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In Reply to: Musicians are meddling in "OUR" arguments........... posted by Roger Hill on April 13, 2007 at 09:08:31:
neither of your anacdotes supports your contention that musicians hear things that can't be measured. In the first instance, you even prescribed the correct measurement: Measure the instrument's response both perpendicular to the f-hole and a couple of feet from the side of the instrument.In the second case, you also gave a partial solution: We're comparing an aged instrument with a brand new one. I have little doubt that the Strad and the new instrument would measure different. And I would hypothesize that every Strad would have a unique signature, as well.
As a trained physicist, I would hope that your approach would be that while it is possible that musicians (and others) can hear things we can't yet measure, we need to work on determining what those things are so that we CAN measure them.
Follow Ups:
merely the observation that some of the discussions in the world of musicians are very similar to those that go on here.All I tried to illustrate is that musicians feel the same way that many audiophiles do about sound and audibility of certain, as yet, undefined qualities. If you read the Physicsweb article, you would have noted that a physicist commented that we don't yet know what to measure. Where have you heard that? And the articles stated exactly what you said, not all Strads are created equal. I just found it interesting that considerations similar to those discussed here are also common to the world of performers. The Ovation anecdote illustrates (to me) that even "off the street" guitar players may hear a deficiency. The Stern anecdote illustrates to me that some modern luthiers may provide a product which, in the right hands, may produce musical sounds that include all of those undefined qualities that the highest levels of violinists find desirable. And, I have no reason to believe that they cannot hear those differences when they say that they can. Neither, in and of itself, proves anything except that they are of enough interest to me to post them. If things that interest me are not of interest to you, fine, don't bother reading any more of my posts.
I just do not appreciate someone being critical of me, my approach as a physicist, my "partial" solutions, etc. when all I offered was some interesting links, and some information from personal experiences. Certainly no conclusions, only the statement that I have no reason to believe that violinists at the highest levels can't hear the difference in various violins. Criticizing my approach as a physicist is coping an attitude that I don't choose to bother with. If you want to criticize someone's approach to physics based on their offering of some interesting reading, don't bother reading my posts.
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