Worlds greatest Stradivarius player.
String theory ping.
bmflr
One of the old stains used on Maple is nitric acid, it carbonizes the sugar in the wood and brings out the grain. It was, and is, used on rifle stocks, no reason it wasn’t used on violins.
Reminds me of a classic Texas A&M "Aggie" joke.
A farmer had chickens that were dying of a mysterious ailment. They would get noticeably sick, then die in about 3 days.
He decided to get a chicken in the early stages of the disease and send it to Texas A&M for a diagnosis. He found such a chicken, broke it's neck, and shipped it to the veterinary dept. at A&M with a note asking "What it killing my chickens?"
After several weeks, he received his response: "Your chicken died of a broken neck."
If I remember correctly, some thought that wonderful tone of the instruments was due in part to the fact that the wood, after being felled, had lay in spring fed rivers and large bodies of water for extended periods of time, due to the fact that it was easier to store the lumber there than on land where insects were more of a problem. That time in the possibly “polluted waters” may be the source of some of the chemicals found in the wood.
bump
Give me Alison Krauss on any make of Violin.
Maybe this sort of research will have some impact on the guitar industry, which is suffering from the extinction of Brazilian rosewood.
No mention of the Maunder Minimum & it’s supposed affect on wood grain? Hmmm?
ping
I’ve always wondered about this. Do the Stradivarius and Guarneri violins really produce better sound than what the best instument makers can manufacture today, or is it something that people accept as fact because everyone says it’s true, so it must be true? If they blindfolded a panel of classical music afficianados, and put them in a room with virtuoso violinists, I wonder if they would be able to pick out the Stradivarius violins from the other high quality violins. It’s human nature to get taken in by hype, so that’s why I’m wondering if it’s true in this situation too. Anyone who knows much about the Stradivarius violins, I’d be interested to know your opinion.
Until this guy has actually *produced* a violin that sounds like a Stradivarius, he probably shouldn’t claim he’s discovered the secret.
Quite interesting
So one day we’ll be able to buy “Stradivarius-in-a-Bottle” at Walmart for .99 cents. That’ll knock the hell out of those 5 million dollar fiddles, won’t it!
Worlds greatest Stradivarius player.
Dang it, another one?
This must be the 283,103rd authoritative explanation!
*yawn*
He offered no reason for the correlation or why the chemicals discovered changed sound emanating from the instrument