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http://www.leroydouglasviolins.....lassic.htm
Here you will find a very healthy description of the best of the best of the instruments you all have a wish to play... These are truly the best indicator of violin craftsmanship & history of the world. Very educational reading.
One violin was owned and played for over 50 years by the same man, until it was sold for over $10 million to a Russian billionaire. I bet you can't begin to understand the feeling of letting such a valued and cherished thing leave your life. I know I can't.
"If you practice with your hands you must practice all day. Practice with your mind and you can accomplish the same amount in minutes." Nathan Milstein
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That's pretty cool. Do these old violins not have sound posts or do the CT scans miss them somehow?
Since CT scans are slices, where the slice was taken is not where the soundpost is so no soundpost in the scan. I have been wanting to make an Nicolo Amati for som time now and was surprised at the back, how thick it is in the center and thinning out at the edges.
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Did you read the part about the mathematical representation of the back? They have a link here to the math formula.
http://mathworld.wolfram.com/C.....cloid.html
It is very, very complex this 'making of a violin'. I admire your ability to make one Kevin.
"If you practice with your hands you must practice all day. Practice with your mind and you can accomplish the same amount in minutes." Nathan Milstein
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What gets me is how did the first builders of violins get everything so right. Since they are dead I guess we can't just ask them.
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My theory about that is that the great makers probably make them just as good though it will take many years before the sound matures. Also, a lot of judging instruments is in the head. If you know you are playing on a real Strad you automatically look for everything that is great with that instrument.
I have a news post about a test between great old Italian instruments and contemporary ones. I believe they tested a Guarnieri or Strad against the modern violins. The majority chose the modern violins as their favorite.
"The richest person is not the one who has the most,
but the one who needs the least."
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I saw the test you are talking about, it was kind of surprising. What is more cofusing is that a violin's sound matures, but I know it is true, my own violin is maturing, I can hear it.
Were the great ones considered "GREAT" in their day or long after?
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Probably they were considered great but no one had an idea of just how great at the time. What do you think?
"The richest person is not the one who has the most,
but the one who needs the least."
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Since I've been playing on my old German violin, I can notice a sound almost like a reverb unit of the 70's on your old music players. The vibration has gotten more pronounced and now I notice a significant increase in the strings tonal vibrations.
I think it like the fact that I now play it instead of it spending all those years in a dark box in the rafters. LOL
"If you practice with your hands you must practice all day. Practice with your mind and you can accomplish the same amount in minutes." Nathan Milstein
I must have been one of those cheap violins in my other life. As I mature I am falling apart.
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Fiddlerman said
Probably they were considered great but no one had an idea of just how great at the time. What do you think?
Strads actually went out of fashion in the late 1700's as Stainers and their type became more popular for larger venues - the Strads could not project enough for the new musical styles. The efforts of one man, Luigi Tarisio, pretty much saved the Strads, et al, from becoming no more than legends. I wrote a blog post about it on The Fiddle Project.
Mary in Springfield, Oregon http://www.thefiddleandbanjopr.....dpress.com
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