin, and not a classical guitar?

OTOH, a friend of mine recently bought a second hand banjo. I don't remember exactly, but it was made somewhere in the 1930s. Its new list price was $135, but he paid quite a lot more. Corrected for inflation he paid less than that new price, but still, there are very few 'things that are actually used' that devaluate that little.
Music: sounds arranged such that they construct feelings.

New violins just as preferable as Stradivarius

Reply #14 –
Quote from: andy o on
And before the same discussion as the first time around arises: they "couldn't tell the difference" in the sense that they could not identify the old ones from the new ones. It was not a test to see if there was an actual difference in the sound.

I wonder if Neil Young can?
Is troll-adiposity coming from feederism?
With 24bit music you can listen to silence much louder!
 

New violins just as preferable as Stradivarius

Reply #15 –
Quote from: ktf on
Quote from: andy o on
Why a violin, and not a classical guitar?

OTOH, a friend of mine recently bought a second hand banjo. I don't remember exactly, but it was made somewhere in the 1930s. Its new list price was $135, but he paid quite a lot more. Corrected for inflation he paid less than that new price, but still, there are very few 'things that are actually used' that devaluate that little.

Well I was talking specifically about the claim that they sound better.The monetary value I think it's mostly unrelated or people fooling themselves. I was cynically implying that the claims that these instruments sound better are rationizations from people who paid a lot of money for them. The more money you spend the higher the incentive.