And I agreed that playability and tone were two different but related issues. They are both still determined by structural properties. “Music” includes what the sequence of notes is rather than just the frequency amplitudes comprising the individual tones, and I would not seek to address whether one sequence of notes was ‘better’ than another.
To examine individual tones and to refuse to examine musical sequences is to ignore the very thing that makes it a musical instrument. And the context of the OP is with the Strad as a musical instrument, not as an object which emits individual tones.
Granted, understanding the behaviour of individual tones is an important step. But it proves nothing about the quality of the musical instrument as a whole.
Did I say something about fingerprints or “stool positions” when I explained what happens when I detect someone else has played on my instrument?
My children are careful enough to avoid leaving any such “proof” you describe and do whatever it takes to have their intrusion in my Holy Places conceiled.
I explained why I detect it and what - in my view - the cause of that is.
And no, it is not of any noteworthy interest because if you ask at random experienced pianists who play their instruments for years, they can tell you the same story.
Salaam. A
A musical instrument is a device which emits tones, individually or in plurality. Sound is compression or rarefaction of the air at superimposed frequencies and amplitudes.
The quality of a musical instrument is determined solely by its structural properties.
I merely asked for careful demonstration that you detect it. Many people, from dowsers to psychics, have been as confident in their demonstrative ability as yourself.
Unless you want to go down the John Cage route, can we agree that not all sounds are music or musical? A good violin is one that enables the player to make good music - of which the aesthetic aspects of tone quality are only one part. To show that there is no difference between Strads and good modern violins requires much more than showing there is no difference in their tone.
Well, no we can’t, but that is another debate entirely.
Quality is an aethetic by definition. As for “good music”, let us drop what is written on the stave as a variable. Tone quality and playability are judged aesthetically, admittedly (again).
And playability. Any more criteria?
My children could tell you instantly about that “careful demonstration”.
Children don’t say “yes” to an accusation when they haven’t done anything wrong.
They also don’t risk to say “no” when the answer should be “yes” when they know their father has every possibility to question others about the matter.
They are little, but smart 
Salaam. A
Sentient, you still are no further then your assertion that a violin is just some pieces of wood put together and emitting sounds when brought into action.
For you these sounds are by definition unchangeable preconditioned and limited and blocked into this condition excluding influencing factors of any kind, because these pieces of wood are brought together in a certain way to form a violin.
If we exclude quality, tone, colour etc… to make you feel more comfortable about this theory: Explain with this theory to me why my relative can alter the soundvolume of my violin. She uses the same strings, the same bow, the same pieces of wood brought together to form a violin. Even plays the same pieces as I do.
Nevertheless the violin, a 3/4 = in your theory by its size limited to the according preconditioned volume of any sound, emits sounds you expect to be emitted by a 4/4 sized instrument.
Is that the violin magically and invisible growing or is that the player influencing its ability to produce sounds?
Salaam. A
I was just attempting to bring some formalism to your claims, since to me they sound a little like those of a dowser.
I am arguing that it need be no more, following the principle of Ockham’s Razor, and that musicians often fall for myths and pseudoscience since they make superficial ‘sense’.
I am saying that the musician can only affect the string, not the plates which amplify the string and determine the violin’s tone and playability.
Maximum volume is nonlinearly related to plate area. One would expect the maximum volume of a 3/4 violin to be similar to that of a 4/4 (after all, one wouldn’t expect a cello to be 15 times as loud!) The perceived sound pressure level is based on the monopole source strength of the modes (structural, not pentatonic etc!) of the top plate as perturbed by coupling with the cavity and back plate, which is not a simple function of size. (A whistle is very loud but very small.)
I have a feeling this thread will be moving to Great Debates soon.
Heh heh, so be it - but I’m trying to be as factual as I can, honest!
One other point: violin strings in 1700 were made of gut, while today we use steel. I would imagine that the sounds made by these strings would be differnet…and also, steel strings impose much hgher mechnical loads upon the body of the violin.
Are these violins played with gut or steel strings today?
Also, Stradivari made cellos and bass instruments-how are those compared to modern ones?
Fine. So why would this not be provable in single blind testing?
You say ‘blind testing’ as if it’s some panacea, despite the thread explaining many times over why it’s not possible to blind test instruments. Explain to us how you would truly ‘blind test’ our instruments, and I’ll listen.
I think Princhester meant by a single blind test that the listeners would be blindfolded while the violin player was allowed to know which instrument they were playing.
The thread has not done any such thing.
But quite simply, have a panel of blinded listeners hear various instruments playing a selection of pieces. Do this a number of times with various players and so as to average out good/bad specific performances, instruments that sound better on specific pieces and so on. Do as wide a variety of combinations and permutations and repitition as will make you happy.
Ask the panel to score the various performances on whether they like what they hear or not. See whether celebrated antiques do better than comparable modern instruments.
How hard is that?
How, then, can some listeners tell which sound came from which instrument so accurately? If the pieces, player, strings and bow are (largely) the same, the only variable is the assembly of wood itself, which thus determines playability (for the player’s judgement) and the tone (for the player and listener’s judgement).
The problem is that it removes much of what is prized about Strads. Anyone who plays on one will tell you they’re harder to play at first. They take months, even years, to get comfortable with. Only then do the perceived benefits emerge. And a sub-standard player will be better of sticking to another fiddle.
And in any case, we’re talking about instruments used by the very best players to produce the very best music - ‘averaging out’ performances is incompatible with this.
It depends on your personal preference and your experience with the instrument itself. You can also use a mix of gut strings and other ones.
I would see the use of gut strings as preferable for baroque music, nevertheless many players use other ones or a mix.
I always use gut strings on every violin. To me it doesn’t matter much that they are less stable while you play and more difficult to fine tune (putting fine-tuners on them is - in my view - useless.)
I didn’t put gut strings on the Guarnerius to play Jazz. Not because they are more fragile (break more easily when you go wild) but because I wanted to have a “modern” and “sharper” sound effect with a 3/4 violin that was not build for such music. I take also an other type of bow for this type of music.
The perceived higher quality of other instruments made by the old masters is the same as with the violin.
Salaam. A
Sorry G’Man but from where I’m sitting you’re just trying to duck and weave.
1/ If it takes years or months to get comfortable with the instruments, then part of the experiment will have to include years or months of practice on them.
2/ Nobody but you mentioned anything about musicians who are sub-standard.
3/ If it takes the very best players playing the very best music then that is who and what should play and be played in the experiment. My reference to “averaging out” is just meaning that each piece should be played several times on each instrument perhaps on a number of separate occasions so that if (for example) one particular musician has an off day or something that doesn’t skew the results.
You have accepted that in your opinion celebrated antique instruments are audibly better in a way that is detectable to a listener. Sooner or later you are going to have to accept that if that is true in any meaningful sense, then those instruments must necessarily be audibly better to listeners who don’t know what they are listening to.
As yet you have not come up with any evidence fit for GQ better than the subjective and anecdotal that that is so.