I'm afraid the English language has failed us, because the word "start" means more than one thing.
You took it to mean "someone starting to learn how to play violin". Of course a beginner doesn't start on a Stradivarius.
Earlier you pointed out that it takes a long time for an already top-notch violinist to learn the weaknesses and strengths of a specific instrument. My point was, since this process takes a long time, why would a top-notch violinist start this process with a Strad, which costs more and sounds less good, than the right modern $50,000 violin? (Not start to play violin as a beginner, but start to learn the detains of a specific instrument as an expert.)
My largest personal accomplishment is using up and emptying a large number of tubes of toothpaste during my life.
But what does my lack of history-making accomplishments have to do with the belief that less-good Stradivarius (and other 17th century) violins are actually better?
I think you are talking about a 'Strad as a historical art object. Fine, put it in a museum, admire it, but admit that the $50,000 modern violin sounds better, and the 'Strat is valued primarily for its history, not its sound.
Not just accuracy. Many things have changed since the 1700s - the physics of acoustics wasn't understood then.
Today we have not only the physics and math to model sound waves in a violin top plate or body cavity, and computers to run those simulations on, but also instruments like accurate microphones, signal generators, frequency counters, high speed video cameras, laser interferometery to observe the pattern of vibration, and much more.
There is a fascinating documentary film called "Highly Strung" about the music, personalities,politics, and instruments surrounding an Australian string quartet. In the film, you can see a contemporary Italian master luthier using a signal generator and a loudspeaker to excite vibrations in a 'cello top plate he is carving, and a frequency generator to measure the frequency of each mode. These tools and the knowledge that goes with them was unavailable to Stradivarius, Guarneri, and other luthiers of the 18th century.
I would say that having more knowledge DOES make you a more skilled violin maker. An auto mechanic who understands how the physics of weight-transfer during braking affects handling, is more skilled than one who only understands how to replace brake pads.
Good, because I didn't compare a diamond to a violin!
What I did was compare better quality synthetic diamonds to lower-quality, more expensive, natural diamonds. The point is that people pay more for the lower quality diamonds, because they have been brainwashed to believe those have more snob-appeal. Classic snake-oil salesman tactics.
So: people pay more for lower-quality diamonds. People pay more for lower-quality violins. Two distinct, different, examples of the same overall issue: successful snake-oil tactics by the sellers of the diamonds and violins.
Incidentally, synthetic sapphire has a lot of uses other than watch crystals - for example sapphire and ruby rods were crucial to early lasers, and sapphire is still used today as the lasing medium in titanium-sapphire lasers.
-Gnobuddy
Start | Define Start at Dictionary.com
Please point me to the intended meaning. I did assume there was a word missing, but decided to take what you wrote literally.
Because! It's a challenge! And you pay your respects to the masters of old! Feel the history of modern instruments in your fingers, get to know it intimately, understand where the modern interpretation has come from.
No! When it is in some use, by careful and attentative individuals, it will be better maintained than if left to slowly decay behind a glass monter. And the historic value of the instrument can be felt and not only seen.
I will agree that: Because information is more shared now, theory has evolved further because of it. In previous times, Masters of a trade kept their secrets closely, sometimes this did hamper progress, but it was also a way of safe-guarding their jobs.
Knowledge does nothing if you do not have the skill to apply it, or the ability to pass it on to the next man.
Some of the things they made centuries ago, we do not have the skill to make today, people where much more able to pay close attention to what they made. Manpower was cheap, so do not pour money, but PEOPLE on the problem until it is solved.
In europe we where probably too busy trying to re-create listening experiences, to give the same experience each time, and from this came a set of "standard" instruments, and what is now classical music, the precursor to what pop music is today, to properly respect the diverse and very rich music culture that existed at the time.
This, in time, have killed a number of music and history telling techniques that have been important for the human race for thousands of years.
Sometimes, people who have a stroke or other events/sickness and lose the ability to talk, can still have the brain center that is allocated for song and history completely intact, and even without the ability to speak, can sing complete songs without problem.
I will argue that "people of the trades" many years ago had MORE skill, but less knowledge than what we have today.
We have more tools, we have more knowledge, we have more evolved theory, and can more faithfully produce large numbers of products within tolerance. All this, but in using all these things we have lost some skill (and a lot of diversity).
Enough about violins, let's give some room for the Sheng!
YouTube
YouTube
Sheng, the instrument, a steam driven mouth organ with 13 to 37 pipes, can play up to 37 notes at the same time, the oldest existing Sheng is from 200 years BC, but the instrument has existed since at least 1100 BC
Enough about the Violin, I can understand why it costs so much, it was more than an instrument at the time of creation, it was an art to create such an instrument with precision. So much care and attention went into the making of it, and it still works like intended, over 300 years later. Ofcourse it has historic value.
Back on topic:
I do not know what happened, but on my way home my tinitus in my left ear faded away, and I heard some of the high pitched electronic noise from the regulator boards on my EV, just like I used to some years ago, high frequency like the noise from the turbo on a modern diesel car. But then I came home, really happy to hear high freqencies again, and no permanent noise, then my 5 year old screamed her lungs out aiming at my ears short distance....
Not really. The information that is shared now is a couple of centuries behind the geniuses who develop actual scientific theory.
Most of the science of acoustics was developed by individual geniuses long before there were computers or easily shared information. Isaac Newton himself took a crack at it in the late 1700's, but came up with the wrong answer. Laplace (another genius among geniuses) filled in the gaps in the same century: The Newton-Laplace Equation & Speed of Sound
As far as I can tell, today's easy communication has not produced much that is of actual significance in terms of understanding our universe. It's made some people rich, it's made banking and business very different, it allows people to waste their lives tweeting and watching 30-second videos of cats falling off coffee tables.
But it hasn't produced revolutions in science or math that I am aware of - that has always come from one-in-a-million geniuses, not from providing the Internet to several billion average Joes and Janes like ourselves. The frontiers of understanding are so far beyond the abilities of ordinary people that it makes little difference if you involve seven billion people or not. One single Stephen Hawking, Isaac Newton, or Albert Einstein will do more than seven billion of the rest of us can.
The Internet surely does help quite average people like ourselves learn to do quite average things (like building DIY speakers, or building a jet engine out of an automotive turbo) more easily. Perhaps it helps luthiers share information as well.
But don't forget that building a speaker is now a hundred-year-old technology (Rice-Kellog circa 1925), based on science and math which is now over two hundred years old (Newton, Laplace, Faraday, Henry, Maxwell, etc.)
Similarly, building jet engines is a ninety year old technology (Frank Whittle's patent is from 1930.)
Tinkering with 100-year-old technology, based on 200-year-old science, is not advancing the knowledge of humanity at all, though it may be advancing the fun-factor and individual knowledge of the average Joe/Jane who is doing it.
After I finish typing this post, I am going to head to my work-bench to tinker with some more 100 year old technology - a thermionic valve / vacuum tube. I will not be advancing the knowledge of humanity one little bit, merely entertaining myself for an hour or two.
-Gnobuddy
Medicine Man Hearing Remedy - Official Website
Medicine Man Hearing Remedy - Official Website
Be careful where you get your information from.
Medicine Man Hearing Remedy - Official Website
Be careful where you get your information from.
Gnobuddy:
Yes, making knowledge accessible was what I had in mind. And because of this several different parts of theory flow together to create a more coherent whole. "The geniuses" only provide part of the theory, it has to be proven, tested, refined, developed to encompass surrounding fields or perhaps completed with theory from other sources probably made with different intentions.
Credit goes to the original "genius" but they where just fortunate enough to have time and money to waste, a curiousity to couple it with, and people to do their bidding.
It is exactly like the evolution of the violin. A bit rough around the edges at first, not refined with better tools, measurement devices and accessible knowledge.
Venusfly:
Wow that was a long complete waste of space!
Impressive!
Yes, making knowledge accessible was what I had in mind. And because of this several different parts of theory flow together to create a more coherent whole. "The geniuses" only provide part of the theory, it has to be proven, tested, refined, developed to encompass surrounding fields or perhaps completed with theory from other sources probably made with different intentions.
Credit goes to the original "genius" but they where just fortunate enough to have time and money to waste, a curiousity to couple it with, and people to do their bidding.
It is exactly like the evolution of the violin. A bit rough around the edges at first, not refined with better tools, measurement devices and accessible knowledge.
Venusfly:
Wow that was a long complete waste of space!
Impressive!
There was an interesting study on bone health in the BBC programme 'Trust Me I'm a Doctor' where different forms of exercise were compared.
BBC Two - Trust Me, I'm a Doctor, Series 7, Episode 6 - Which type of exercise gives you the strongest bones?
Excerpt -
Whilst it was expected that gymnasts might have stronger bones than average, our results for cyclists and cricketers were surprising. Cyclists had less dense bones at the spine and hips than average, and cricketers had the densest bones of the three groups we tested.
....This study gives a good indication what kinds of exercise we could all do to improve our bone health. Exercises that involve some jumping and twisting, such as dancing or star jumps, are likely to be beneficial.
BBC Two - Trust Me, I'm a Doctor, Series 7, Episode 6 - Which type of exercise gives you the strongest bones?
Excerpt -
Whilst it was expected that gymnasts might have stronger bones than average, our results for cyclists and cricketers were surprising. Cyclists had less dense bones at the spine and hips than average, and cricketers had the densest bones of the three groups we tested.
....This study gives a good indication what kinds of exercise we could all do to improve our bone health. Exercises that involve some jumping and twisting, such as dancing or star jumps, are likely to be beneficial.
I get tinnitus when I'm dehydrated.
You should try Latin American / Ballroom, lots of females at schools but few to no males in all age groups except oap's.
Ballet is no good for tendons btw.
You mean like Ballet?
Erm, you first.
You should try Latin American / Ballroom, lots of females at schools but few to no males in all age groups except oap's.
Ballet is no good for tendons btw.
Vibration platforms were developed on this principal, initialy for astronauts then for commercial use though long term results are still under evaluation. I would say that normal activity against gravity is sufficient.
Salsa is a dance which will likely do the bones good and will certainly get the blood pumping. Some years ago I went with friends to a seaside holiday 'camp' hosting a Salsa weekend. There were two women for every man and no rest at all for the men. I remember drinking pint after pint of water! Salsa is very popular in Europe.
That explains the cacophonic sound signature to it, to be honest the Sheng is just too dissonant to my ears, never liked it although I like traditional Chinese music with all the other instruments such as GuZheng, GuQin, ErHu, BaWu etc.. or maybe it's some sort of resonant-dissonant tinnitus that gets triggered only when listening to Sheng.
Lots of people dont know that and people dont care about their body as that's what a doctors for..... and we all know that pills fix Everything.
Chomping a banana and swallowing is only good for the sugars where as mushing it round inside ones mouth gets the essential salts in yer system far faster.... better yet is to take a lil bite of banana and a few sips of water then swill / swallow.
Chomping a banana and swallowing is only good for the sugars where as mushing it round inside ones mouth gets the essential salts in yer system far faster.... better yet is to take a lil bite of banana and a few sips of water then swill / swallow.
Please stop saying this, it's not true. There were a lot of hyperbolic headlines at the time that misrepresented the test. It's worthwhile to look into it further.
As I said 6 years ago
FWIW, I just finished a bowl of banana ice cream, and have no tinitus.
Pano, for what it's worth, I agree.
Just like saying multi way is better than full range, or solid state is better than tubes, cd is better than vinyl, etc.
They are just different. There is more than historical value in an old violin, a different sound signature, a different "feel".
Maybe I should get some banana ice cream!
Edit:
And everyone knows that the best snake oil salesmen/women are reporters!
"How to fix your sex life" with crap advice
"how to be a better person" with even worse advice
"Object a is better than object b!" Based on irrelevant criteria, or taken out of context.
Just like saying multi way is better than full range, or solid state is better than tubes, cd is better than vinyl, etc.
They are just different. There is more than historical value in an old violin, a different sound signature, a different "feel".
Maybe I should get some banana ice cream!
Edit:
And everyone knows that the best snake oil salesmen/women are reporters!
"How to fix your sex life" with crap advice
"how to be a better person" with even worse advice
"Object a is better than object b!" Based on irrelevant criteria, or taken out of context.
Last edited:
The twisting body action that is a core part of Salsa is very hard on the knees, though. Old salseros always have bad knees. No exceptions that I know of.
Old ballroom dancers, on the other hand, don't have bad knees. But those who did a lot of waltzing usually have painful and damaged big toes.
From what I've seen, old people who have done yoga for decades seem to fare best. Aging dancers do very well overall, but often have specific damaged areas as outlined above.
-Gnobuddy
And why would you assume I only read the headlines?
Incidentally, it wasn't "the" test, as there were two separate studies done several years apart. Both studies came to the same conclusion: the best of the modern violins were better than any of the 'Strads used in the studies.
When you factor in the price difference between a ballpark $5,000,000 per 'Strad, and $50,000 for those winning modern violins, you are talking about paying a hundred times as much money for an instrument that produces lower quality sound.
Music and superstition always go hand in hand. People will pay ten times the price for a 'Strat carrying a fifty-cent decal that resembles David Gilmour's signature. Trainwreck (guitar amp) enthusiasts believe they can hear the difference between teflon-insulated wire and PVC insulated wire. People convince themselves that the background hiss, pops, ticks, wow, flutter, compression, and reduced frequency response of vinyl LPs sounds better than CD quality digital audio. And so it goes.
FWIW, I just took the trash out, and I have no cancer.
Mebbe we can see some headlines on the benefits of taking out the trash, now.
I wish you hadn't mentioned ice cream, though. Now I want some!
-Gnobuddy
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