Violin Forum/Message Board

[actonern]

Michael:

I've been a keen student of this debate for years now, and I still don't know what I should do - at the bench - differently.

Should the plates, for example, be thicknessed more haphazardly (like many of the old ones are) than is typically done using in the 1/10 mm precision of modern measuring tools? Should I avoid putting varnish under the fingerboard?

Does a precise copy of rib height and model not reproduce the important foundations for success when looking to achieve "golden period" tone?

Is our best understanding of the varnishing ingredients and methods of those makers still far short of what it will take to get the grail?

Best regards,

E

[Michael Darnton]

I think the first thing to do is to lose your calipers, yes. When did violin making go downhill? When makers started graduating with calipers and felt they needed to work to the level of precision that the calipers would measure. Beyond that, I'm still working on it.
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[actonern]

Do you suspect that plate thickness variations (around an otherwise purposeful intent - such as "thicker in the middle of the back") have the effect of creating resonant areas that respond better when called on for particular notes or zones of the instrument's tonal range? Sort of like the differently thicknessed areas hammered out on Caribbean steel drums create specific note playing areas within the drum surface?

E

[Michael Darnton]

My current idea, which the science guys tell me is impossible, is to make a violin with no significant resonances at all. That way it doesn't come to the task with prejudices, and will vibrate only as it is made to vibrate. The science guys assure me that this can't work, that where there is sound there are modes of vibration being activated in the violin.

I would only say one word: loudspeaker. Speaker cones are designed to have only one resonance, far below the frequency range they are intended to be used for, and absolutely no other resonances. It would seem that speakers, somehow contrary to the advice I get from violin "scientists", do manage to represent the full range of notes rather well, without having their own specific resonances.
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[Russell]

Wouldn't it be wise to just do as well as you can in building a violin and ending up with a good sounding instrument and consider that a success.

[Michael Darnton]

Sure. but what defines "as well as you can"? It's the choices you make along the way.
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[Russell]

Choices can make you or break you in all areas.

[pmccombs]

[Michael Darnton]

" But I was unhappy with this method, having not so great an affinity for the technical aspects of the build and preferring instead what is intuitive or even serendipitous. "

And here lies the problem. I'm the guy who evangelizes for cycloid perfection, and I'm also the maker stumping for looseness in graduation. The reason I'm both of those people is because I'm not trying to go with my personal affinities, but rather to try to figure out what the old guys were doing. There's nothing wrong with building your own violin, but you aren't on the path to replicating the effects of he best violins ever made by sticking only with what makes you comfortable.

It's your choice, of course.
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[pmccombs]

[actonern]

For me there are lots of "tells" in Cremonese work that supports the idea they really fussed over some things and not others.

I look at the detailed photos in the Strad posters and other sources and find myself thinking that they really fussed over things that could be seen and not those that could not. So, for example, you can't see under the fingerboard, so they didn't varnish there. The inside of the pegbox is "unimportant" so they didn't varnish there. You can't see inside the corpus, so makers like Del Gesu were much less fussy there. (badly mortised linings, ribs with lots of tooth plane marks, etc.)

It's hard, in other words, to imagine that Del Gesu was so indifferent to the finish quality of his out-of-view garland work and yet VERY fussy with his plate thicknesses.

Strad, an obviously more careful worker in all things, is more fussy with his "out of view" work, but not to the same degree as his high standard in things we can see on the outside.

Additionally, research seems to increasingly discount the idea of a single craftsman making the whole violin. They were made in shops, with "apprentices," "journeymen," "masters" and so on. Isn't it likely that all of these people were involved in the making of instruments, according to their skill level?

Apprentices could saw wood stock to rough dimensions, for example. Garlands could be made up by higher skilled workers. Higher still, the installation of purfling, scroll work, final outside arch finishing and varnish.

If any of this is true, the inside thicknessing was done after the outside arch was defined, and left to lesser workers to complete. The thicknessing tool in Strad's remaining workshop artifacts could suggest that he defined the basic acceptable tolerances of thickness for the top plate, and the tool guided the junior staff to fall within those tolerances.

To me that's the biggest problem in accepting that there was some deliberate sound related reason for the thickness variations in their plates. The outside is worked to a very high standard, both in terms of arch and varnish, and the inside much less so. Lots of opinion out there would reject my observations and attribute plate thickness variations to some tuning plan, but it just doesn't "hang" for me.

The same standard seems to have applied to other branches of trade from their time as well. High end furniture made during this period similarly shows a high level of finish and execution on the outside, whereas inner carcase work commonly shows scrub plane and other tool marks. Dovetail cuts from the saw commonly shooting way past the cut line; that sort of thing...it was "good enough."

[Russell]

Is it possible that the area inside a violin might have something to do with tone and sound,from what ive read in older books a violin ranged in size from 13 and 3/4 inches long up to 14 and 1/4 inches long , some had deeper carved bellys and backs where as some have flatter arches and im guessing here I bet some had ribs of different sizes also making them deeper or some with less width and thus more or less inside area . acoustic guitars of different sizes have different tones and so im thinking that would also apply to a violin as well. I did read that strad had a flatter arch than others and I read that amati s violins were wider that a strad with a deeper arch. Im just a beginner here asking questions hey , maybe ill build one from plywood lol might put them all to shame ya think lol

[ctviolin]

Well, I don't pretend to now what the TRUTH of the matter is on this one. I can only guess or surmise, much like anyone and everyone else. The more I work on violins and make them, the more I guess or the more my ideas change.

And I will admit that my opinion changes, either slightly or dramatically, fairly often.

So, all I can do is post the question, and my recent supposition about what the answer might be, but I REALLY ENJOY reading what other makers, non-makers, thinkers, and players think and have to say about the matter...

So thank you all for responding to this question. I am not going to question or argue any of the responses (at least yet...), because I believe that I understand them so far, and don't want to argue for no good reason. I'm thinking I will go thru all of the posts again, a time or two very closely.

Some very interesting things were written down here.
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[Michael Darnton]

As actonern says, if you study Cremonese violins you will see that the whole thing is a drafting exercise from one end to the other, made almost entirely of sections of circles. The circles are so clearly there that it has allowed people to develop plans for drawing your own accurate outlines. What I would ask skeptics about arching is if the whole violin is a design exercise, why would the designer suddenly get to one single aspect, the arching, and say "Just wing it?" He wouldn't of course.

As Ernie points, out the inside is a whole different matter. One of the thing that emerges from looking at graduations is that they definitely had an overall plan, but neither the inclination nor the ability to execute it to 1/10mm as we can today with modern measuring tools. That is one of the major differences (mistakes) that modern makers who believe they are copying old violins make.
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[Janito]

The following assumption is flawed:

Winging it (with 3 hours of 'experience') = Winging it (with 3 generations of 'knowledge')