This documentary is very sensational. There have been, in fact, studies where expert judges and players have not been able to tell the difference between old Strads and new instruments.
Thank you for saying this ... there is no myth, and there is nothing inconclusive about 'what makes the sound' of Strads or any other violin. It is the graduation of the top and back plate. The varnish goes toward beautifying and preservation, and the violin-makers made/make it themselves and don't buy it from some random chemist on the corner. As for Stradivari 'taking the secret to his grave', it is a wonder then how Guarneri made his best instruments (easily the equivalent if not better) some twenty years after Strad passed his prime. That goes for many other makers around that time and in the next 2 centuries. As for now, we are in another golden age of Violin making. Burgess, Alf, Curtin, Zygmuntowitcz, etc., etc., etc.
Yes, plate gradation, plate arching and plate tuning are all important, but no one can argue that was Stadivari's secret - in fact many of the strads out there were re-carved in the 19th century -- plates were re-graded and thinned. So it's not even the original plate specifications used by Stadivari. As other people have noted, the myth of the Strad has been blown up by the Indianapolis and Paris blind experiments. In Indianapolis a trained panel of experts couldn't hear the difference -- in fact preferred modern instruments. In Paris the players were blindfolded when they played -- and THEY couldn't hear the difference either. Not that there's not a difference between a good violin and a bad violin. But spending $150,000 for something old and italian will certainly not get you a better violin than spending $10,000 for a well made modern instrument.
Only the best violinists were rewarded by these music foundations with these Strads, it's actually the violinists that matter, more than the violins themselves. An amateur can't make a good sound even if you give the best violin to him/her.
The real reason strads are known for superb sound is because they have ALWAYS been prized, so they've been owned and played by great violinists. It's the musician, not the violin, who makes the sound. Which is, after all, what one would hope.
You are so right!!!! About 30 years ago my violin Teacher took my $100.00 violin made in China and made it sound just a good as the most expensive Strad. I now play a German Violin for under $3000.00 that sounds incredible. I am no longer impress by the Strads because I now the sound is really from the musician.
+N Charles I bet YOUR playing sounds incredible. Were I playing yours and you playing my 200+year old German Meinel, your playing would sound great and my playing on your incredible violin would sound like crap. Been trying for 35 years but have little talent, just a love of my great, great grandfather's violin. He made violins out of middle Georgia pine but they didn't sound as good, I'm told.
jockellis You are right. If someone wants to spend 2Mil on a violin that's fine with me. However, it is really all about the skills. Excellent tone is cause by a combination of the Bowing and Intonation on the left hand. Not the Price of the Violin. I am sorry to say this but that is the truth.
Placebo effect. these instruments have been repaired and reconstructed so much over the years they likely sound nothing like they did when they were made. The magic is in the mind!
Maybe the all original, pristine "Messiah" violin that never left Stad's shop until he died, was hardly ever played, and was chosen to be copied by everybody and their uncle since it was original and pristine, was not up to Strad's standards so he never let it leave the shop. So everyone copied the inferior one, LOL! Think about it, would he keep the best one, never to be heard and bring him more publicity? Or would he keep the dud that would give him a bad name, intending to tweak it later, but never having time to do it. Just putting myself in his shoes...
if really good players struggle to make them sound good as this documentary suggests, and must improve their skills to get good sound out of them, it sounds like the sound is due to the player, not the instrument. Normally a good player can make even a marginal instrument sound better than it really is. Perhaps they are issued to the best players to give them the faith to be the best player they can be?
Blind tests have shown that even trained professional musicians can't reliably tell the difference between an antique Stradivarius violin and a modern one, in both playability and sound quality.
Many +300 year old instruments are unplayable now and many say that 100 - 200 year old instruments are at their peak, which is not to say that a well made modern violin will not sound just as good...
I think you could give these artists a newly made Johnathan Cooper violin and tell them it was a strad and they would say the same thing. It is the majesty and mystique they are drawn to, not just the sound. Imho
you need better instruments to make you better. strads are not forgiving instruments. they are notoriously hard to play. i've played guitar for 12 years. when i was teaching myself, i would play alot of heavy metal. distortion really cushions your mistakes. i mean. you can practically solo in any key, ignoring root notes and makes a solo sound good. you turn off that distortion pedal, plug in to a matchless, and play clean? you'll hear every, and i mean EVERY, mistake you make. everything little thing you do transfers through the amp. when you can use all those options from sensitivity... you can play from your soul. you can't start with hand wired, hand tuned amps playing guitar, because you'll upset your self. lose your confidence. you have to build, and earn the right to play on an instrument that is more challenging, because once the fun goes away, you start to see yourself as a musician, then an artist, and you pursue the best that you can be. dedication to music isn't something to be taken lightly. you might think you are good, but once you level up your gear, you'll see how little you actually know. musicians get self centered for a reason... i've gotten good. i started with expression before complexity. most musicians do it backwards. then i focused on speed and technicality. so that i could feel everynote without dashing around. but do people like my music? no...but i don't care. i try to be the best i can be and that means i get to call myself an artist. but when i started playing a few chet atkins tunes. mimicking him is ridiculously challenging. why? because i'm not chet atkins, but i can learn from him to better myself. that is what the art of music is about.
Stradivari (or guarneri del gesu, matter of opinion) made some of the best instruments in history, but very few of his instruments actually achieved this caliber. He also made numerous violins other violins, which are the ones that are repeatedly beaten in double blind studies by new violins. Not all strads were created equal
Its the same as David Gilmour playing a solo on a vintage Fender Stratocaster. I own one too. but I'll never make mine sound like David. All a good instrument does is bring out the character/style of the player. The players learn the instruments' nuances and intricate feel, then use this, along with their skill to final effect
I had the chance to play one for a bit one afternoon at a upper end violin shop. It did not have much bass to it but it could sing out. I had to sit down to play it I was so nervous around it. I was scared I might fall or something. That's a weird feeling to not trust yourself or your balance holding something more valuable than all you'll own in your whole life. My own violin is old itself with a grafted neck and quality work abt it. Several shops have stated that it's probably made in the late 1700's.
I'm a banjo player, not a fiddle player. The pre-war Gibson mystique applies there as well. My friend, Jim Rae, inventor of the Huber HR30 tone ring has evaluated lots of banjos in his lab, which I have had the privilege to visit, says not all pre-war Gibson banjos sound that great, but the great ones are really great. He gave me one of his Jim Rae banjos, one of 3 in existence, and it sounds wonderful to me. I was down to Ocala Florida a few years ago playing in the park. I was listening to some banjo players. A good Gibson took an break, and it sounded very good. Then I heard another banjo that sounded different but just as good or better. I found out it was a Deering. My favorite would be a really good Stelling. Stelling did not try to copy the good pre-war Gibsons. He had a completely different design. Even though this has nothing to do with violins, it proves to me it's all in the hearing and what pleases us, not what someone else tells us is great. The power of suggestion is amazing.
"We asked 21 experienced violinists to compare violins by Stradivari and Guarneri del Gesu with high-quality new instruments.... We found that (i) the most-preferred violin was new; (ii) the least-preferred was by Stradivari; (iii) there was scant correlation between an instrument's age and monetary value and its perceived quality; and (iv) most players seemed unable to tell whether their most-preferred instrument was new or old. "
Were I able to win one of these in the competition, I would disappear from the face of the earth at 29. Except that it takes a really fine violinist to get the most out of it which leaves me out.
The Stradivari workshop probably produced around 16 instruments per year in the most productive era. Its output shows a consistently high quality, which distinguishes it from their contemporary Giuseppe Guarneri "del Gesù". Many of Guarneri's violins have been drastically reworked later on, and the best examples sound terriffic. What I don't like is the unscrutinous hail of Strad as the perfect violins. Many violinists are hampered by a "generous" loan of a mediocre Strad.
I think the secret to their sound is a combination of all of the factors that were evident at the time of their construction. It's not just one thing. That's why they can't be exactly duplicated.
We should, from a scientific point of view, be able to say this much, that as far as the greater number of harmonics which Stradivarii and Guernarii violins produce (in the right hands) it must be the lacquer and as far as superior resonance and texture is concerned, the wood, for there is necessarilly two different kinds of vibrations invoved: 1. conducted linear vibtations through the wood, and 2. reflected more complex (including standing vibrations at nodal points) which exist in the chamber
I don't believe that older violins such as this have any better sound than a high-quality modern one, but I do still find it very impressive that such old instruments can still be played at all. Imagine the skill required to craft a perfect violin without the help of modern equipment. And that they don't rot or deteriorate is very cool as well
Agreed. Antonio Stradivari lived for 93 years, so we must, in a wild guess, count his production as two intruments per active year in his career. It was not before his fifties that he pursued new techniques and styling, instead of Amati's. We can only conclude that with no electrical tools involved, it was impossible to keep a standard. Specially in top quality instruments, where each drop of tone or harmonics is analyzed. There must be some averages in the batch.
De todos los violines que fabrico estradivarius solo uno es el que iso historia no sea podido encontrar un segundo con.ese sonido tan diferente que todo mundo busca y seguira buscando por que no saben como buscar es el mas buscado y el mas facil de aser solamente que no lean dedicado lo suficiente al violin pero cualquier violin puede ser
Why do they say that many musicians find it difficult to play the Strad? Difficult to get the best sound out of it? They Stated... "Only the best Musicians can play a Strad"... because, IT'S THE MUSICIAN not the Violin! Many of today's modern violins sound just as good. For years the best teachers have always told me that it was the musician that makes the sound. Of course it helps to have a good instrument however, paying 2 million for a violin is only based on a perception of sound. This has been documented over and over. This is really good news because now we can focus of improving our skills instead of trying to by a 2 million dollar violin. If they want me to pay 2 million dollars then the violin must play itself ! SIMPLE.
It's difficult to play because it's temperamental (many are quite sensitive to environment) and magnifies every little fault and mistake in your playing. Some of them need to be almost caressed with the bow - someone who has played a less-responsive instrument for years will have a difficult time adjusting to the subtlety needed. And in the wrong hands, or hands that just haven't figured out how to translate from the sound you want to hear to the movements required to produce it, it may not sound very good at all! Imagine the frustration when you have this valuable violin in your hands that seems like it should work just like any other violin, you know that properly played it sounds great, but it seems impossible to coax it into producing the sound you want. It's like being given the keys to a Ferrari and told to take it for a fast lap around a twisty track - sure, on the straightaway you can probably get it to go real fast, but you keep over-controlling in the corners and spinning out or crashing into the barriers. But the guy who drove it around the track before you made it look so easy! Too bad DW got the first date wrong - AS was born in 1644.
@@whpalmer4 it is nothing like driving a Ferrari; that's just a bit of a story to keep the price of violins up because there are billions in overpriced violins, many of which are fakes; none of these so called "experts" are keen to take part in blind tests, I wnder why...
I believe one of the reasons the prize winners could only keep the collection violins up to 30-yr-old is because after that age, the players either discover the truth that top modern instruments can sound as good as Strads, or perhaps Strads are just not that interesting for grown ups.
Yeah, Stradivari was a great violin maker. But the legends around his instruments are more testimony to our human need for "the best" and for magic than for anything else. Part of this is the price, which, like the price of a Van Gogh painting, bears no relation to any real worth: it's just an investment, like a rare stamp.
if there was a best, then you'd have a pursuit of one sound and style. luckily, we can't conclude said as such and we have all sorts of human expression.
i dont agree at all, it takes a good eye to see well just like a good ear to hear well. if you have neither dont say nobody can tell a difference. van gogh is very well known for his insane skill of layering and making colours unite without mixing them just look at the 3 sunflower paintings. 1 is an obvious fake and 2 are real. if you look close enough you can spot the fine differences and nuances that make the original brilliant. learn to deal with this or dont speak at all
Double-blind doesn't prove in this case. The fact is, a musician with a known Strad in their hands can be inspired to play at a level above a modern instrument. There is a reason they are sought after by the highest level players. The experiments, while suggesting the effects are not robust, are not thereby not "real". It's why the instruments are still played and not simply collected.
You made a good point Mike about a better inspiration while playing the historical piece, there is no study (weak or robust) to show that the old instruments sound better. There are however several decent studies which show the contrary. Thechnology advances in every field and today the state of the art in acustical instrument is the highest. However in the fields where 1) large ammounts of money are involved and 2) the results are not srictly measurable like medicine or old instruments there is a good deal of brainwashing in order to keep the money flowing. Acoustics is measurable way beyond the human ear limits though but the money is so good that people are kept in a sort of religious adoration for verpriced instruments whose value is mainly historical. It's like the debate between the evolutionists and creationists. The evolutionists came up with theories (not perfect of course) based on measurements and observations. Creationists have nothing, just some inconsistet stories written by semianalphabets and they demand the evolutionists to prove that they are wrong. They say, your theory is wrong because you cannot prove my theory is wrong. Nonsense.
Efun: Yes, please don't take my point as disagreement. In a physical world, with science as our guide, clearly there is no magic in the older instruments. And one can see that money does in fact come into play in all this debate. And some folks perhaps are overpaying for only history. But back to my point: If a virtuosos violin player, holding a 1700's instrument in their hands, knowing its long history, and feeling the magic of that communion in a concert hall full of people, is able to thereby rise to new heights to inspire us all even if only once - well then the old violin is priceless even if science says it's just an old piece of wood. I guess it depends if you believe in magic. And I don't think science has figured out how to measure that yet. But I think most musicians are poets and do believe in magic.
***** those couple of studies are nonsense, having very limited sample instruments perhaps only one or two strads, which must have been deteriorated. Dont take them seriously.
As to part to the secret of why these instruments sound fantastic a large part of the reason is to the fact they are played by world class players and have been for hundreds of years which makes them mature far better than if they were given to novices for their lifetimes and also they have had time to mature even today new state of art violins take time to reach any where near their best why is it a new just played in violin by one of these makers sold for 135000 American ten years after being built when unplayed it sold for the price of 50000 American respectfully yours adonaitsidkenu
3:33 "Stradivarii are not easy for musicians to play". This sentence alone condemns the whole breed. A good instrument is easy and comfortable to handle, responds evenly and easily to the player, offers nuances and overtones which will inspire the player to, note after note, explore new possibilities. If the player is good but complains that the instrument doesn't "obey", or if he or she isn't able to consistently repeat a good play, the instrument in question cant't be deemed as a good one.
Il y en qui prétende que c'est la qualité du bois d'autres le vernis! Quand le son du violon n'imorte quel mélomane vous dira si le son du violon lui plaît ou non: Encore une question de goût.
This program is completely wrong. The reason they haven't been able to discover the "secret" of the Stadivarius sound is... there IS NO SECRET. Strads are no better or worse than top quality instruments from any era -- including the best makers today. Blind auditions have consistently shown that even professional musicians cannot tell the difference. A very good study in 2012 -- they blindfolded violinists, had them play 6 violins, and even the the players had no idea which violins were new and which were Strads and del Gesus. It's all mystique and marketing. They're wonderful violins but, in part because they HAVE been copied, you can spend $10,000-$15,000 and absolutely have a violin that sounds as good as a million-dollar Strad. There are phenomenal workshop violins coming out of China today for a couple thousand dollars that would hold their own very well.
EXCELLENT POINT. My teacher took my $100.00 violin and made is sound amazing just as good as any strad... and that was over 30 year ago. Today's Cheep violins sound even better than back then. You are right... there IS NO SECRET!
what the blind tests show is that without a comparison people have no idea what they want or find to be desirable... you might not have the ear, but that doesn't mean someone else can learn what is more desirable. strads do sound different and i've picked them out of concertos that i didn't even know the kid was playing one...ucla strad for instance, i was listening and i had a thought, is that really a strad? i do some research and he was in fact playing one. some random kid i never expected to be using one... i've personally passed the blind tests multiple times. i test myself every year after i forget what the answers were. i've also trained my ears for the last 25 years of my life to study tonal properties. growing up in a musical family and always wondering what was so great about that sound of a guitar? well, i grew up hearing the best and never knew why it was the best. i had to study down to really figure it out... there are instruments that sound good. but if you don't have the intellect to decipher the difference, then you aren't that lucky. to you, anything sounds good because someone can play well, but to the people like me, you hear a defining quality in the wood, build and then play that it all comes together in a paradox of quality. 1. not every strad sounds the same, some people seem to think they should because they have the stradivarius name. not even close! 2. you are right. they've been changed countless times, and its like calling the mona lisa the original painting when it was finished till now... mona had eyebrows when she was finished! 3. you can't simply get that sound without having something special to begin with. da vinci, picasso, rembrandt, leo fender, chet atkins, are all people that take it to a level beyond average, no matter if they play the art or build it! 4. you are ignorant to think that your ears are like others because of what you hear. thats like saying because you have fingers you can play a violin like julia fischer..or paint like monet. and finally, 5. you'll never get it because you don't have the patience to figure it out for yourself. you want instant answers. you believe that because we are more tolerant now, we give music to everyone that there isn't a superiority complex. you have one, its why you think there isn't a special quality to one tree or the next, or even an artist of one to the next...well, we find that music is a perfect love and indescribable beauty, that hiding it from the weakest minds is a crime. so please, stfu or keep talking, either way, there are 100$ guitars that are special, and there are 1,000,000$ guitars. strads just happen to be FAR more consistent in quality, and are 400 year old treasures of humanity. there are thousands of violins from the 17th and 18th century....
@@treatb09 So do one of these blind tests on video with some impartial witnesses present and what you say might have meaning; I have never met anybody in person who was willing to do a blind test with violins, as for instance, wine experts will happily demonstrate blind wine tasting tests instead of just pontificate about it...
Or worse, AI can generate music that sounds so good that we cannot distinguish it from human. AI can produce the best Stradivari sound, because it simply copies from it!
It's true that top quality soloist violins are very demanding to play, because they reveal every nuance of the player's technique. But the statement that no violin maker has ever reached the same level is simply not true. Guarneri, Guadagnini and others of the same era were at the same level, as are a dozen or two violin makers that are active today. Some Stradivaris sound great but some have a mediocre sound. They're all fantastic historical pieces of art, though.
A stardivari does not own a 'specific' sound. First of all, Stradivari (and his pupils) build violins for the richesse, the nobilitys and such. He spent much time on detail and finishing. But sound - that varies from instrument to instrument. The main instruments of his hand come never or rarely on the open market, they go from top player to top player. The secret of building an instrument is the combination of skill and quality of wood. Therefore there is no 'Stradivari' standard of sound.
absolutly not correct many blind test put comtenporain violin win in blind test sorty to kill the myth lol so goof pkayer saying all stradivarius are not good on.same level yje blind test its shame to realised million or euro are beat by only 1000 euro instrumemt its a fact proove many time all ready to bad the dream is gone same in guitare old martin guitar find tje match with new guitar torified wood lol
Not necessarily. They're not easy to play because each one is a valuable and delicate relic. They're hundreds of years old and museum pieces, so you can expect a lot of pressure when handling one.
Are the stradivarious original strings special or are they the same as can be bought now and like guitar strings of different materials nylon or phosphor bronze hmm or some other alloy and same for the different tree ring patterns of the mini ice age in Europe red spruce musical quality woods.what are the world's best violin strings in existence today?also the better natural amplification of sound by scraping the inside of the violin as was said stradivarious had left a scraping tool believed he used to scrape the inside of the violin through the f shaped carved out portions of his violins etc without any strings attached in a stradivarious if you tape your finger near the f shaped areas and record the frequency the sound brightness etc and after each string is attached and tuned as well and even any materials comming in contact with the string b itself and even the sound bridge inside what frequency if taped from inside the violin and also the final pressure exerted to assemble the parts of the violin before the oil and carnauba wax mixture with red pigments mixture and how thick or thin in layers and are parts pressed in like dowl pins and hand or machine cut and specially sanded and sound tested again and again.hmm very interesting.and also the bow strings etc from special animal hair etc specify what you think.eugene fodor spoke of some particulars on the violin.
She says that the Stradivarius was from 1725 yet in the description it i stated that Antonio Stradivari violins were only made from 1737 till 1848. edit: The dates in the description are wrong
Hola soy de Mexico y necesito valorar un violín antonius stradivarius fáciebat cremona 1713 la etiqueta interna concuerda con los informes recogidos lo que no se es va quien dirigirme que especialista para que realmente me diga si es original agradezco mucho la información que me pueda proporcionarme
Türkçe İngilizce Turkey Balıkesirt to exact original Stradivarius violin in 1713 sealed the guarantee I talked to sahipiyl Armenians after a team come across and carbon testing done photocopy machines, such as with anything they measured from all sides have taken samples from the adhesive used on time within which play the violin until brass them 2-3 hours to examine 12 people this orjinalt the saying goes, but The owner, whose price is not understood, is descended from the Sultan Abdülmecitten
of course a player develops a very personal sound when he reaches a certain level of playability , but this doesn't apply to all musicians thats why they are not all Rostropovich or richter or menuhin !! The instrument has some aspects as to the sound it produces . Especially wood instruments have same special characteristics given to them by the tree they are made off (this is no joke people!!) Science discovered recently that the stradivari instruments especially of the golden era of 1690 - 1700 are the most technically mature ones (because of the makers ability was in top shape then ..) (don't worry the other instruments are top of the line too!!_) . Also they discovered that the Stradivari instruments where made out of trees that where grown at a time of global cold temperatures, during the Little Ice Age associated with unusually low solar activity ,of the Maunder Minimum, circa 1645 to 1750, during which cooler temperatures throughout Europe are believed to have caused stunted and slowed tree growth, resulting in unusually dense wood.[42] Further evidence for this "Little Ice Age theory" comes from a simple examination of the dense growth rings in the wood used in Stradivari's instruments.[43] Two researchers - University of Tennessee tree-ring scientist Henri Grissino-Mayer and Lloyd Burckle, a Columbia University climatologist - published their conclusions supporting the theory on increased wood density in the journal Dendrochronologia.[44] SO MAYBE there is a reason they sound different after all !!
This says nothing of all the evidence that it's a placebo effect... Damned fine instruments, but the amount of people who've been complimented on their Stradivarii's tone only to be told that the receiver of the compliment was actually playing a brand new instrument that night is quite large... It's my belief that equally fine modern instruments are easily purchasable, albeit for rather large sums of money, but that people simply WISH the Stradivarii to being better.
I don't get or understand half of what they are saying here. An instrument is only as good as it's player, same with any art. This all seems like some sort of status symbol bullshit. Europeans are weird...
too much myth surrounding Stradivarius violins, it seems like it always has a video talking about how excellent they are and weeks later an auction somewhere in London, Berlim or New York with one of the 6 hundreds per a couple of millions. Can believe that so few people which has played a real strad can speak on behalf of everyone else about violins.... myth and market exploitation.
I've n ever played a Strad, but I did own two violins. One sounded like crap. It was stolen by a very stupid theif. The other one sounded better. It cost a lot more, too.i bet a good player could have made it sing. I think some of this is BS.
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This documentary is very sensational. There have been, in fact, studies where expert judges and players have not been able to tell the difference between old Strads and new instruments.
Thank you for saying this ... there is no myth, and there is nothing inconclusive about 'what makes the sound' of Strads or any other violin. It is the graduation of the top and back plate. The varnish goes toward beautifying and preservation, and the violin-makers made/make it themselves and don't buy it from some random chemist on the corner. As for Stradivari 'taking the secret to his grave', it is a wonder then how Guarneri made his best instruments (easily the equivalent if not better) some twenty years after Strad passed his prime. That goes for many other makers around that time and in the next 2 centuries. As for now, we are in another golden age of Violin making. Burgess, Alf, Curtin, Zygmuntowitcz, etc., etc., etc.
Yes, plate gradation, plate arching and plate tuning are all important, but no one can argue that was Stadivari's secret - in fact many of the strads out there were re-carved in the 19th century -- plates were re-graded and thinned. So it's not even the original plate specifications used by Stadivari.
As other people have noted, the myth of the Strad has been blown up by the Indianapolis and Paris blind experiments. In Indianapolis a trained panel of experts couldn't hear the difference -- in fact preferred modern instruments. In Paris the players were blindfolded when they played -- and THEY couldn't hear the difference either.
Not that there's not a difference between a good violin and a bad violin. But spending $150,000 for something old and italian will certainly not get you a better violin than spending $10,000 for a well made modern instrument.
Only the best violinists were rewarded by these music foundations with these Strads, it's actually the violinists that matter, more than the violins themselves. An amateur can't make a good sound even if you give the best violin to him/her.
The real reason strads are known for superb sound is because they have ALWAYS been prized, so they've been owned and played by great violinists. It's the musician, not the violin, who makes the sound. Which is, after all, what one would hope.
You are so right!!!! About 30 years ago my violin Teacher took my $100.00 violin made in China and made it sound just a good as the most expensive Strad. I now play a German Violin for under $3000.00 that sounds incredible. I am no longer impress by the Strads because I now the sound is really from the musician.
+N Charles I bet YOUR playing sounds incredible. Were I playing yours and you playing my 200+year old German Meinel, your playing would sound great and my playing on your incredible violin would sound like crap. Been trying for 35 years but have little talent, just a love of my great, great grandfather's violin. He made violins out of middle Georgia pine but they didn't sound as good, I'm told.
jockellis You are right. If someone wants to spend 2Mil on a violin that's fine with me. However, it is really all about the skills. Excellent tone is cause by a combination of the Bowing and Intonation on the left hand. Not the Price of the Violin. I am sorry to say this but that is the truth.
*sarcasm*
Ma vai a cagare, pirla.
Placebo effect. these instruments have been repaired and reconstructed so much over the years they likely sound nothing like they did when they were made. The magic is in the mind!
Maybe I'm wrong! L Watch "How Italian Violins Were Made - Joseph Nagyvary" her on RUclips.
Maybe the all original, pristine "Messiah" violin that never left Stad's shop until he died, was hardly ever played, and was chosen to be copied by everybody and their uncle since it was original and pristine, was not up to Strad's standards so he never let it leave the shop. So everyone copied the inferior one, LOL! Think about it, would he keep the best one, never to be heard and bring him more publicity? Or would he keep the dud that would give him a bad name, intending to tweak it later, but never having time to do it. Just putting myself in his shoes...
if really good players struggle to make them sound good as this documentary suggests, and must improve their skills to get good sound out of them, it sounds like the sound is due to the player, not the instrument. Normally a good player can make even a marginal instrument sound better than it really is. Perhaps they are issued to the best players to give them the faith to be the best player they can be?
Violins sound different when the wood mellows out over the years and when been played thousands of hours
placebo effect says who ? are you a violin maker capable of producing a similar violin ? are you a master luthier ? a great player ??
Blind tests have shown that even trained professional musicians can't reliably tell the difference between an antique Stradivarius violin and a modern one, in both playability and sound quality.
+Michael Whitesell But dont dismiss the fact that a +300 old instrument sounds like a modern one
No, there have been tests where modern violins have been rated as highly.
Many +300 year old instruments are unplayable now and many say that 100 - 200 year old instruments are at their peak, which is not to say that a well made modern violin will not sound just as good...
link source
Robertson Thirdly yeah this comment is bs
I think you could give these artists a newly made Johnathan Cooper violin and tell them it was a strad and they would say the same thing. It is the majesty and mystique they are drawn to, not just the sound. Imho
"In the four years since I have been playing this violin.... my playing has been improved" imagine that.
Yes amazing isn't it. ;-)
Oh yeah, I'd forgotten she'd said that... :-)
you need better instruments to make you better. strads are not forgiving instruments. they are notoriously hard to play. i've played guitar for 12 years. when i was teaching myself, i would play alot of heavy metal. distortion really cushions your mistakes. i mean. you can practically solo in any key, ignoring root notes and makes a solo sound good. you turn off that distortion pedal, plug in to a matchless, and play clean? you'll hear every, and i mean EVERY, mistake you make. everything little thing you do transfers through the amp. when you can use all those options from sensitivity... you can play from your soul. you can't start with hand wired, hand tuned amps playing guitar, because you'll upset your self. lose your confidence. you have to build, and earn the right to play on an instrument that is more challenging, because once the fun goes away, you start to see yourself as a musician, then an artist, and you pursue the best that you can be. dedication to music isn't something to be taken lightly. you might think you are good, but once you level up your gear, you'll see how little you actually know. musicians get self centered for a reason...
i've gotten good. i started with expression before complexity. most musicians do it backwards. then i focused on speed and technicality. so that i could feel everynote without dashing around. but do people like my music? no...but i don't care. i try to be the best i can be and that means i get to call myself an artist. but when i started playing a few chet atkins tunes. mimicking him is ridiculously challenging. why? because i'm not chet atkins, but i can learn from him to better myself. that is what the art of music is about.
Just like magic, a magical violin.
Stradivari (or guarneri del gesu, matter of opinion) made some of the best instruments in history, but very few of his instruments actually achieved this caliber. He also made numerous violins other violins, which are the ones that are repeatedly beaten in double blind studies by new violins. Not all strads were created equal
Most greatful! Thank you!
Its the same as David Gilmour playing a solo on a vintage Fender Stratocaster. I own one too. but I'll never make mine sound like David. All a good instrument does is bring out the character/style of the player. The players learn the instruments' nuances and intricate feel, then use this, along with their skill to final effect
I had the chance to play one for a bit one afternoon at a upper end violin shop. It did not have much bass to it but it could sing out. I had to sit down to play it I was so nervous around it. I was scared I might fall or something. That's a weird feeling to not trust yourself or your balance holding something more valuable than all you'll own in your whole life. My own violin is old itself with a grafted neck and quality work abt it. Several shops have stated that it's probably made in the late 1700's.
I'm a banjo player, not a fiddle player. The pre-war Gibson mystique applies there as well. My friend, Jim Rae, inventor of the Huber HR30 tone ring has evaluated lots of banjos in his lab, which I have had the privilege to visit, says not all pre-war Gibson banjos sound that great, but the great ones are really great. He gave me one of his Jim Rae banjos, one of 3 in existence, and it sounds wonderful to me.
I was down to Ocala Florida a few years ago playing in the park. I was listening to some banjo players. A good Gibson took an break, and it sounded very good. Then I heard another banjo that sounded different but just as good or better. I found out it was a Deering.
My favorite would be a really good Stelling. Stelling did not try to copy the good pre-war Gibsons. He had a completely different design.
Even though this has nothing to do with violins, it proves to me it's all in the hearing and what pleases us, not what someone else tells us is great. The power of suggestion is amazing.
"We asked 21 experienced violinists to compare violins by Stradivari and Guarneri del Gesu with high-quality new instruments.... We found that (i) the most-preferred violin was new; (ii) the least-preferred was by Stradivari; (iii) there was scant correlation between an instrument's age and monetary value and its perceived quality; and (iv) most players seemed unable to tell whether their most-preferred instrument was new or old. "
Were I able to win one of these in the competition, I would disappear from the face of the earth at 29. Except that it takes a really fine violinist to get the most out of it which leaves me out.
I hate to say this, but a virtuoso violinist can make an old $100 fiddle sound beautiful.
The Stradivari workshop probably produced around 16 instruments per year in the most productive era. Its output shows a consistently high quality, which distinguishes it from their contemporary Giuseppe Guarneri "del Gesù". Many of Guarneri's violins have been drastically reworked later on, and the best examples sound terriffic. What I don't like is the unscrutinous hail of Strad as the perfect violins. Many violinists are hampered by a "generous" loan of a mediocre Strad.
I think the secret to their sound is a combination of all of the factors that were evident at the time of their construction. It's not just one thing. That's why they can't be exactly duplicated.
We should, from a scientific point of view, be able to say this much, that as far as the greater number of harmonics which Stradivarii and Guernarii violins produce (in the right hands) it must be the lacquer and as far as superior resonance and texture is concerned, the wood, for there is necessarilly two different kinds of vibrations invoved: 1. conducted linear vibtations through the wood, and 2. reflected more complex (including standing vibrations at nodal points) which exist in the chamber
I don't believe that older violins such as this have any better sound than a high-quality modern one, but I do still find it very impressive that such old instruments can still be played at all. Imagine the skill required to craft a perfect violin without the help of modern equipment. And that they don't rot or deteriorate is very cool as well
+Niahc i think it has something to do with the varnish that makes the good sound, as you say they don't rot
Agreed. Antonio Stradivari lived for 93 years, so we must, in a wild guess, count his production as two intruments per active year in his career. It was not before his fifties that he pursued new techniques and styling, instead of Amati's. We can only conclude that with no electrical tools involved, it was impossible to keep a standard. Specially in top quality instruments, where each drop of tone or harmonics is analyzed. There must be some averages in the batch.
De todos los violines que fabrico estradivarius solo uno es el que iso historia no sea podido encontrar un segundo con.ese sonido tan diferente que todo mundo busca y seguira buscando por que no saben como buscar es el mas buscado y el mas facil de aser solamente que no lean dedicado lo suficiente al violin pero cualquier violin puede ser
Why do they say that many musicians find it difficult to play the Strad?
Difficult to get the best sound out of it? They Stated... "Only the best Musicians can play a Strad"... because, IT'S THE MUSICIAN not the Violin! Many of today's modern violins sound just as good. For years the best teachers have always told me that it was the musician that makes the sound. Of course it helps to have a good instrument however, paying 2 million for a violin is only based on a perception of sound. This has been documented over and over. This is really good news because now we can focus of improving our skills instead of trying to by a 2 million dollar violin. If they want me to pay 2 million dollars then the violin must play itself !
SIMPLE.
It's difficult to play because it's temperamental (many are quite sensitive to environment) and magnifies every little fault and mistake in your playing. Some of them need to be almost caressed with the bow - someone who has played a less-responsive instrument for years will have a difficult time adjusting to the subtlety needed. And in the wrong hands, or hands that just haven't figured out how to translate from the sound you want to hear to the movements required to produce it, it may not sound very good at all! Imagine the frustration when you have this valuable violin in your hands that seems like it should work just like any other violin, you know that properly played it sounds great, but it seems impossible to coax it into producing the sound you want. It's like being given the keys to a Ferrari and told to take it for a fast lap around a twisty track - sure, on the straightaway you can probably get it to go real fast, but you keep over-controlling in the corners and spinning out or crashing into the barriers. But the guy who drove it around the track before you made it look so easy!
Too bad DW got the first date wrong - AS was born in 1644.
@@whpalmer4 it is nothing like driving a Ferrari; that's just a bit of a story to keep the price of violins up because there are billions in overpriced violins, many of which are fakes; none of these so called "experts" are keen to take part in blind tests, I wnder why...
There are even great Chinese violins these days, master instruments at around $1000 - $2000...
ruclips.net/video/wCETsxvizFE/видео.html
Each time, before closing his Violin, Stradivari put a Soul in it !
I believe one of the reasons the prize winners could only keep the collection violins up to 30-yr-old is because after that age, the players either discover the truth that top modern instruments can sound as good as Strads, or perhaps Strads are just not that interesting for grown ups.
Yeah, Stradivari was a great violin maker. But the legends around his instruments are more testimony to our human need for "the best" and for magic than for anything else. Part of this is the price, which, like the price of a Van Gogh painting, bears no relation to any real worth: it's just an investment, like a rare stamp.
if there was a best, then you'd have a pursuit of one sound and style. luckily, we can't conclude said as such and we have all sorts of human expression.
i dont agree at all, it takes a good eye to see well just like a good ear to hear well. if you have neither dont say nobody can tell a difference. van gogh is very well known for his insane skill of layering and making colours unite without mixing them just look at the 3 sunflower paintings. 1 is an obvious fake and 2 are real. if you look close enough you can spot the fine differences and nuances that make the original brilliant. learn to deal with this or dont speak at all
Finally! A video about that is not in German. It's a beautiful language, but I don't fully understand it
Pure myth. The new instruments sound better, it was proven in multiple double blind studies. Of course the originals have huge historical value.
Double-blind doesn't prove in this case. The fact is, a musician with a known Strad in their hands can be inspired to play at a level above a modern instrument. There is a reason they are sought after by the highest level players. The experiments, while suggesting the effects are not robust, are not thereby not "real". It's why the instruments are still played and not simply collected.
You made a good point Mike about a better inspiration while playing the historical piece, there is no study (weak or robust) to show that the old instruments sound better. There are however several decent studies which show the contrary. Thechnology advances in every field and today the state of the art in acustical instrument is the highest. However in the fields where 1) large ammounts of money are involved and 2) the results are not srictly measurable like medicine or old instruments there is a good deal of brainwashing in order to keep the money flowing. Acoustics is measurable way beyond the human ear limits though but the money is so good that people are kept in a sort of religious adoration for verpriced instruments whose value is mainly historical. It's like the debate between the evolutionists and creationists. The evolutionists came up with theories (not perfect of course) based on measurements and observations. Creationists have nothing, just some inconsistet stories written by semianalphabets and they demand the evolutionists to prove that they are wrong. They say, your theory is wrong because you cannot prove my theory is wrong. Nonsense.
Efun: Yes, please don't take my point as disagreement. In a physical world, with science as our guide, clearly there is no magic in the older instruments. And one can see that money does in fact come into play in all this debate. And some folks perhaps are overpaying for only history. But back to my point: If a virtuosos violin player, holding a 1700's instrument in their hands, knowing its long history, and feeling the magic of that communion in a concert hall full of people, is able to thereby rise to new heights to inspire us all even if only once - well then the old violin is priceless even if science says it's just an old piece of wood. I guess it depends if you believe in magic. And I don't think science has figured out how to measure that yet. But I think most musicians are poets and do believe in magic.
Just search for them, they are everywhere on Google and YT. Also search for the name Joseph Curtin.
*****
those couple of studies are nonsense, having very limited sample instruments perhaps only one or two strads, which must have been deteriorated. Dont take them seriously.
As to part to the secret of why these instruments sound fantastic a large part of the reason is to the fact they are played by world class players and have been for hundreds of years which makes them mature far better than if they were given to novices for their lifetimes and also they have had time to mature even today new state of art violins take time to reach any where near their best why is it a new just played in violin by one of these makers sold for 135000 American ten years after being built when unplayed it sold for the price of 50000 American respectfully yours adonaitsidkenu
3:33 "Stradivarii are not easy for musicians to play". This sentence alone condemns the whole breed. A good instrument is easy and comfortable to handle, responds evenly and
easily to the player, offers nuances and overtones which will inspire the player to, note after note, explore new possibilities. If the player is good but complains that the instrument doesn't "obey", or if he or she isn't able to consistently repeat a good play, the instrument in question cant't be deemed as a good one.
Il y en qui prétende que c'est la qualité du bois d'autres le vernis!
Quand le son du violon n'imorte quel mélomane vous dira si le son du violon lui plaît ou non: Encore une question de goût.
bach's chaconne
also, typo in the description, 1648* to 1737
This program is completely wrong. The reason they haven't been able to discover the "secret" of the Stadivarius sound is... there IS NO SECRET. Strads are no better or worse than top quality instruments from any era -- including the best makers today. Blind auditions have consistently shown that even professional musicians cannot tell the difference. A very good study in 2012 -- they blindfolded violinists, had them play 6 violins, and even the the players had no idea which violins were new and which were Strads and del Gesus.
It's all mystique and marketing. They're wonderful violins but, in part because they HAVE been copied, you can spend $10,000-$15,000 and absolutely have a violin that sounds as good as a million-dollar Strad. There are phenomenal workshop violins coming out of China today for a couple thousand dollars that would hold their own very well.
EXCELLENT POINT. My teacher took my $100.00 violin and made is sound amazing just as good as any strad... and that was over 30 year ago. Today's Cheep violins sound even better than back then. You are right... there IS NO SECRET!
what the blind tests show is that without a comparison people have no idea what they want or find to be desirable... you might not have the ear, but that doesn't mean someone else can learn what is more desirable. strads do sound different and i've picked them out of concertos that i didn't even know the kid was playing one...ucla strad for instance, i was listening and i had a thought, is that really a strad? i do some research and he was in fact playing one. some random kid i never expected to be using one... i've personally passed the blind tests multiple times. i test myself every year after i forget what the answers were. i've also trained my ears for the last 25 years of my life to study tonal properties. growing up in a musical family and always wondering what was so great about that sound of a guitar? well, i grew up hearing the best and never knew why it was the best. i had to study down to really figure it out... there are instruments that sound good. but if you don't have the intellect to decipher the difference, then you aren't that lucky. to you, anything sounds good because someone can play well, but to the people like me, you hear a defining quality in the wood, build and then play that it all comes together in a paradox of quality. 1. not every strad sounds the same, some people seem to think they should because they have the stradivarius name. not even close! 2. you are right. they've been changed countless times, and its like calling the mona lisa the original painting when it was finished till now... mona had eyebrows when she was finished! 3. you can't simply get that sound without having something special to begin with. da vinci, picasso, rembrandt, leo fender, chet atkins, are all people that take it to a level beyond average, no matter if they play the art or build it! 4. you are ignorant to think that your ears are like others because of what you hear. thats like saying because you have fingers you can play a violin like julia fischer..or paint like monet. and finally, 5. you'll never get it because you don't have the patience to figure it out for yourself. you want instant answers. you believe that because we are more tolerant now, we give music to everyone that there isn't a superiority complex. you have one, its why you think there isn't a special quality to one tree or the next, or even an artist of one to the next...well, we find that music is a perfect love and indescribable beauty, that hiding it from the weakest minds is a crime. so please, stfu or keep talking, either way, there are 100$ guitars that are special, and there are 1,000,000$ guitars. strads just happen to be FAR more consistent in quality, and are 400 year old treasures of humanity. there are thousands of violins from the 17th and 18th century....
in short, artists are completely different from the average breed of man. sadly...we should all be artists by now, but there is a difference.
@@treatb09 So do one of these blind tests on video with some impartial witnesses present and what you say might have meaning; I have never met anybody in person who was willing to do a blind test with violins, as for instance, wine experts will happily demonstrate blind wine tasting tests instead of just pontificate about it...
you mean like your judgements of what i say?
I still prefer the Strad ! It has a Soul if you listen well in the right mood !
Soaking the instrument in a mixture of battery acid and baking soda for 2 to 3-weeks will increase the sound of your vocal cords.
Stradivari e Guarneri sono stati i piu grandi Maestri Liutai di tutti i tempi e i loro strumenti delle inimitabili Opere D"Arte.
Beware, everyone! Robots will soon be playing orchestral instruments--and with a level of precision that no human can possibly match.
Or worse, AI can generate music that sounds so good that we cannot distinguish it from human. AI can produce the best Stradivari sound, because it simply copies from it!
@@chaselee86 I can't stand cheating!
The us at the end of his name tells you in Latin that Stradivari is a singular masculine name, that's all.
really knowledgeable.
It's true that top quality soloist violins are very demanding to play, because they reveal every nuance of the player's technique. But the statement that no violin maker has ever reached the same level is simply not true. Guarneri, Guadagnini and others of the same era were at the same level, as are a dozen or two violin makers that are active today. Some Stradivaris sound great but some have a mediocre sound. They're all fantastic historical pieces of art, though.
A stardivari does not own a 'specific' sound. First of all, Stradivari (and his pupils) build violins for the richesse, the nobilitys and such. He spent much time on detail and finishing. But sound - that varies from instrument to instrument. The main instruments of his hand come never or rarely on the open market, they go from top player to top player. The secret of building an instrument is the combination of skill and quality of wood. Therefore there is no 'Stradivari' standard of sound.
The sound of stradivari violin is bitter sweet sound. No one surpasse its quality sound.
absolutly not correct many blind test put comtenporain violin win in blind test sorty to kill the myth lol so goof pkayer saying all stradivarius are not good on.same level yje blind test its shame to realised million or euro are beat by only 1000 euro instrumemt its a fact proove many time all ready to bad the dream is gone same in guitare old martin guitar find tje match with new guitar torified wood lol
the music store I was at has Yamaha violins. should I buy one of these or look for another maker.
Yamaha makes really great student quality instruments. I have one and it's amazing. Go for it. You won't be dissappointed. :)
For fine beginner to professional violins, check out Liu Xi violins.
Apparently you shouldn't, you need to buy a Stradivari.
Not necessarily. They're not easy to play because each one is a valuable and delicate relic. They're hundreds of years old and museum pieces, so you can expect a lot of pressure when handling one.
Are the stradivarious original strings special or are they the same as can be bought now and like guitar strings of different materials nylon or phosphor bronze hmm or some other alloy and same for the different tree ring patterns of the mini ice age in Europe red spruce musical quality woods.what are the world's best violin strings in existence today?also the better natural amplification of sound by scraping the inside of the violin as was said stradivarious had left a scraping tool believed he used to scrape the inside of the violin through the f shaped carved out portions of his violins etc without any strings attached in a stradivarious if you tape your finger near the f shaped areas and record the frequency the sound brightness etc and after each string is attached and tuned as well and even any materials comming in contact with the string b itself and even the sound bridge inside what frequency if taped from inside the violin and also the final pressure exerted to assemble the parts of the violin before the oil and carnauba wax mixture with red pigments mixture and how thick or thin in layers and are parts pressed in like dowl pins and hand or machine cut and specially sanded and sound tested again and again.hmm very interesting.and also the bow strings etc from special animal hair etc specify what you think.eugene fodor spoke of some particulars on the violin.
She says that the Stradivarius was from 1725 yet in the description it i stated that Antonio Stradivari violins were only made from 1737 till 1848.
edit: The dates in the description are wrong
Quinten Cambridge, thank you for your note. We've corrected the year of birth./ fab
Wow, wasn't expecting a reply, I'm impressed.
I WANT ONE AND I WANT ONE NOW.
As of 2021 They cost something around 10 million USD.
Hola soy de Mexico y necesito valorar un violín antonius stradivarius fáciebat cremona 1713 la etiqueta interna concuerda con los informes recogidos lo que no se es va quien dirigirme que especialista para que realmente me diga si es original agradezco mucho la información que me pueda proporcionarme
All hype
Türkçe
İngilizce
Turkey Balıkesirt to exact original Stradivarius violin in 1713 sealed the guarantee I talked to sahipiyl Armenians after a team come across and carbon testing done photocopy machines, such as with anything they measured from all sides have taken samples from the adhesive used on time within which play the violin until brass them 2-3 hours to examine 12 people this orjinalt the saying goes, but The owner, whose price is not understood, is descended from the Sultan Abdülmecitten
does someone know where I can find the photograph book which apears at the video? I wlould be really thankful
pepelusa peluquero You can order here: www.stradivaribooks.com/
***** thank you
of course a player develops a very personal sound when he reaches a certain level of playability , but this doesn't apply to all musicians thats why they are not all Rostropovich or richter or menuhin !! The instrument has some aspects as to the sound it produces . Especially wood instruments have same special characteristics given to them by the tree they are made off (this is no joke people!!) Science discovered recently that the stradivari instruments especially of the golden era of 1690 - 1700 are the most technically mature ones (because of the makers ability was in top shape then ..) (don't worry the other instruments are top of the line too!!_) . Also they discovered that the Stradivari instruments where made out of trees that where grown at a time of global cold temperatures, during the Little Ice Age associated with unusually low solar activity ,of the Maunder Minimum, circa 1645 to 1750, during which cooler temperatures throughout Europe are believed to have caused stunted and slowed tree growth, resulting in unusually dense wood.[42] Further evidence for this "Little Ice Age theory" comes from a simple examination of the dense growth rings in the wood used in Stradivari's instruments.[43] Two researchers - University of Tennessee tree-ring scientist Henri Grissino-Mayer and Lloyd Burckle, a Columbia University climatologist - published their conclusions supporting the theory on increased wood density in the journal Dendrochronologia.[44] SO MAYBE there is a reason they sound different after all !!
Wow I want one of those books!
It IS Stradivari,not Stradivarius.
1848-1737? He just became a baby one day like Benjamin Button????
Also, if I were Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg, I would buy all of the world's Stradivari.
This says nothing of all the evidence that it's a placebo effect... Damned fine instruments, but the amount of people who've been complimented on their Stradivarii's tone only to be told that the receiver of the compliment was actually playing a brand new instrument that night is quite large... It's my belief that equally fine modern instruments are easily purchasable, albeit for rather large sums of money, but that people simply WISH the Stradivarii to being better.
lots of topics, proved to be wrong
what is the song at 1:21 again? I can't seem to remember...
maybe you have found it throughout these five years, and if not it's Bach Sonata No.1 adagio
Totally psychological...
Once you know how to Handel it.
For a pun like that, you ought to go into Haydn and never come Bach!
I don't get or understand half of what they are saying here. An instrument is only as good as it's player, same with any art. This all seems like some sort of status symbol bullshit. Europeans are weird...
Yes, unlike all those Americans, who couldn't care less about stradivarious... and all those famous american violinists that refuse to use them...
too much myth surrounding Stradivarius violins, it seems like it always has a video talking about how excellent they are and weeks later an auction somewhere in London, Berlim or New York with one of the 6 hundreds per a couple of millions. Can believe that so few people which has played a real strad can speak on behalf of everyone else about violins.... myth and market exploitation.
.
I've n ever played a Strad, but I did own two violins. One sounded like crap. It was stolen by a very stupid theif. The other one sounded better. It cost a lot more, too.i bet a good player could have made it sing.
I think some of this is BS.