> While this doesn't surprise me, I do wonder if it misses (to some extent) the point. My guess is that a mass produced, relatively inexpensive violin could ver

> While this doesn't surprise me, I do wonder if it misses (to some extent) the point. My guess is that a mass produced, relatively inexpensive violin could very well be as "good" as a more expensive, unique one. The high end violins people are talking about are made pretty much the same way as they've been made for centuries. The Chinese have factories turning out student instruments of very solid quality, but that's not what people are talking about when they compare with Guarnaris or Stradivarii. > It's not that the more expensive one is better in a blind test, it's that it produces a tone that is hard to find in most instruments, and because it's fairly unique, you'll only find it in an older instrument or a hand crafted one. Not really. While there are characteristic overtone series for a given instrument, or even a given maker or school of makers, that is a question of preference. There are real qualities that you're after. First, versatility. What makes a violin a student instrument is that its sound is quite fixed. It's like playing in a box. That's handy when you're trying to get control of your technique, but once you have that, an instrument that will alter its timbre depending on how you play it becomes desirable. Second, uniformity. Does the violin ring well and consistently over its range? Are there places where you have to baby it to avoid having one note ring out harshly over the rest? Finally, response. How smoothly and quickly does the violin change pitch or timbre? Do you have to stop the sound and restart it to get it to drop an octave on one string, or will it go as soon as you move your finger? > One thing I really like about Irish music is the airs - slower pieces with long, often open notes, that often aren't played with vibrato (sometimes they can't be directly played with vibrato, since there is extensive use of open strings). I don't want to get into a big debate about whether vibrato "should" be used in Irish airs on fiddle, cause my opinion is go ahead, if you like it. But to me, there's something about the way a note can ring, almost like a bell, that you can achieve when you draw the bow properly across the string at a particular harmonic, but don't add any additional vibrato. You can always replace the open string with a fingered note on the next string down (aside from open G). But yes, most of this music wasn't intended for the continuous vibrato that became popular among classical violinists in the 20th century. Irish and Scottish folk music is descended from Baroque dance music, and its use of tone and vibrato is very close to what musicological evidence shows Baroque musicians to have used. There's a variation called finger vibrato where increase and decrease the pressure on the string instead of moving the hand to produce a slight vibration. Typically it is used as a decoration as a long note extends. That's what Geminiani (who is mentioned in the article) describes as vibrato, and it was classified as an ornament like a mordent or a trill.