From: Amara Graps (amara@amara.com)
Date: Sat Aug 24 2002 - 08:50:54 MDT
Hi Extropes,
About a week and a half ago, I ran across a Scientific American article
titled: "Secrets of the Stradivarius: An Interview with Joseph Nagyvary"
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=000BD557-2293-1CFD-93F6809EC5880000
which is about a violin-maker and scientist named Joseph Nagyvary,
who has explored why the Stradivarius sounds the way that it sounds.
This violin might be the most well-known to come out of Cremona,
Italy, in the 17th and 18th centuries, however there was actually a
'family' of violin makers: the Guarnieris, along with the Amati and
Stradivari families, who brought the art of violin making to its
peak.
Joseph Nagyvary studied the environmental conditions at that time
and location and found several factors, the combination of which
might lead to why the violins from there and then are so special.
For the last 25 years he had tried out his ideas, making a few
hundred violins with different compositions, exploring the effect of
different chemicals on the sound.
One factor of the woodworm damage being almost nonexistent led to
his idea that the people in Cremona must have used a preservative,
which he says is likely the insecticide borax. Another material used
against mold from that region and time, are fruit gum sugars, which
drys to a stiff glassy material. Another material that he found
interesting from Cremona at that time was a crystal powder, which
originates nearby (the Venetian glass makers use(d) it).
So with the above materials present at that time for different
purposes, applied to those violins, which were soaked in water for
an unusually long time (making the wood porous), the violins emerge
with their particular sound.
-----------------------------------
Nagyvary's Challenge
Joseph Nagyvary's work fired up my curiosity. I loved the blending
of music and science and history and mystery, and so I decided to
take up the challenge to distinguish a Stradivarius from a Nagyvary
violin that was posed on this page of the SciAm article:
http://www.sciam.com/page.cfm?section=sidebar&articleID=000BD557-2293-1CFD-93F6809EC5880000
"Can You tell the Difference?"
"Here's a chance for listeners to judge for themselves which sounds
better, a genuine Stradivarius or a Nagyvary instrument. Each pair
of songs here is played by concert violinist Zina Schiff, one on her
1697 Stradivarius, one on a Nagyvary violin made in collaboration
with luthier Guang Yue Chen in 1991. The identification of the
violin used for each movement will eventually be revealed at
www.nagyvaryviolins.com."
The last (4 = 2 pairs of) music files had a piano accompanying the
violin, so I didn't use them. The two pieces I studied were these:
J.S. Bach: Sonata No. 1 Fugue
http://www.sciam.com/media/sound/BachSonataI_Fugue.mp3
J.S. Bach: Sonata No. 1 Adagio
http://www.sciam.com/media/sound/BachSonataI_Adagio.mp3
In summary for this challenge:
I had great difficulty with distinguishing the two pieces. I
increased the volume of the Adagio piece to try to overcome any
psycho-acoustic factors in my hearing because it is a much softer
and slower piece. In order to try to distinguish the two violins,
my process was the following:
1) I tried to follow the descriptive words of the experts
2) Listened to (two) other violin pieces played by Nigel Kennedy
on a Stradivarius (his previous violin to the Guarnieri he uses now)
3) Performed a wavelet analysis on the (four) violin samples
4) Performed a FFT on the (four) violin samples
If you wish to take up the challenge, I am curious if other
people can tell the difference. I couldn't with my ear, but
Nagyvary told me that one really needs to hear more than a
few sound samples to distinguish the two violins, so my
experience with just one pair of samples was not the best.
-------------------------------
A Couple Stories about Guarnieris
On the National Public Radio recently was stories about two
violinists and two Guarnieri violins. I was looking for sound
samples of Guarnieris to put through my wavelet analysis, and found
these. They are not clean enough samples for me to use, but I want
to tell you about the interviews because the music just about
brought tears to my eyes.
------------
Robert McDuffie interview
http://www.npr.org/ramfiles/wesun/20010211.wesun.09.rmm
Robert McDuffie is a professional violinist who fell in love with a
particular Guarnieri the instant he pulled the bow over the strings.
The problem was how to pay for an instrument that was appraised at
3.6 million dollars?
His solution, suggested to him by a Wall Street friend (who became
the first investor) was to form a limited partnership company, with
a group of investors to buy shares. The company is called the '1735
del Gesu corportation' (del Gesu is the name of the man in the
Guarnieri family who built it). McDuffie is the investment and the
collatoral essentially, he is responsible for maintenance, upkeep,
and insurance and to be a 'good citizen' (the contract has a 'morals
clause'). It's a creative and clever idea.
---------------
Regina Carter interview
http://www.npr.org/ramfiles/atc/20020114.atc.18.ram
Regina Carter is a jazz violinist who, after some international
acclaim, was invited to as a gesture of goodwill to the city of
Genoa to play 'il cannone', The Cannon, Paganini's violin, which is
stored in a vault in Genoa, Italy. Regina Carter become the first
non-classical musician to play that special violin.
Usually, Niccolo Paganini's legendary Guarnieri violin is taken out
once per year, only, to be played by the winner of the Paganini
contest in Italy, an major event in that country and broadcast on
television country-wide. The idea of Carter playing this violin
provoked alot of controversy. In the end, it didn't matter because
the music answered everyone's fears.
In the radio interview, she describes when the instrument was
brought out. The room was tested for humidity levels, and then the
heavy curtains were drawn (to guard against sun exposure). Carter
said in the interview that it was somewhat like a funeral, and she
expected Paganini to emerge from the case! Then the violin put on
red velvet cloth. She was so nervous, that she didn't know how to
begin, so she decided to play a song that she said always centers
her, which was 'Amazing Grace'. You really must hear this (the radio
interview recorded it), I can't describe in words how lovely it
sounds.
She played a concert two nights later with her quintet.
Among her repertoire:
Chatanooga Choochoo
The Music Goes Round and Round
Billy Holiday "Don't Explain"
-------------------------------
Amara
-- ******************************************************************** Amara Graps, PhD email: amara@amara.com Computational Physics vita: ftp://ftp.amara.com/pub/resume.txt Multiplex Answers URL: http://www.amara.com/ ******************************************************************** "After silence that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music." --Aldous Huxley
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