
Why Violins Have F-Holes - signa11
http://www.openculture.com/2016/01/why-violins-have-f-holes-the-science-history-of-a-remarkable-renaissance-design.html
======
beat
This article is fundamentally wrong.

The holes in acoustic string instruments are not there to "allow sound to
escape". Sound radiates in all directions from the surface of the instrument,
although the frequency balance may change from point to point. Consider drums,
for example. A drum may be completely sealed, yet still work and still make
sound.

The purpose of soundholes is _tuning the resonant frequency_ of the acoustic
chamber. Google Helmholtz resonators for the theory and math if you like. The
area and depth of the port alters the resonant frequency, which is largely a
function of volume.

Acoustic guitars usually have large, circular holes. When recording acoustic
guitars, you should never point the microphone at the soundhole! You'll get a
dull, woofy, severely unbalanced sound. There are many mic techniques to deal
with the frequency issues, but the most common is a microphone along the neck,
aimed backward at the neck/body joint. That wouldn't work if the sound just
escaped from the soundhole, as the article implies.

~~~
TheSoftwareGuy
> A drum may be completely sealed, yet still work and still make sound

although I am not sure about the rest of your comment, this is not true, for
the most part. Most drums will have some hole in them (usually either
somewhere on the side or the entir bottom) to let air go in and aout of it as
the drum heads resonate. of course they would still make sound with out these
holes, it changes the sound quite drastically :)

~~~
beat
Yep - I was exaggerating to make a point a bit. Although there are folk drums
that are totally sealed (African talking drums, for example), the drum kit
toms and snare that most people think of as "drums" are vented. It's not
really the same as a tuned resonator like a violin, though. The vent is just
there to ease pressure and keep the heads from choking on the attack.

Still, it gets across the idea that sound doesn't come out of the hole, but
rather radiates from the entire instrument.

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jacquesm
The only comment there makes a very good point, the c shape has a 'tab' of
wood and if that runs along the grain of the top then it can easily break off,
the f shape does not have that property. So maybe what started out as a
mechanical improvement actually turned out to work better because the
vibrations are divided more evenly to the sides of the hole.

~~~
jerf
That's one of the characteristics of evolution of any sort... things don't
really happen for this reason or that reason, they happen because of all the
reasons all together sort of jostling around and interacting with each other
and the solutions and the problems created by those solutions and so on. Even
when on occasion one particular change can be pinned to a particular reason,
that's the exception rather than the rule and it still is a participant in the
jostling.

(This is elaboration on the point, not disagreement.)

~~~
CWuestefeld
I saw on TV last night a throw-away line from a teacher in a drama [1] about
"survival of the fittest", and how only the strongest genes survive. I just
cringed.

I realize that this is how people conventionally think about it, and on the
surface it's only subtly different from the real explanation, but the result
is that it makes you think about the evolutionary process in a fundamentally
incorrect way.

I think this is a big part of why people fail to understand how emergent
systems pop up all over the place. It leads to the mistaken idea that, for
example, being able to design a new economy is just an engineering problem,
and we can just paste together what seems to work with our own bright ideas,
and get something functional out the other end.

[1] Freaks and Geeks

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Isn't the subtle difference only hanging on the 'survival' word? The best
suited genes for the situation get _expressed_. The fact that other genes are
lurking around waiting for their opportunity, doesn't deny the point of the
dialog.

~~~
pas
Well, that too, but the most important thing is the cost to carry a particular
adaptation/mutation. If it's low enough, then it won't get thrown out by the
pressure of natural selection. If it's beneficial, then it'll get selected for
(so it'll spread in the population). That's one way how seemingly
uninteresting adaptations have spread, they got lucky and coincided with a
useful mutation.

So evolution is an optimization process. On a constantly changing landscape.

~~~
CWuestefeld
Also that the fitness function applies to the system as a whole. So a trait
that's just amazing at something, but carries a large cost, may not be able to
survive. I guess that's kinda what you said, just phrased differently.

And this is getting away from the central point, but there's also much debate
(at least at the level I'm reading; maybe it's solved by now for those in the
field) about how traits can support a community at the expense of the
individual - like with old humans losing the ability to procreate.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Ok I've always wondered if maybe our old-age feebleness was adaptive! It means
the old folks sit around the fire with the young folks, and teach. Once social
groups began, that could really boost a community at the cost of a declining
agility in old age.

~~~
jacquesm
Feebleness in old age is simply run down machinery, otherwise there would _be_
no old age, we'd feel the same all our lives long until we died of some kind
of accident or ritual murder of those that outlived their welcome.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
True. Yet other mammals have different clocks; other creatures seem to have no
clock at all. So our clock is set by genetics. Why at this rate? That's the
idea I was getting at.

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jabv
I studied cello performance at my university and delved into the world of
instrument design when searching for my current cello with its low-five-digit
price tag. It is a pretty cool blend of art and science.

Folks on HN might like to check out the work of Joseph Curtin, a MacArthur
grant recipient from my hometown. He publishes acoustic research and makes
world-class instruments (i.e. mid-to-high five-digit prices).
[http://josephcurtinstudios.com/](http://josephcurtinstudios.com/)

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jhallenworld
Well can we simulate a violin? If so, it seems we could run an optimization
algorithm (genetic algorithm, simulated annealing, etc.) to see if the
evolution could be continued. Analogous to machine evolved antenna designs
(where NEC is the simulator).

It's interesting that pre-electronic instrument design was pretty much all
about increasing loudness.

~~~
analog31
I play double bass, and in Chuck Traeger's book on bass repair, he is pretty
blunt: "You get paid to be heard." Loudness is definitely a quality factor
with a direct influence on price.

Instruments with a sweet tone quality, but lacking in volume, are a tough
sell, and will often be modified to bring out more sound. With the exception
of a few museum pieces, the Strads have all been modified over the years to
make them louder, with longer necks and shorter ribs.

I suspect the cello edged out the viola da gamba because of volume.

~~~
_nato_
'Just one minor gripe: period instruments -- Strads/Amatis -- that have been
upmod'ed, have only been modified with regard to the pitch/angle of the neck.
The fingerboard is longer to facilitate the more demanding repertoire, but the
neck is certainly the same length. The ribs are not shortened nor elongated in
modernizing a period instrument.

~~~
analog31
Aha. Thanks for those notes.

------
analog31
There's one more factor to consider: The f-hole determines the shape of the
belly itself, and the division of the belly into smaller sections by the
bridge, soundpost, and bassbar, is thought to contribute to the tone of the
instrument.

No major piece of a violin serves just one purpose, and all of the pieces
interact. What a glorious mess.

~~~
Outdoorsman
>No major piece of a violin serves just one purpose, and all of the pieces
interact.<

Precisely...

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scarecrowbob
I was reading a long series of articles by a maker of fine violins, and he
pointed out that what we are looking at is not a pair of holes, but the two
edges of a single resonating area on an instrument which has been decoupled
from the instrument on two sides.

I found that a very helpful when understanding the design of these
instruments.

------
test1235
I wonder why guitars don't have f-holes as well?

~~~
oDot
The Gibson ES-335 has f-holes. These guitars were famously used by BB King,
his own named Lucille.

When Gibson made a signature model he asked to remove the f-holes to reduce
feedback:

> The most noticeable differences between the Lucille and the Gibson ES-355TD-
> SV on which it is based are the "Lucille" script on the headstock, the maple
> neck, and the lack of F-holes on the top. King requested that, to reduce
> feedback, there be no F-holes.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucille_%28guitar%29](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucille_%28guitar%29)

There's a very good song by him talking about Lucille:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Y8QxOjuYHg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Y8QxOjuYHg)

~~~
beat
The ES335 is a "semi-hollow", with a solid block of wood running from the neck
to the bridge.

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baxter001
Seems a touch to aesthetically pleasing to be truly optimal, given they have a
partial fitness function in terms of radiated power I wonder what a GA would
come up with.

~~~
jacquesm
There's your chance to out-run Stradivarius. The thing you're going to have to
deal with next is how your improvement weighs in against playing an instrument
for a few hundred years. You might be able to work this out by comparing a
brand new regular violin with your improved model in a series of double blind
tests for preference and then do the same thing every couple of years
afterwards to see if there is a diverging trend.

One possible problem here is that the appreciation for classical music is not
exactly on the rise and really high quality violins have limited applicability
elsewhere. It's a matter of time before there will be more quality violins
than violinists (and most of them will live in China where there is a fairly
large continent of classical performers, and their numbers are actually on the
rise).

------
kelvin0
I always thought violin craftsmen simply liked math and integration :)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methods_of_contour_integration](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methods_of_contour_integration)

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kazinator
Also imitated on the classic Gibson ES-335 ("Electro Spanish") semi-hollow-
body electric guitar. (In all likelihood just for styling.)

~~~
Roodgorf
Aren't f-holes a common style choice for electric hollow-bodies in general?
Maybe they're all just copying Gibson's example as well, but I can't remember
the last time I saw one that had any other shaped sound holes.

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oxryly1
Without reading the article: "because violins sound better with f-holes than
without."

I'm fun at parties.

------
larrym
Totally on the ball.

