I have a short attention span, so I find the subject's endeavor both admirable and wholly unrelatable. I can relate to two things.
My parents weren't particularly wealthy. I remember as a kid when getting new shoes, I'd sleep with them next to me on the pillow. I feel fortunate to live in slightly greater abundance.
Second thing is about goal realization. About 12 years ago a photo of the Japanese coastline popped up in Reddit. I found it so striking that I made it a goal to visit, and I also set it as the wallpaper for my work computer. I've set goals for myself in the past, some of them a lot harder than this. However, the feeling of logging into the computer of a soul-deadening job, seeing the wallpaper every day, and then, after several years, finally visiting the place is unreal. It's the closest I've had to an out of body experience.
I so relate to that out of body experience. My story is different though -- 10 years ago, I was driving along the SF-LA scenic route (I forget its name). I'd rarely driven in US at that time and was brand new to the country. Suddenly I felt like I knew the route. I'd seen these underpasses before, surely? It was so surreal. I could even predict some road feature that was going to show up next.
Turns out the game Roadrash that I played as a kid had that route :)
Write a book about surviving a soul-deadening job. We people on HN live on dream farms where roses are red and violets are blue, and the next wealth point is just an IPO in queue.
It's interesting they talk more about visual embellishments (aged paper, vintage looking finish) than acoustic properties. What is it about Stradivari or other hand made instruments that make them so coveted, are desirable sonic characteristics measurable and traceable to manufacturing techniques? Or is it all just halo effect?
I suspect the focus on the visuals has more to do with the journalist's perspective as a layperson than the focus of the luthiers.
My wife is a professional cellist and cello teacher, and she absolutely can tell the difference between a handmade instrument and a factory-made one. I've watched her appraise dozens of student cellos, and even though I can't hear the difference myself, I know how good an instrument is from the look on her face a few seconds into playing it. She never looks at the label or pays attention to the appearance of the body, the sound is the only thing that sets the good instruments apart for her.
As I understand it, the difference between a crafted instrument and a factory one lies in the way the creator adapts (or doesn't) to the natural grain of the wood. A handmade instrument by an expert can't be beaten by a factory process because each piece of wood resonates differently and those differences must be accounted for to get a good sound.
Indeed. I've heard that certain acoustic guitar makers are starting do certain types of scientific analyses of the wood they buy for the guitar body to ascertain how it will behave, I wonder if there is any work being done in the violin community to quantify the behavior of their instruments. If anyone knows of an equivalent of Zollner's Physics of the Electric Guitar[0] for violins please share!
They are like an 18th century Japanese katana. The masters were unparalleled at creating revered quality. They would be my first choice in collecting. Tho, if my life depended on it, I'd take a blade crafted with modern technology.
There's actually lots of research on that topic, if you search for "Stradivarius blind listening" on Google Scholar you'll find some. Can't recommend a specific article unfortunately, but it's an interesting topic. My current understanding is that there is no perceptual difference that has been proven, and even later models are blindly judged to be better.
> What is it about Stradivari or other hand made instruments that make them so coveted, are desirable sonic characteristics measurable and traceable to manufacturing techniques? Or is it all just halo effect?
It 90% halo effect.
However, the wood, in particular, for the Stradivarii came from forests that had suffered droughts and was quite a bit denser than expected for that species.
That having been said, wood degrades. It doesn't matter if you put magic varnish on it or not. Wood ages nicely in instruments for about 10 years. Then it's good for about 50 years. After 50 it starts noticably degrading, and the more heavily used the more it degrades.
You will note that the Strads are long past the point that the wood is "good". People who play violins can tell. However, nobody involved in a "blind" test is going to slag violins that might be Strads--that would be bad for their reputation.
Ironically, those Strads aren't completely original, either. They have been repaired to various degrees over the years, given more modern bridges, etc. So, we get a Ship of Theseus argument.
As for modern handmade violins, the top ones are easily as good or even better than Strads. Strads may have been "magic" in the 1700s and 1800s, but we have really good control of things, better measurement, better analysis, better materials, etc. in the modern era.
Luthierie in the 2000s is still art, but it's got a lot of science backing it up nowadays.
We can argue whether artificial aging an instrument is a bad thing or not.
But I hope we can all agree that such kind of passion and drive in a young person is a very nice thing to see. Especially now when many kids are only interested in quick tik tok style of entertainment and rarely show an urge to do something hard on their own. Or I'm just looking with middle aged eyes and it was always a rare thing for a kid to be really passionate about something.
I was surprised to find no mention whatsoever about the tonal qualities of her instruments. The antiquing process may appeal to her target buyer; but most serious contemporary luthiers don’t engage in the practice. The instruments she’s making are not cheap; but they are by no means expensive in the world of bowed instruments. But an article about violin-making that doesn’t once touch on the tonal outcome is strange indeed.
Indeed, I'm a double bassist, and belong to a family of string players. I don't want an antiqued instrument. I'll age it myself. Most of the deliberately antiqued instruments I've handled were student models, and I wonder if it makes it easier to hide minor defects in workmanship. In those cases, we didn't outright reject an instrument for being antiqued, since there are only so many things you can be particular about before the supply of acceptable instruments dries up. We were much more concerned with sound. When my kids moved up to professional grade instruments, like you say, no more antiquing.
Some proponents of artificial aging claim that it can improve the tone or resonance of an instrument over time, simulating the effects of natural aging on wood and other materials.
“Oh cool violin! Looks like it has a lot of history?”
“Nah it was actually made in 2022 and that’s a made up name on a fake label lol”
Sorry if I come across as ignorant but scratching something with pasta and using yellowed book pages to give it an artificially aged look is dishonest, especially for a $18k object made by a skilled artisan. I’m sure it looks and plays great in its mint form.
This part also rubbed me the wrong way. Synthetic aging techniques kill the appeal of the craft of creating a truly genuine, exquisite instrument.
It seems like what a cheap knock off manufacturer would do.. imagine if McLaren did this, what, just scuffing up the door handle with an old key. Outlandish and backwards, haha.
Or perhaps our repulsion reveals how unrefined and plebeish our opinions are on this topic, which is still kind of hilarious but also unfortunate, because it means a group of folks has effectively settled on preferring their McLaren with the intentional scratches.
This kind of artificial aging is an official thing in electric guitar market - typically called road worn. And it's done by Fender or Gibson, not just some obscure brands. There are also signature lines which are more ot less exact copies of guitars played by famuous musicians. For instance you can buy Malcolm Young Gretsch with empty pickup sockets, just like how Malcolm modified his own guitar.
So some people love to have an instrument that looks like it's not new, even if it is.
Instinctively I find this absurd too. I always thought it was funny that, at least at the level of student instruments, the more you spend, the more beaten-up your new instrument looks. Basic ones have an even spray varnish (which I generally quite like). My slightly better* Chinese factory instrument is antiqued to the extent of having a more worn-looking patch where the hand rests when playing in higher positions, as if to suggest decades of performance as a soloist. It's nonsense.
But plainly people do like this and makers do make it. See e.g. the instruments at https://www.myluthier.co/category/violins (I can't afford to shop there, I just picked it because they have pretty preview images) which stand as quite good evidence against any suggestion that "reputable luthiers would never". Yes at some point you just have to make a living, but there's enough skill put into it to suggest there might be something more artistically interesting going on as well. The results are certainly quite personal.
There are practical arguments for antiquing. It's kind of handy when you're playing in an ensemble: from a distance my cello looks basically the same as the others around me in the orchestra even though some of them are a century older and genuinely quite harshly used. And you never have the pain of getting the first obvious scratch or chip in a pristine instrument.
Curiously this doesn't seem to be a very new practice either - I think even 150 years ago, new instruments were being turned out designed to look like much older ones.
* Sounds and plays better, not just cost a bit more. I didn't choose it for the antiquing!
Yep, it's dishonest. But it looks good... It meets visual expectations... And I'm sure it helps the product off the shelf. Write ups in the NYT are quite useful too!
And I thought it was all about sound. She probably has a tiktok account too!
Yeah sounded weird to me as well, but I’m guessing in the violin market it’s the expected look and she will have a hard time selling to consumers if she doesn’t.
I came here to post the same, a self aware artisan wouldn't spend extra time making it look older than it is. that makes me question every other design choice as well, was it thought through at all or was it just simply repeating what was learned...
Do any string instrument players here have opinions about the differences between wooden and carbon fiber violins, violas, cellos, etc.? I’ve watched some YouTube videos comparing them, and I can’t hear the difference. I imagine the sound and response might seem very different, though, to the performer.
They're OK enough as a travel instrument, but they don't sound particularly great because no manufacturer has taken composite technologies seriously. They're using archaic manufacturing methods (wet layup and vacuum bag) that produces a composite with too much resin - more plastic than carbon. They cannot properly control the acoustic properties of the material, because they can't control the material period.
If you see the a high-gloss finish and a characteristic woven pattern, you're looking at a showpiece rather than a serious instrument. That's not what a high-performance composite looks like - you should expect to see the satin finish and linear "grain" of unidirectional pre-preg. I'm yet to see that on any musical instrument.
Passion is wonderful; I'd just like to point out a 2nd or 3rd order effect: often a startup starts up and everybody is passionate, but with growth some new hires are less passionate than others. The situation to avoid is having an ipo where very passionate people discover more mercenary people had much higher option allocations.
pretty interesting how she found such an esoteric craft as her passion at such a young age. I love reading stories about people who are obsessed with their craft.
[+] [-] nf3|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] laborcontract|1 year ago|reply
My parents weren't particularly wealthy. I remember as a kid when getting new shoes, I'd sleep with them next to me on the pillow. I feel fortunate to live in slightly greater abundance.
Second thing is about goal realization. About 12 years ago a photo of the Japanese coastline popped up in Reddit. I found it so striking that I made it a goal to visit, and I also set it as the wallpaper for my work computer. I've set goals for myself in the past, some of them a lot harder than this. However, the feeling of logging into the computer of a soul-deadening job, seeing the wallpaper every day, and then, after several years, finally visiting the place is unreal. It's the closest I've had to an out of body experience.
[+] [-] hzay|1 year ago|reply
Turns out the game Roadrash that I played as a kid had that route :)
[+] [-] nashashmi|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] ericye16|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] RaVeN_ShP|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] m3kw9|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] MailleQuiMaille|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] kome|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] sooheon|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] lolinder|1 year ago|reply
My wife is a professional cellist and cello teacher, and she absolutely can tell the difference between a handmade instrument and a factory-made one. I've watched her appraise dozens of student cellos, and even though I can't hear the difference myself, I know how good an instrument is from the look on her face a few seconds into playing it. She never looks at the label or pays attention to the appearance of the body, the sound is the only thing that sets the good instruments apart for her.
As I understand it, the difference between a crafted instrument and a factory one lies in the way the creator adapts (or doesn't) to the natural grain of the wood. A handmade instrument by an expert can't be beaten by a factory process because each piece of wood resonates differently and those differences must be accounted for to get a good sound.
[+] [-] ramenbytes|1 year ago|reply
[0] https://gitec-forum-eng.de/the-book/
[+] [-] UberFly|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] radarsat1|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] bsder|1 year ago|reply
It 90% halo effect.
However, the wood, in particular, for the Stradivarii came from forests that had suffered droughts and was quite a bit denser than expected for that species.
That having been said, wood degrades. It doesn't matter if you put magic varnish on it or not. Wood ages nicely in instruments for about 10 years. Then it's good for about 50 years. After 50 it starts noticably degrading, and the more heavily used the more it degrades.
You will note that the Strads are long past the point that the wood is "good". People who play violins can tell. However, nobody involved in a "blind" test is going to slag violins that might be Strads--that would be bad for their reputation.
Ironically, those Strads aren't completely original, either. They have been repaired to various degrees over the years, given more modern bridges, etc. So, we get a Ship of Theseus argument.
As for modern handmade violins, the top ones are easily as good or even better than Strads. Strads may have been "magic" in the 1700s and 1800s, but we have really good control of things, better measurement, better analysis, better materials, etc. in the modern era.
Luthierie in the 2000s is still art, but it's got a lot of science backing it up nowadays.
[+] [-] phkahler|1 year ago|reply
>> at the suggestion of a mentor, she created an artist’s name, Anna Arietti, to better fit in with Italian culture.
>> To make her label, An stamps her ink signature onto a small piece of paper — a browned page from a secondhand book, giving the impression of age.
I'm sure there is a lot of great craftsmanship in one of these, but some aspects are not entirely authentic.
[+] [-] itzprime|1 year ago|reply
Also the classical world is super biased in their ways when it comes to equipment
[+] [-] grujicd|1 year ago|reply
But I hope we can all agree that such kind of passion and drive in a young person is a very nice thing to see. Especially now when many kids are only interested in quick tik tok style of entertainment and rarely show an urge to do something hard on their own. Or I'm just looking with middle aged eyes and it was always a rare thing for a kid to be really passionate about something.
[+] [-] kashunstva|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] analog31|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] Xeyz0r|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] ultimoo|1 year ago|reply
“Nah it was actually made in 2022 and that’s a made up name on a fake label lol”
Sorry if I come across as ignorant but scratching something with pasta and using yellowed book pages to give it an artificially aged look is dishonest, especially for a $18k object made by a skilled artisan. I’m sure it looks and plays great in its mint form.
[+] [-] metadat|1 year ago|reply
It seems like what a cheap knock off manufacturer would do.. imagine if McLaren did this, what, just scuffing up the door handle with an old key. Outlandish and backwards, haha.
Or perhaps our repulsion reveals how unrefined and plebeish our opinions are on this topic, which is still kind of hilarious but also unfortunate, because it means a group of folks has effectively settled on preferring their McLaren with the intentional scratches.
[+] [-] johnloeber|1 year ago|reply
That's a design choice, and design choices that appeal to tradition are everywhere, even in software.
[+] [-] vintermann|1 year ago|reply
It's common to do various things to make instruments look older than they are, but it's controversial.
[+] [-] grujicd|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] darkwater|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] cannam|1 year ago|reply
Instinctively I find this absurd too. I always thought it was funny that, at least at the level of student instruments, the more you spend, the more beaten-up your new instrument looks. Basic ones have an even spray varnish (which I generally quite like). My slightly better* Chinese factory instrument is antiqued to the extent of having a more worn-looking patch where the hand rests when playing in higher positions, as if to suggest decades of performance as a soloist. It's nonsense.
But plainly people do like this and makers do make it. See e.g. the instruments at https://www.myluthier.co/category/violins (I can't afford to shop there, I just picked it because they have pretty preview images) which stand as quite good evidence against any suggestion that "reputable luthiers would never". Yes at some point you just have to make a living, but there's enough skill put into it to suggest there might be something more artistically interesting going on as well. The results are certainly quite personal.
There are practical arguments for antiquing. It's kind of handy when you're playing in an ensemble: from a distance my cello looks basically the same as the others around me in the orchestra even though some of them are a century older and genuinely quite harshly used. And you never have the pain of getting the first obvious scratch or chip in a pristine instrument.
Curiously this doesn't seem to be a very new practice either - I think even 150 years ago, new instruments were being turned out designed to look like much older ones.
* Sounds and plays better, not just cost a bit more. I didn't choose it for the antiquing!
[+] [-] wilsonnb3|1 year ago|reply
Unless she is telling people it is old when it is actually new, it isn't dishonest. Its not different than any other cosmetic choice.
My bass guitar isn't actually made out of red wood, it is just covered in red paint because I like the way red stuff looks.
[+] [-] verisimi|1 year ago|reply
And I thought it was all about sound. She probably has a tiktok account too!
[+] [-] wouldbecouldbe|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] anorphirith|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] tkgally|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] jdietrich|1 year ago|reply
If you see the a high-gloss finish and a characteristic woven pattern, you're looking at a showpiece rather than a serious instrument. That's not what a high-performance composite looks like - you should expect to see the satin finish and linear "grain" of unidirectional pre-preg. I'm yet to see that on any musical instrument.
[+] [-] pkteison|1 year ago|reply
Building a classical guitar from scratch (with a pro luthier): https://youtu.be/qmDAIlEGO_Q?si=uLyMOGBMXEGMkIFt
Everything about the process is fascinating.
[+] [-] Xeyz0r|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] 48864w6ui|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] strikelaserclaw|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] siborg|1 year ago|reply
That's why people buy fusilli pasta.
[+] [-] eleveriven|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|1 year ago|reply
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