Our Fine Violin Experimets
Nowadays musicians everywhere and always are alike – they want more sound from their instrument.
Strange start
Once a violinist tried our violin and decided it was quite silent. He also tried a factory made violin and decided it sounded louder, and was therefore better.
Later we repeated the same experiment with the same violins in a big concert hall. Result was just opposite: the well tuned violin was audible in every corner of a hall while it was difficult to hear the factory made violin in some positions.
Not so strange proceeding
Later we (musicians and makers) performed the test with different violins in different halls. As a rule, results were similar – favourable for properly made and completely tuned violins.
Searching for answers
Having a scientific background, I tried to find out answers for the phenomenon we experienced. It is not so complicated to understand why a violin with inadequately tuned plates sounds more loudly at small distances only. Violin with untuned plates tends to vibrate at lots of different harmonics (overtones) at the same time, while well tuned plates ensure the violin vibrates at fewer, but more powerful, so most probably more audible harmonics.
Confirmations
My assumption was confirmed in a laboratory. We listened for a sinusoidal and triangle signal of the same intensity. Triangle signal always sounds louder, more aggressively etc. But this signal consists of lots of harmonics while sinusoidal signal – just one (major) harmonic.
Finally, some additional thoughts.