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ctviolin
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 Posted: Wed Sep 03, 2014 9:10 am Post subject: Violin design ingredients... Amati, Religion, Strad, Today? |
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Lets move this discussion to its own category, shall we?
Does anyone mind?
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ctviolin
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| Posted: Wed Sep 03, 2014 9:12 am Post subject: |
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Since we have gone a great distance away from;
"Violin Plate Tuning & Weight Correlation."
Haven't we?
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ctviolin
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| Posted: Wed Sep 03, 2014 9:14 am Post subject: |
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Hey, ct...
Great idea!
ct
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ctviolin
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| Posted: Wed Sep 03, 2014 9:16 am Post subject: |
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Wow - four posts already!
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Dave Chandler
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| Posted: Wed Sep 03, 2014 3:46 pm Post subject: |
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| ctviolin wrote: | | Wow - four posts already! |
Yes CT -- The illusion of success!
So, just to kick this can down the road a bit further -- if we're all just trying to replicate old fiddles, does that maks us just copyists? Who among us is really trying to break new ground with truly new designs and ideas? Or are we just trying to figure out what was in Amati's head? If we're successful just trying to figure out what Amati was after, we'd probably come up with ..... a 500 year old fiddle. Is that a good thing?
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Michael Darnton
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| Posted: Wed Sep 03, 2014 8:07 pm Post subject: |
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That's a fair question. Let me put this to you in vehicle form:
What if there were a family car available that was small on the outside, large on the inside, fast, comfortable, fuel efficient, attractive, never got stuck in snow, handled great under all conditions, needed no maintenance, and was inexpensive. A car that really, had everything the family could ask for, and was recognized by nearly everyone who counted as essentially perfect. You as a designer have been given the job by a competitor to come up with a product to compete, designing a vehicle that your prospective customer base would recognize as desirable in preference the to or at least competitive with the one your competitor has on the market.
How would you approach the problem? Especially, how would you do this if you couldn't even begin to understand how the competing manufacturer had accomplished all of that?
So bring that back to violins. Instead of just offering up the idea that it would be possible to sidestep Cremona, specifically what would you do? I'm not even asking how---just give me an improved list of specs for the product.
If I were a player, I'd be willing to listen to your idea, providing you didn't take away from what I already got in the old product, giving me something inferior.
Well? I know exactly where I'd start. How about you?
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Mat Roop
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| Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2014 12:16 am Post subject: |
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Of course I would study and analyze my competition even if he is hundreds of years old, but.....
the amazing and magical part for me is that in this era of high technical knowledge and amazing analytic technology, we as mankind have not been able to improve the product of violin makers from some 400 years ago.... after all, a violin is a mechanical device... surely it can be improved!
Hmmmmm ... Mat |
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Michael Darnton
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| Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2014 7:24 am Post subject: |
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| Mat Roop wrote: | .... after all, a violin is a mechanical device... surely it can be improved!
Hmmmmm ... Mat |
And my question is, basically, HOW can it be improved.
Still waiting for a list from someone. :-)
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Lemuel
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| Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2014 8:46 am Post subject: |
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Thanks for replying in the other thread, Michael (and sorry gentlemen for going off topic there).
Now I can see why you thought I had a strong bias. The context of the term "religion" in which I was
thinking is different than yours.
Many people (and those I know) think of religion as a man-made system invented to control, oppress
and even murder the minds and hearts of men, by using the name of God as a tool to accomplish their
selfish agendas.
Your context is - anything away from scientism and skepticism.
....and I agree now with your perspective on the violin making part. |
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Lemuel
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Location: Mt. Elgin, Ontario
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| Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2014 9:09 am Post subject: |
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| Michael Darnton wrote: | ... Let me put this to you in vehicle form:
... |
| Michael Darnton wrote: | | Mat Roop wrote: | .... after all, a violin is a mechanical device... surely it can be improved!
Hmmmmm ... Mat |
And my question is, basically, HOW can it be improved.
Still waiting for a list from someone.  |
It's somewhat of an unfair comparison. There are so MANY sub and smaller end products that go into
a car....many of them not existing years ago. Our children want the air conditioning instead of opening
the windows. When I was their age, the windows were fine. And the list keeps on growing year after
year.
It's difficult to add to a violin. Any modifications or additions seems to affect the sound. Just a little
tweak in the sound post makes such a huge difference.
From a business perspective, companies observe and take surveys of customer satisfaction and
dissatisfaction. From this they come up with solutions that improve the existing model. Most people
would agree that a car is STILL a car after over a century of progress. The question is would a violin
be still called a violin if you started adding or modifying it? |
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Mat Roop
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Location: Wyoming Ontario
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| Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2014 9:48 am Post subject: |
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| Lemuel wrote: | ....The question is would a violin
be still called a violin if you started adding or modifying it? |
Carbon fibre violins are called and are in my opinion still violins. Alleged improvements like plate tuning, the Zaret bass bar and synthetic bow hair come quickly to mind, but in reality, none of these "improvements" consistently offer an improvement on the 400 year old masterpiece!
Perhaps it is the human hubristic attitude that keeps us trying.... very trying indeed!
Cheers, Mat |
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Lemuel
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| Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2014 11:24 am Post subject: |
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| Mat Roop wrote: | ...improvement on the 400 year old masterpiece!....
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Yes...that's the context... |
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Dave Chandler
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Posts: 691
Location: Mt Mitchell in North Carolina
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| Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2014 3:37 pm Post subject: |
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| Michael Darnton wrote: |
How would you approach the problem? Especially, how would you do this if you couldn't even begin to understand how the competing manufacturer had accomplished all of that?
So bring that back to violins. Instead of just offering up the idea that it would be possible to sidestep Cremona, specifically what would you do? I'm not even asking how---just give me an improved list of specs for the product.
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HOW ABOUT -- same quality of sound, but more easily playable. If we're happy with the sound, then what other improvement could there be?
To understand where we are going, we have to know where we've been. I get your example, seeking to improve on the perfect. OR, what I really suspect, we're all just trying to seize a share of the market from Stradivari, not actually improve on his (perfect?) sound.
All the more reason to analyze past masters to get you at least to a point where you can compete, but it may be that the most we can hope for, is to equal them. To get past that, we have to entertain the notion that there is a BETTER sound out there that can be achieved. But if we're looking for something that doesn't now exist (a new and better sound), locking ourselves into the patterns of the past is not likely go get us off this 500 year plateau. Something has to change. What is it? As they say, repeating the same thing over and over and expecting different results is the definition of .... (I forgot what it was).
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Southern Violin Association
"Success is the ability to go from one failure to the next with no loss of enthusiasm" Winston Churchill
"I took the road less travelled, and now I don't know where I am." Marco Polo |
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Michael Darnton
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Lemuel
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| Posted: Fri Sep 05, 2014 9:19 am Post subject: |
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| Are you advocating the tenets of "The Law of Attraction"? |
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