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Very good article! Musicians and objectivity are not two things often seen together!

Great post, @ertwro. I just finished watching the video of the violin comparison. Very interesting. There is no doubt that there are some very fine modern instruments being made.

My father is a violin expert. He has a little shop where he restores and sells beautiful fiddles. We have seen all sorts of instruments over the years. When my father has a client that needs to compare instruments he calls me to come over and play while they listen :) Always fun.

Every fiddle has its own unique voice. That is not just talk, they are all unique. I have played hundreds of violins in my life, from cheap Chinese to Stradivari and they all have their own sound. It is lovely to pick up an old rough looking violin and hear a lovely sound. It was only a couple of weeks ago my father asked me to try a fiddle that looked like it had been ridden hard and put away wet. The pegs were obviously carved with a pocket knife :) The sound was lovely. It was NOT loud, but it had a nice little voice. It was the kind of instrument that I could play quietly in a room by myself. The instruments shown in the video were concert hall instrument with gigantic voices. These can cut through an entire orchestra at full volume. Most of us mortals don't need that anyway :)

My fiddle is an 1807 Borelli. I have had it since 1992 and love it. It is dark and have a nice even town across the whole range. (You can hear it on all my Steemit videos) My fathers fiddle is anonymous and he has had it for decades. It is bright and sweet. He loves it :) We also have a 3/4 sized Gagliano from this mid-1700s I believe. It is very used, but sounds fantastic for a 3/4. There is an old Amati somewhere at the house as well along with some lovely anonymous fiddles. We have not had many modern instruments as they are tough to come by, oddly enough. The good modern instruments are usually rarely out on the market. They are snatched up and used day after day. Older stuff tends to be more available.

Great post. I'd love to see more like this :)
Thanks,
Bucky

Playing a new violin is always like meeting a new person. Some are old and some are young, some are rich and some in the rags. Some have horrible personalities and some are a match for us but not for the rest.

Even if modern some instruments are good I can't help but want one with history.

Checked some of your content, is great having more people like you here.

Wow what a great explanation. Thanks for this :)

You are welcome. I did my best with this one. ☺

Indeed you did. :)

Wow! You outdid yourself this time Juan. How do you change the position of the images and the videos? That is beautiful. Did you finished your violin. The one you were making?

Boop. Boop.

The subject is great, the treatment shows effort, the text has clickable superscripts, and I learned something! What more could one ask!

Profesional expert investigation -science particularly science-

There's an extra word somewhere in there! Or a missing comma? Actually, a missing letter s too. The more I look the more troubling it gets...

Looking forward to the forensics!

Thanks, man. Corrected. My Grammarly proofreader is acting out. Glad you enjoyed.

That is an interesting article mate. I am glad I didn't have to flag it for #thunderdome purposes. :)

I am looking forward to the next one too.

Just you wait, I'll make it super hard to flag.

That is a seriously great research you did there about violins.
You reminded me of a movie called "The Red Violin", if you haven't seen it, and even if you're not personally fond of violins, I think you'll enjoy it.
Thumbs up again bro

Yeah, I know the movie. It features the music of one of my favorite soloists, Joshua Bell. His solo performance in the soundtrack even won an Oscar for it. It's a good movie.

I am really amazed by these blind tests. Professionals should get a feeling of all of this... they should... and they actually don't. That chocked me a little bit.

Very nice post by the way, also on the violin 101 part and the new technology part :)

The more devoid of critical thinking and appealing to expertise on a particular field, the more one should expect conflicts of interests will be a problem to innovation and truth.

I mean, I'm not 100% happy with the idea of machines making me obsolete, but such is technology.

Thanks for passing by to read :)

What do you mean by "machines"? Are you referring to machine-driven selection tests? I am a bit lost within our current context :)

Anyways. Machines are not making us obsolete. They will change our way of making things instead, I guess.

I mean Oracle systems. One probable consequence of double-blind tests effectiveness, if it were to become an extended practice, is automation of the process. This entails a lot of problems:

  1. Creating markets in sectors like science research
  2. Lowering the criteria for skill level of the judges
  3. Black box results

I will explain this in depth in my next post. "A forensic approach to cheaters."

Thanks for the clarifications. I am looking forward to read the next post.

Concerning item 1, I guess we are already there, unfortunately :(

Excellent article. I was thinking that many of the ideas here apply equally well to the manufacture of acoustic guitars. I have been toying around with the idea of taking the instrument up (mostly to play classical music), but I'm not sure how to find a good, reputable luthier--and how much I would have to spend to get a nice instrument. So I'm still looking.

Yeah, the principles are the same. It does depend on your level of skill, for most cases a classical guitar for $5k to $10k is the norm.

If only for occasional use $1k. About the luthier check in google a place close to and the luthier will orientate you. Of course, italian and Spanish instruments have the best reputation but most of the time one is merely overpaying for it.

Awesome, my brother is building guitars and I'm tuning piano's. Here you can see also an older version where I tuned to 416Hz.

But there's a very important thing being overlooked maybe; tuning! I tune to 432hz and I love it. I have been looking for years no for satisfying scientific explanations but I haven't found any.
I'm not sure there has been a double blind study done on 432Hz but you can also listen to violins tuned to 432Hz and they sound amazing to me. Much better than those in the studies.

Maybe one that suggested birds use this pitch as an anchor but it was just a one shot.

Nice, 432 Hz is one of the secrets. :)

I thought Stradivarius was meant to be played tuned to 432Hz...

Oh, it very well could be, I don't know much about those instruments. I meant that's how most instruments were tuned, before the 40s when several countries agreed on the 440 Hz standard, which isn't divisible by 3, in other words, 432 Hz allows for more harmonies.

440 Hz is more dissonant, and causes us to be more warlike, hence the 20th century.

You can modulate music tuned to 440 Hz to 432 Hz, and it sounds nicer. I know of several musicians who write 432 Hz music, Brian T. Collins being one of them. Also the songs "Three Little Birds" and "One Love" by Bob Marley, and "Imagine" by John Lennon, used the 432 Hz tuning as well.

Thanks, I know Brain Collins' work, I like it.

However Imagine is not in 432Hz!

Hmm. That's what I read a few years back. I don't have an ear for it unfortunately.

Most of us can't hear it but we can feel it...

You definitely put a lot of effort into this and I had never thought about the perceived difference between old expensive instruments and cheaper new ones. Great job!

You definitely put a lot of effort into this and I had never thought about the perceived difference between old expensive instruments and cheaper new ones. Great job!

Well done. Resteemed.

Very interesting how the perception of quality is influenced by preconceived biases. This is a problem everywhere. By human nature we many times unwittingly let our biases influence our judgement, even in science where sometimes peer reviewers block funding and publication of major breakthroughs because it didn't fit their preconceived beliefs.

The art of designing and building a quality musical instrument is to match it's overtones and resonances with our brain's pleasure detectors. It's great that science is trying to help in the design. It would be wonderful to provide low cost quality instruments for young learners, because we never know ahead of time which ones could become proficient. We could all benefit by the creation of new of musical masterpieces for everyone's pleasure and entertainment.

the market for new instruments for young learners is ever-growing and you are wonderfully correct. As we know more about resonance and vibration, though I also love the traditional sounds, we learn what frequencies actually improve our own field vibration (pleasure, knowledge, intelligence , creativity, genius) and we can literally build in the transmission of those frequencies through the instruments and those who play upon them. Brilliant point!

Thank you

Your post is really edifying. Technology seems to overcome every problem. My brother would be really interested, I will tell him. Thanks

wow that is beautiful

Indeed it is. Thanks.

Great job! Thanks for sharing :)

You are welcome, thanks for passing by and leaving a comment.

Quite fascinating

Wow amazing

Beautiful explanation of something that is showing up in sound, music, and cymatics everywhere. The more we understand about how vibration functions, th emore we can assist in creating frequencies that support enjoyment and creativity... and other states of being that promote growth and learning.