Violin Forum/Message Board

[kjb]

I don't have near enough knowledge of the history, but

it makes sense that if they found out a system that worked, you would want to stay with it. Besides making and selling someone would have to keep the business going among all the other things in life, going on.

We on the other hand can always do something else, we have quite a lot of safety nets.
I don't think they had as many options. I would think they would not have time for drastic experimentation and re-inventing the wheel. while all the time making and selling.

it still does amaze me how the basic form came together, the refining of end result. and after modifications and hundreds of years , can still have that sound.

[ctviolin]

Ach!
Yes, an interesting field to attempt to get involved with today.
Strict copying of measurements, used long ago with regard to violins, seem to, in some ways, fall short of the results that they got regularly.
It is as if we haven't really copied (some of the) the things they were doing, exactly. Which is why many people, for many years, attributed to them (the Cremonese makers) a "secret" and unobtainable something, such as a varnish formula, or some such thing, that was applied to the structure - that gave it particular tonal response that we now still attempt to copy today.

That this "thing" that was commonplace in instruments produced then, by some specific makers, and that it is not commonplace or available today, is either true or not true.
The fact that it (this tonal superiority) is something that is often not recognizable during some specific types of modern testing, is an interesting characteristic.
That many people are regarded not to be able to hear this particular "thing" in some specific circumstances in testing or when comparisons are being made, is also an interesting characteristic.
The, or, a part of this endeavor we are occupied with today, is copying something that, on the one hand, many people say cannot be copied, and on the other hand, there are a fairly large group of fairly accomplished people virtually saying that the "great" qualities of the lost Cremonese particulars" is simply mythological.

I'm on the middle of this particular theoretical road - if such a thing can be said to exist. I've been there, and I've seen and heard the impossibly brilliance and subtle playing of master violin players, on old Cremonese instruments, and have been held captive by the "hypnosis" if you will, of it all.
Still, I have not worked on anything like this (old, Cremonese) , or played anything like this, firsthand - that I am aware of, and I cannot say that I am anywhere even near the level of competence or experience that some few posters here or else where are, or have experienced, in regard to such matters.

Still, for what its worth I've been making them (violins) for most of my adult life, and working towards that... hmmm... how to put this? working towards that "impossible magical tonal result" ?
I am thinking that many if not most all of us fall somewhere on this scale.

That it (making violins) is something that skirts the veracity of fact or measurement, and my well skirt into the realm of how thought forms and or interacts with reality?
well, it's an interesting thing to be involved with in any regard, isn't it?
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[Michael Darnton]

Craig, that "exact copy" thing is hype, which doesn't hold up in the real world. I've seen maybe 20,000 "good" violins in the last 30 years, including quite a few attempted fakes and bench copies, and in that time have only seen two that were reasonable foolers. A few summers ago my class had a visit from a Stradivari and its bench copy, by someone well-known for that, and my students were able to separate them based only on what I'd taught them about arching, because the copy was missing what I'd taught as essential features of a classical arch.

Both of the two good copies were made by makers whose certification of a Strad or del Gesu (one violin was a Strad copy, the other a del Gesu copy) would get respect in the community because they did know (both are dead) what a Stradivari really looked like. What chance, I'd ask, would someone who was not at that level have of making a genuinely accurate copy? None, really. How can you make one if you don't recognize one when you see it?

Neither good copy was a Vuillaume. Vuillaume, in spite of his self-promotion, was not making copies. He was making a model of violin that he felt was an improvement of a Strad, not a copy. I've only seen one Vuillaume that was a pretty good attempt to really copy a Strad, and it was a special violin, tonally. One of the others I mentioned was above that maker's usual quality, when he wasn't making copies. The third, the other perfect copy, I didn't hear.

What was impressive to me was how much better the two accurate violins were compared to the usual violin, how the other and the pretty close but not a fooler Vuillaume were both above those makers' usual work.

Anyway, the point I'm making is that we really don't have good data on what would happen for someone who made a modern Cremonese violin because virtually no one (me included, by the way) is able to pull that off using the methods we currently use for doing that. I will tell you that one strategy that won't work is the often-preached "just follow what the tools want to do". The tools don't want to do what you need to do: they definitely will undo it if you're not watching.
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[ctviolin]

Well, if anyone today CAN copy the arching of some of the violins of the past, it would be someone in your shoes, someone that has had a number of them pass through and was able to observe them firsthand, and even perhaps the interiors of such masterpieces.

If not, then why not? The "Classical arch" cannot be THAT difficult to copy. Can it? (perhaps, "how can it?" would be better to ask)
Yes, I'll agree that "do what the tools want to do" is simply foolish thinking. I'd have a "cubist" violin in no time. In fact... that's not a bad idea.

But to my way of thinking "the answer" isn't strictly in or with the shaping of the arch(s), or, we'd have been "there" at least several times before, as various makers do have access to the violins from the past, and their physical characteristics cannot be that difficult (virtually impossible?) to copy.
Difficult and counter intuitive maybe, but not impossible. So - again to my way of thinking, to my way of assessing the universe around me, and its make up, this isn't a matter of "exactly copying" the physical parameters of what exist already.
I have to imagine that its been done any number of times.

Then again, I admit to not having witnessed the actual thing that we're talking about and trying to "copy" it or them, from anything but a distance. And from there, they appear "normal" in all regards.

I would love to have an example here in my hands to examine and something solid to copy - but like many or even most makers I will not ever have such a thing happen. The time has passed and I have done 'other things'.

That was sort of my point in my rambling at the first. I can say anything. But I cannot claim firsthand examination f many things that I will argue about, very much like most makers - I would imagine. The thing that comforts me ( somewhat, that is) is that I have been in this business long enough, and have done enough in it to know that even the best of us today, may still be missing and/or lacking something 'basic', with regard to copying those relics from the past.

What, exactly? I have a problem thinking that it has much to do with "shape"...
When it comes to 'shape' we've been there and done that before. Many times.
?
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[Michael Darnton]

I don't necessarily believe that the arching was everything, but it is certainly an easy to see thing that virtually every maker has done incorrectly.

I wish I could find a reference I saw about 20 years ago. I know that it was in a book about art fakes. It was an illustration of two medals. One was a Roman medal, the other a Renaissance copy from about 1400 years later. Both were in nearly perfect condition. I spent a long time looking at the photos before reading the text and I couldn't find a single difference between the two. Never mind that it wouldn't be necessary for a copy to be exact, and this one was--there was NO visible difference in any small detail, which was where I was looking.

The text explained. Copyists invariably "improve", or look at the subject with unavoidably the eyes of their own period (something I have been harping on in these two threads for a reason). There was a difference in the two medals. As the text noted, the Romans were "breast men"; the Renaissance show a preference for bellies. Look at the rubbed highlights, very subtle, the text prompted. On the Roman medal, the breasts were very slightly buffed; on the Renaissance copy, the bellies were the highest points.

The point being, you can have something in front of you; you can think you are copying accurately; you won't. Vuillaume's problem was that he felt he could improve on the model. I can name other copyists who obviously had the same intent. But even when the intent isn't there, the effect is.

Craig, do you graduate with a caliper? They didn't. Do you at least imitate the wildly varying grads of the old violins, or do you put some of your own spin on it? Or do you graduate more evenly with more intent, because the caliper permits that? Most copyists have their own graduation ideas. Do you make the top thicker at the post, for instance? They didn't. Is their intent in their randomness or is it completely random, or is is partially random and partly intent? How can you know?

What about wood? They had their own ideas; are yours the same? How can you know? Dendro has supposedly shown that the wood that del Gesu used was just three or four years off the tree, at the most; given that this seems an easy fact to replicate, does anyone reading this do this or know someone who does? Does anyone consider how he might have gotten away with that and attempt to integrate that into their making?

Arching, grads, wood: those are all known things. Do you think anyone is doing just those three things "correctly" according to the original makers?

And so on.
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[Cliff Green]

If the masters were using a tool such as the graduating punch, I see no reason why they couldn't have graduated to within 0.1mm if that was their intent. When I look at the graduation maps of the Cremonese it's hard to see any consistent pattern such as that proffered by Sacconi. The trouble is that I don't know why they graduated as they did. Did it not matter to them? Were they tuning the plate using some method we haven't discovered?

[Michael Darnton]

http://opensciences.org/about/manifesto-for-a-post-materialist-science
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[Chet Bishop]

Michael;

that link doesn't work for me. But I think the link is correct, as I tried to look it up on Google, and that was the exact link they gave-- and it didn't work from there, either.

Chet
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Chet Bishop
https://bluefiddles.com
https://fivestringfiddles.com

[Michael Darnton]

It's still working fine for me....
Maybe something about your computer or service?
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[Mat Roop]

Link works... Cheers, Mat

[Chet Bishop]

[ctviolin]

Absolutely true.
Well, perhaps not "absolutely" as, "absolutes" are really difficult to come by, without the attendant prejudices occurring, about or regarding anything(s) that may still be present, outside of the "absolute" under consideration - but close enough.
And pointing in the correct direction. Even with regard to violins. And evaluation of them and their qualities.

7. At the end of the nineteenth century, physicists discovered empirical phenomena that could not be explained by classical physics. This led to the development, during the 1920s and early 1930s, of a revolutionary new branch of physics called quantum mechanics (QM). QM has questioned the material foundations of the world by showing that atoms and subatomic particles are not really solid objects—they do not exist with certainty at definite spatial locations and definite times. Most importantly, QM explicitly introduced the mind into its basic conceptual structure since it was found that particles being observed and the observer—the physicist and the method used for observation—are linked. According to one interpretation of QM, this phenomenon implies that the consciousness of the observer is vital to the existence of the physical events being observed, and that mental events can affect the physical world. The results of recent experiments support this interpretation. These results suggest that the physical world is no longer the primary or sole component of reality, and that it cannot be fully understood without making reference to the mind.
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[ctviolin]

Very interesting, is it not?
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[ctviolin]

(BTW, thanks for posting that, Michael)
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[byacey]

The only thought that I can add to this is the fact that the violin as it has been passed down to us is what we have been programmed to expect a violin to be. This bar has been set long ago and any deviation is regarded as a step backwards from this epitome.

Numerous innovations have been tried in the interest of enhancing the acoustic sound production and physical changes to enhance playability, etc.
but they always seem to be a detriment to one corner or another of a triangle created by beauty of form, acoustics, and comfort of playing.

It's interesting to note that efforts at creating an electronic violin are almost always done with emulating what we have come to accept as a natural acoustic violin timbre. It is this sound we have come to expect. It's also interesting that since it's inception, the violin has surpassed all the other instruments in the violin family in terms of popularity.
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