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As a professional violinist who's played both a Strad and a del Gesu (and who spent several months with a 1770 Nicolo Gagliano), and who studies with someone wh
by tsm 10y ago
As a professional violinist who's played both a Strad and a del Gesu (and who spent several months with a 1770 Nicolo Gagliano), and who studies with someone whose daily driver is a del Gesu (and who's been playing antique Cremonese instruments for the past 25 years), I always have problems with this sort of study.
As my teacher put it, "Modern instruments may have a voice that's as good as an antique's, but they only have the one voice. Due to how age works with violins, antique violins have many beautiful voices. In a couple hundred years a 21st century instrument with the same craftsmanship and material quality as Strads and del Gesus—and these instruments do exist—will be as good as a the Strads and del Gesus do now. But right now that's not the case."
And I've found this to be true myself. When I pick up a modern violin it might take some time to figure out how to make it sound best, but then I'm done. With an antique instrument, it turns into this indefinitely-long relationship where I continuously learn new things and find new voices and tone colors in the instrument. When I returned the aforementioned Gagliano after three months of heavy use, I felt like I'd only just begun to discover the range it had available.
And it really is about age for age's sake, not quality. I own a good-but-not-great Edinburgh-made violin from 1807 appraised at $15K, and I've seriously played a modern-made violin appraised for $60K. The "default voice" of the $60K violin is better, but the antique instrument is definitely the more versatile one.
I know we like to be objective and scientific here on HN, but don't discard the fuzzy talk of "forming a relationship with the violin" too soon. Even if we don't understand the science behind it yet, it seems that there's something to it.
A better experiment that'll never happen because of logistics:
Present a professional violinist with ten antique violins, ten modern violins, and a range of high-quality bows (the bow plays a HUGE role in how the violin sounds and responds). Give him/her a few hours to choose the favorite of each type of violin and a complementing bow. Let him/her play both violins for a year and then report back on which was preferred. Repeat for a statistically-significant number of violinists.
- Etheryte 10y agoSo essentially the only difference between the test that you proposed and what was conducted is that yours is longer and the conducted test was double blind?
- tsm 10y agoYes, the length is critical.
- i000 10y ago> the antique instrument is definitely the more versatile Not definitely. Only subjectively with an n=1 and botched experimental design. Please repeat blinded, a statistically-significant number of times with different violonists.
- softawre 10y ago"in my opinion" is implied here, especially given the context of the surrounding discussion.
- nikdaheratik 10y agoWhat I think your comment is missing is that the placebo effect is real even if it isn't useful in all cases. Music playing requires a large amount of mental activity across many centers of the brain as well as training and practice to improve muscle memory. Double-blind trials aren't necessarily the gold standard when there are so many different variables across individuals that can't be controlled and the entire mental process for such a complex idea is not even close to being completely understood.
- Johnny_Brahms 10y agoI suspect there might be something to that. I worked as a professional musician in an orchestra for a while before tinnitus ended my career. I played a professional bassoon by Fox (an american company that makes good bassoons) and switched to the "original" bassoon maker - Heckel. Even though both instruments were new, and even though the "base sound" of the fox was good - if not even better than my heckel - I very much preferred the Heckel. Even though the basic sound was maybe a bit worse on the heckel, the posibilities were greater. That is an important part of what constitutes a good instrument.
- tetraodonpuffer 10y agoif you allow me a devil's advocate comment, don't you think the fact that playing a modern violin and figuring out how to making it sound the best and being 'done' could be because the modern violin is constructed better? If a modern violin has tighter tolerances maybe it is less sensitive to moisture / temperature changes, making it sound 'the same' under a larger set of conditions than the antique instrument. The antique instrument being less 'perfect' could be more sensitive to day-to-day environmental changes, making it more challenging to play (as you have to learn to compensate for these) but not necessarily because it is a better instrument, but possibly because it is a worse one technically speaking. Now of course having an instrument that you have to 'figure out' all the time likely makes you a much better player, able to adapt to other instruments more easily and so on, so it might well be that a 'less perfect' instrument is the superior one, but just wondering about this
- Tossrock 10y agoWhat were the circumstances around your playing of a Strad? Are there special protocols for handling it, traveling with it? That sounds pretty interesting.