
The World’s Best Violins Sing Like Humans - jesperht
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/violin-human-voice-study
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Meerax
This isn't particularly relevant to the article, but I'm a luthier (15 years
repairing and restoring violins and violas, and 28yrs as a player) and I
really love and appreciate the HN community for it's interest in things like
this. Thanks everyone!

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sporkologist
This article seems presumptuous without taking into account the Stradivarius
Double Blind Challenge.

[http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/05/million-dollar-
strads...](http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/05/million-dollar-strads-fall-
modern-violins-blind-sound-check)

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jarmitage
I played a concert with a violinist recently, where I was live coding audio
effects for each string independently via a quadraphonic pickup.

I was particularly struck by this effect when I pitch shifted certain strings
by certain amounts - the timbre took on a distinctly vocal quality. I think it
was when I shifted the A string up one octave.

~~~
toufka
Also, each violin also has particular "sweet-spots", where when you play them
it really does feel "whole" and voice-like for a particular note. A good
violin may have one such sweet spot (hopefully in a commonly used
key/register), while a great violin may have many such sweet spots for many
different notes and keys.

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gtycomb
It is not about the instrument alone but also who is playing it, and how,
certainly. Here is violinist Hilary Hahn playing Bach Partita No. 3 -- it is
emotionally moving, to the human ear. It represents so many years of her
training and performing.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VOkrddp6M8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VOkrddp6M8)

Her instrument is a Vuillaume, and this instrument was owned by Pagnini.
(Paganini had an unfortunate betting habit. He lost his favourite Stradivarius
in one of those betting bouts. Later, the French luthier Vuillaume built him
one just like his Stradivari. Paganini liked it as much as his lost
instrument).

~~~
mafm
I'm curious about how much of the tone is the instrument and how much is the
player.

I remember watching an Igor Oistrakh masterclass where he complained about the
sound a young violinist was making on her cheapish violin. He said "play it
like this" and then played the same note on his vastly more expensive
instrument. I think everybody in the room was thinking something along the
lines of 'I'd like to see him make that sound with the instrument she's
playing."

~~~
drb91
I can't speak to that particular situation, but you can get a great sound out
of affordable violins, and the biggest deciding factor by far will be the
skill of the player.

The biggest physical thing to stand out when learning is that you make
slightly more tinny sounds on smaller violins, and you don't typically hit a
full size violin until you hit puberty.

If I were to guess, his violin _does_ sound better, but the skill would make
the biggest difference in the two situations.

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gtycomb
Irvy Gitlis talking about his Stradivarius, 1713. Note his awe of the
instrument builder even though it is only a "piece of wood with a string
attached..." he says

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRxtDaMei8Q](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRxtDaMei8Q)

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madhadron
Having dug through the original PNAS article this is about, there's nothing
particularly interesting here. Different makers produced distinct instruments.
They neglect the other major schools of violin making, such as that based
around Steiner in Germany or the French makers, and show that they can find
some spectrograms of singers that look like the spectrograms of the different
instruments.

Historically this is uninteresting, as we have no reason to think that the
makers were consciously trying to imitate a particular kind of voice. It's not
interesting physics (and the physics of violin acoustics have been done about
to death). It's not interesting mathematics or statistics. And it has no
implications for violin making.

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arafa
In a history of music class I took, they casually suggested that all
instruments closest to the sound and expressiveness of a human voice were
among the most popular (see saxophones and guitars with tremolo). This seems
to be yet another example of that.

~~~
xster
Seems pretty hard to produce a tremolo effect with human voice. Did you
perhaps mean vibrato (which can be produced with a (mislabeled) tremolo bar on
a guitar)?

~~~
arafa
I was talking about the instruments, but yes vibrato would be one way that
would be mirrored in the human voice.

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neduma
Any samples and playlists?

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default-kramer
I always thought that Farewell from Crouching Tiger had an interesting vocal.
It was years before I realized that there is no vocal - it's an erhu.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Fr3Uqh_KZ0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Fr3Uqh_KZ0)

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z3t4
I had a childhood friend who was obsessed with bands like King Crimson and the
_Melotron_ (musical instrument), and when he got his first couple of salaries
he finally was able to buy one. We have lost contact, but I bet he's still
playing on his Melotron.

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geebee
Is it unusual that HN discusses violins so often? Seems like this comes up a
lot.

One common theme is that extremely expensive old violins aren't better than
modern, well crafted violins (these new violins are still expensive, but
measured in the tens of thousands, not millions).

While this doesn't surprise me, I do wonder if it misses (to some extent) the
point. My guess is that a mass produced, relatively inexpensive violin could
very well be as "good" as a more expensive, unique one. But one thing we know
about artisanal work is that it's expensive because it's unique and can't be
produced through mass production, not because it is strictly better.

I like violins, and play them, mainly early jazz, Irish, bluegrass. It's clear
to me that different people are looking for different things in a violin, and
that you may not get this from a mass produced instrument. It's not that the
more expensive one is _better_ in a blind test, it's that it produces a tone
that is hard to find in most instruments, and because it's fairly unique,
you'll only find it in an older instrument or a hand crafted one.

This article is interesting, in the idea that some violins are altos and some
are baritones. This ins't surprising, we know that violins (and other musical
instruments) excel in different registers, and that there are often trade offs
(volume, tone, brightness, richness).

Part of the problem, for me, is that I just don't get to play very many
violins. I don't feel ok about going to a high end violin store and playing
their instruments all afternoon.

But personally, I am on the lookout for something. One thing I really like
about Irish music is the airs - slower pieces with long, often open notes,
that often aren't played with vibrato (sometimes they can't be directly played
with vibrato, since there is extensive use of open strings).

I don't want to get into a big debate about whether vibrato "should" be used
in Irish airs on fiddle, cause my opinion is go ahead, if you like it. But to
me, there's something about the way a note can ring, almost like a bell, that
you can achieve when you draw the bow properly across the string at a
particular harmonic, but don't add any additional vibrato.

This article has me thinking there's probably an analogy to the human voice
here as well. Baritones, Altos, but there's definitely a style of singing
(common in cathedral choirs) that relies on a pinpoint "ring" rather than an
operatic vibrato.

This article makes me thing there probably are some styles of violin that
would excel at producing these notes. Downside, I don't have $10,000+ to
spend, and I doubt a high end shop would enjoy me running this experiment on
their inventory.

~~~
samatman
It's an important point, if you're interested in having an instrument of the
highest quality.

A modern vase in the Ming style can be of comparable or superior quality to a
genuine Ming of known provenance, and will of course be much less expensive.

No modern cello will ever bear a wound from Napoleon's spur. I hope most
people understand that rarity and history are valuable in and of themselves.

~~~
bilboa
I think most people understand that rarity and antiquity have an intrinsic
value to many people, including for violins. If someone said they value their
Stradivarius because it's a piece of history, I don't think there would be
much debate. What some people are skeptical of are the claims that antique
violins also have better acoustic and playing characteristics than violins
made by the best contemporary makers.

~~~
samatman
That sort of discourse is used to paper over some uncomfortable class
dynamics. There are more elite players than there used to be, but not by that
much, and playing (sometimes owning) a known instrument is an indicator of
lineage and favor.

~~~
bilboa
Agreed. I've read accounts from several elite players who were told they
wouldn't be taken as seriously if they played a contemporary instrument
compared to if they played a Strad or Guarneri, independent of their playing
ability.

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mettamage
I'd appreciate it if someone knows about YouTube videos where these types of
violins are used.

~~~
madhadron
It's easier to look up by player. Go to Wikipedia, get a list of the
instruments, look up the players over the last fifty years for the various
instruments, and look them up on YouTube.

But anything you think you hear from making this comparison is fooling
yourself. What you're hearing is the player. Heifitz famously got tired of
people raving about the tone of the Stradivarius he played and played a
concert on a student instrument.

