
Power efficiency in the violin - SandersAK
https://newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/violin-acoustic-power-0210
======
peter_l_downs
I was lucky enough to live next to a master violin maker, Hiroshi Izuka, for
most of my childhood. His violins are worth 10s of thousands of dollars at
minimum, and sound absolutely fantastic. It was always slightly amusing to see
his in-progress violins out to dry on a clothesline with little plastic
umbrellas over them to protect them from bird poop and whatnot. Hard to find
any pictures online and neither he nor I live where we used to but I did find
this picture [0] of him working on what looks to be some sort of viola. He and
his apprentice were constantly trying slightly different shapes and testing
them seemingly by ear. I'll have to try to get in touch and see what he thinks
of this, I imagine his response would be something along the lines of "what
violin player cares about power efficiency?"

[0]
[http://www.orikam.com/img/iizuka.jpg](http://www.orikam.com/img/iizuka.jpg)

~~~
gus_massa
I'm not a violinist ... More power efficiency means that with the same effort
you get more volume, or you can make less effort to get the same volume.

If you do less effort to play the violin, you can probably improve another
parts of the performance, like make more accurate notes, or add additional
sound effects or ... we should ask a violinist.

~~~
analog31
I'm not a violinist, but a double bassist.

This is going to sound simplistic, if not crass, but a very good first
approximation is that more efficiency means the instrument is louder, and
louder is better. There is no substitute for volume. You're paid to be heard.
You _will_ use the full capabilities of your instrument. And deep down we're
not all that different from rockers. Loud is fun.

Now, other qualities matter too, of course. For a fine violin, I would say
that volume is not the point, but the starting point. On top of that, you also
need to have good tone quality and whatever else. And the volume that you can
achieve in a musical fashion depends on your physical approach to the
instrument, along with your bow. I own two bows, and one is noticeably louder
than the other.

The historical evolution of instruments has involved a steady increase in
volume, not just within families such as the violin, but in the size of
ensembles and the choice of instrumentation.

------
austinl
This reminds me of a double-blind study where professional violin players were
asked to select a Strad out of six violins that they played while wearing dark
goggles. Only three out of seventeen were able to do it.

When asked which violin was their favorite:

"[T]he only statistically obvious trend in the choices was that one of the
Stradivarius violins was the least favorite, and one of the modern instruments
was slightly favored."

So while there were some brilliant violins produced at the time – certainly an
accomplishment based on the resources available – we can also make some pretty
good ones today.

[http://www.npr.org/blogs/deceptivecadence/2012/01/02/1444828...](http://www.npr.org/blogs/deceptivecadence/2012/01/02/144482863/double-
blind-violin-test-can-you-pick-the-strad)

~~~
pazimzadeh
Because the violinists were only allowed to try the violins for one minute,
that study has the same flaw that the Pepsi Challenge had in 1975:

"In his book, Blink, author Malcolm Gladwell presents evidence that suggests
Pepsi's success over Coca-Cola in the "Pepsi Challenge" is a result of the
flawed nature of the "sip test" method. His research shows that tasters will
generally prefer the sweeter of two beverages based on a single sip, even if
they prefer a less sweet beverage over the course of an entire can."

In other words, a saturated sound could initially be more attractive but not
as good for an actual concert.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pepsi_Challenge#Criticism](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pepsi_Challenge#Criticism)

But I'm repeating myself
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7550378](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7550378)

~~~
necubi
As a violinist, this is exactly right. Violins are not standardized, and are
certainly not interchangeable. Everything from the dimensions of the body and
fingerboard to the exact locations of the "sweet spots" where the instrument
will respond most fully will differ. It takes weeks or months to really learn
to play a particular instrument, and a test that only gives players a minute
will not reflect how well the instrument can sound in the hands of an
experienced player.

Another issue is that the instrument will sound very different to the player
than to an audience, due to the way the sound is projected out of the ƒ holes.

That said, I think there is a growing consensus that the Cremona violins are a
bit overrated, and that modern makers are making wonderful instruments for a
tiny fraction of the price. When I bought my current instrument I ended up
with a modern American violin, which I preferred to old Italian and French
instruments that cost many times as much.

------
WalterBright
I had an interesting experience with violins about 20 years ago. I saw two
concerts with violin solos within a couple weeks. One was in the Seattle Opera
House, with no amplification whatsoever. The other was in the Paramount
Theater, a Yanni concert where the violist had a mike stuck on the violin and
we heard it amplified through the speakers lining the stage.

The former sounded far, far better. Since I presume Yanni could afford the
best amplification equipment, it was clear to me that no electronic
reproduction can match the real thing, not even remotely. Thus ended my being
an audiophile - it seemed pointless.

The Yanni speakers also had a perceptible background hiss. Very disappointing.

It left me with a question - why can't electronics reproduce the sound of a
violin?

~~~
jdietrich
>I presume Yanni could afford the best amplification equipment

Being able to afford good amplification and having the technical expertise to
implement it correctly are very different things. Audio engineering is a fine
art, but most musicians know very little about it. They face the same sort of
hiring problem as non-technical managers in our industry - they don't know
enough to spot the difference between a bullshitter and a bona fide expert.
Often musicians rely on house engineers in live venues, or the recording
engineers and producers chosen by their label.

The best audio engineers go completely un-noticed, like the best sysadmins.
There's nothing to draw your attention to the technology, because it is
implemented flawlessly. A great live amplification setup has no noise or
distortion, the instruments are all perfectly balanced and placed within the
soundstage, and the amplification system works in sympathy with the natural
acoustics of the room.

~~~
WalterBright
Yanni is a professional musician who did music all day every day. I'm a lay
person and I could hear it. I find it hard to accept that he couldn't tell the
difference between excellent and inferior sound reproduction, and wouldn't
demand the former.

He was at the height of his fame and so had a reputation to uphold and the
resources to do it.

------
melloclello
> But were the design changes intentional? To answer this question, the
> researchers worked the measurements from hundreds of Cremonese-era violins
> into an evolutionary model, and found that any change in design could
> reasonably be explained by natural mutation — or, in this case,
> craftsmanship error.

I want to see them build and run that evolutionary model and generate some
mutant future instruments.

------
gtani
this was kind of interesting, but possibly misguided. I think their goal is to
somewhat increase response and projection while keeping the tonal character of
the instruments. Otherwise, they could just put higher bridges and replace the
Pirazzis and Jargars (strings) with, say, higher gauge steelcore Preludes, the
idea being to increase string tension and breakover angle at the bridge to
increase downward force at the bridge. Likewise, heavier bow, more hairs, and
make sure the shoulder rest is not damping the back plate at all. But except
for the last, these will markedly change the attack and tone, or the heavier
bow will throw off the players' technique. Also i think the Russian right hand
technique lends itself to more volume but more laborious bow recoveries. I'll
have to look at Galamian's book about that [2]

If anybody's interested, you can try to understand Strobel's userful
measurements [1]. for my student violin and viola I more or less gave up, and
just defer to my luthier's bridge and soundpost intuition.

_____________

finally, there's the ergonomic viola with substantially larger top and back
plates, for greater projection[3]. i don't think i've ever seen one played.
String players are a conservative lot.

[1] [http://www.amazon.com/Useful-Measurements-Violin-Makers-
Refe...](http://www.amazon.com/Useful-Measurements-Violin-Makers-
Reference/dp/0962067326)

[2] [http://www.sharmusic.com/Sheet-
Music/Violin/Etudes-47-Studie...](http://www.sharmusic.com/Sheet-
Music/Violin/Etudes-47-Studies/Galamian-Neumann---Contemporary-Violin-
Technique-Book-1---Galaxy-Edition.axd)

[3] [http://www.rivinus-instruments.com/Pellegrina.htm](http://www.rivinus-
instruments.com/Pellegrina.htm)

------
analog31
An amusing factoid is that most of the Cremonese Master violins in concert use
have been substantially reworked since they were made. As I understand it,
they now have longer necks, shorter ribs, and steel or nylon cored strings. In
addition, bow design has changed pretty dramatically since that time.

Stradivarius could not have known how his fiddles would sound today.

~~~
necubi
Yes, modern violins differ in various ways from baroque ones, and most of the
surviving instruments from that era were "updated." The key differences
include the length of the neck, which was shorter as players didn't use as
much of the range of the violin. The bridge was flatter, which made chords
easier to play. And the bass bar was generally shorter, although I'm not sure
what the sonic implications of that are. And possibly most important, the bows
were completely different. Modern bows have a screw mechanism that keeps the
tension of the hair. Before that was invented (mid 19th c.) players would keep
the tension with their hand.

As for strings, modern players mostly use strings made of synthetic cores
wrapped in metal. The goal is to get as close to the sound of gut as possible
without all of the hassle real gut entails (expense, tempermentality, short
lifespan, long break-in periods).

That said, there is a growing movement of "historical informed performance,"
which is the idea that we should be playing period music on period
instruments, instead of our modernized versions.

------
SandersAK
Tl;dr: Luthiers and violin makers brute forced fluid dynamic discoveries with
knives and an inability to perfectly reproduce their wares.

~~~
analogwzrd
Exactly. I've been re-reading Nassim Taleb's Antifragile, and the first thing
I picked up on in the article was how they kept saying that there was no way
the slight improvements were intentionally designed. So what?

Seems to be another good example of innovation occurring through trial/error
and tinkering, as opposed to discovering the theory in a lab and then
implementing it.

