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I was lucky enough to live next to a master violin maker, Hiroshi Izuka, for most of my childhood. His violins are worth 10s of thousands of dollars at minimum,

I was lucky enough to live next to a master violin maker, Hiroshi Izuka, for most of my childhood. His violins are worth 10s of thousands of dollars at minimum, and sound absolutely fantastic. It was always slightly amusing to see his in-progress violins out to dry on a clothesline with little plastic umbrellas over them to protect them from bird poop and whatnot. Hard to find any pictures online and neither he nor I live where we used to but I did find this picture [0] of him working on what looks to be some sort of viola. He and his apprentice were constantly trying slightly different shapes and testing them seemingly by ear. I'll have to try to get in touch and see what he thinks of this, I imagine his response would be something along the lines of "what violin player cares about power efficiency?" [0] http://www.orikam.com/img/iizuka.jpg http://www.orikam.com/img/iizuka.jpg

gus_massa 12y ago
I'm not a violinist ... More power efficiency means that with the same effort you get more volume, or you can make less effort to get the same volume. If you do less effort to play the violin, you can probably improve another parts of the performance, like make more accurate notes, or add additional sound effects or ... we should ask a violinist.
- analog31 12y ago
  I'm not a violinist, but a double bassist. This is going to sound simplistic, if not crass, but a very good first approximation is that more efficiency means the instrument is louder, and louder is better. There is no substitute for volume. You're paid to be heard. You will use the full capabilities of your instrument. And deep down we're not all that different from rockers. Loud is fun. Now, other qualities matter too, of course. For a fine violin, I would say that volume is not the point, but the starting point. On top of that, you also need to have good tone quality and whatever else. And the volume that you can achieve in a musical fashion depends on your physical approach to the instrument, along with your bow. I own two bows, and one is noticeably louder than the other. The historical evolution of instruments has involved a steady increase in volume, not just within families such as the violin, but in the size of ensembles and the choice of instrumentation.

gus_massa 12y ago

I'm not a violinist ... More power efficiency means that with the same effort you get more volume, or you can make less effort to get the same volume. If you do less effort to play the violin, you can probably improve another parts of the performance, like make more accurate notes, or add additional sound effects or ... we should ask a violinist.

analog31 12y ago
I'm not a violinist, but a double bassist. This is going to sound simplistic, if not crass, but a very good first approximation is that more efficiency means the instrument is louder, and louder is better. There is no substitute for volume. You're paid to be heard. You will use the full capabilities of your instrument. And deep down we're not all that different from rockers. Loud is fun. Now, other qualities matter too, of course. For a fine violin, I would say that volume is not the point, but the starting point. On top of that, you also need to have good tone quality and whatever else. And the volume that you can achieve in a musical fashion depends on your physical approach to the instrument, along with your bow. I own two bows, and one is noticeably louder than the other. The historical evolution of instruments has involved a steady increase in volume, not just within families such as the violin, but in the size of ensembles and the choice of instrumentation.