Re: violins; was Re: clarinets; was Re: Brass Instruments

[Jim Goff <jgoff@PIMACC.PIMA.EDU>]

I was a grad student in the late 60's and think the professor you heard may
have been Dr. Arthur Benade, a most fascinating man who had left nuclear
physics to study the physics of musical instruments. My memories of knowing
this man are among the fondest I have of that time in my life.

Jim Goff

----- Original Message -----
From: Mike Smith <mike@COMET.UCAR.EDU>
To: <PHYS-L@lists.nau.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, October 11, 2000 12:45 PM
Subject: violins; was Re: clarinets; was Re: Brass Instruments


> Leigh asked:
>
> > Have you a personal supply of gold beater's skin? In my orchestra
> > days (in high school) an oboeist in our orchestra made his reeds
> > using this rather grotesquely named material.
>
> No.  Fortunately, clarinetists have only a single reed about which to
> obsess.  Superstition, neuroticism, etc., are far worse with double-reed
> players...as you no doubt guessed from the somewhat, er, exotic, names of
> their supplies.  Thankfully, no one has yet invented a "triple-reed"
> instrument (Pipe organs don't count!).  If they ever did, the players
would,
> as a species, be at extreme risk of extinction due to the severe
> psychological problems associated with such an evil device.
>
> > Instrumentalists are, in some ways, worse than audiophiles when
> > it comes to superstition.
> Oh, yes!
>
> One of the truly riveting lectures I can recall concerned Stradivarius
> string instruments.  As you all know, Strad "greatness" is its own
> mythology, and many have sought to duplicate that manufacturing "process."
> In the late 70s, a Case Western Reserve physics professor and amateur
> musician--I wish I could recall his name--visited the University of
Colorado
> and gave a fascinating lecture of his attempts to duplicate the Strad
> "secret."  To condense his lecture, the woods, dimensions, and even the
> varnish were all easily replicated, but the tonal results still fell
short.
> It was not until he "cooked" the instruments with a strong dose of x-rays
> that the waveforms really started to match those of the original
> instruments.  As I recall, he made a strong case for the "secret" being
> aging due to prolonged exposure to radiation and some accompanying subtle
> molecular changes in the varnish.
>
> Does anyone know of any papers along these lines?
>
> Cheers,
>
> Mike Smith
> Boulder, Colorado