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Violin World


Complexity

Take a look:

“Chemistry, physics, geography, math … life presents many mysteries… Many things are fascinating, amusing, and enigmatic to ponder about. Many things remain unsolved… Often origins of things are unknown like man’s, the universe’s, or … a violin’s. The violin has remained a legend …”

— Quotes from an article ‘The Physics of Violins: Artistry Versus Physics’.

Legacy – zillions of opinions

Have you ever marveled at Leonardo da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa,” Claude Monet’s “Water Lilies” or Pablo Picasso’s “Guernica?” Then you know the excitement these masterworks stir in the heart of art lovers.

In the music industry, precious old violins draw similar admiration. They are coveted treasures, and the same buyers who compete for Van Goghs might also be found bidding on rare musical instruments.

Excerpt from article “Guest violinist brings rarity to isle concert” describes adequately cultural etc heritage of the violin family instruments.

Old or new? Immortal topic

It must be admitted that the Stradivarius does not suit all tastes. Paganini himself preferred to play an instrument by Stradivari’s rival, Giuseppe Guarneri del Gesu. There are those who contend that, tested blind-fold, a modern violin may sound as good.

But to this day … all attempts to duplicate the old fiddles of Cremona have failed. That is a vaguely comforting fact – like the inability of chemists to duplicate fine wine. But also a vaguely troubling one since, as Faber points out, the old violins eventually wear out. And it is far from clear how they can be replaced.

Those somewhat contradictory words arrive from a book “Five Violins, One Cello and a Genius” by Toby Faber.

But wait a minute! what musicians say?

“The sad point is that so many musicians can pay, say, 250,000 for a mediocre Italian instrument. That’s the downside of all this, because many people believe that only old instruments can have a soul and be great. The Strad I played before would have cost about 1.5 million. The Greiner (contemporary violin maker) cost 10,000. It’s not my sole purpose to destroy the violin market. Actually, what I would like would be for those people who, instead of buying a house, buy a mediocre Italian fiddle, to search around and make contact with a violin-maker. You’d be surprised what the results can be. And then you can have a house and a violin.”

- from interview with famous violin player Christian Tetzlaff.

What special about Stradivarius violin?

So you want to own a good violin. Simply? Or complicated? Who could advice?

Usually people, searching for answers, find even more questions. No doubt – good violin must sound well. Yeah . . .

Violin can be yellow, or brown, or even red, but it must sound well

What violin sound is good – Stradivarius or Guarneri style? Isn’t this question similar to another one: which colour – yellow or purple is better? Or: which car – Subaru or Mercedes? No doubt – answer remains strictly personal.

Small problems . . .? Big problems . . .

Answer to a question: Which violin sound is better? can be found in an article Ideal Violin Sound.

Again, some violin makers provided clever answer to a question:

“… I understand that it is subjective, but I am wondering what I should look for in an instrument in terms of tone. There must be some objective guidelines that can help me in selecting an instrument.”

in an article Ask the Experts. Their answer is comprehensive and helpful. It provides lots of useful guidelines.

Looking for a violin?

It really resembles a situation when you shopping in a big mall. You usually see lots of advertisments:

Probably at least one of these will provide you some useful hints.

Many faces of violin — Custom violin sound

Please follow a link to read more about different aspects of a custom violin.

Any problem can occur while playing violin – holding, fingering, bowing etc. Luckily, all those problems can be solved quite easily.

Being Violin makers, we are permanently meeting some major problems violin family instrument players experience. Among them:

OK, violin indeed must sound well. But what it really means???

The area of violin sound is so complicated, so multifaceted, so enigmatic… Why? You can find some key aspects in an somewhat technical, somewhat explanatory etc article Ideal Violin Sound.

Again, violin sound is multifaceted. So, some related articles may be useful:

Brief violin evolution history

Music companioned humans from when they evolved, so musical instruments did. Musical instruments continuously improved and around 1500 A.D. violin as we know it appeared. Anybody interested can read more about violin evolution.