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General Asylum General audio topics that don't fit into specific categories. |
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In Reply to: Re: Wrong question… posted by morricab on April 4, 2007 at 15:20:14:
I had hoped that I had made your point that "Professional violinists hate to be with an inferior instrument because it GREATLY limits what they can do with the sound" when I said of good instruments that they "… offer a wider range of tonal shadings, they offer a wider dynamic range, they project sound better…". You definitely said it better than me on that point.You're right about good instruments taking time and effort to master. There's no doubt about that and it also takes skill. A good instrument in the hands of an amateur won't produce anything like what a skilled player can produce from it, even before they spend the time and effort learning to get the best from it.
You're right about cheap instruments sounding similar. It takes skill and effort to make a responsive instrument and good instrument makers work miracles. I had a classical guitar made for me by a local maker over 40 years ago now, and he was very good. Watching him make instruments, lutes and other renaissance fretted instruments as well as guitars, was an education in itself. It also makes a cheap lie out of Sonus Faber's advertising claim that their speakers are made in the tradition of fine instruments. A speaker cabinet and a musical instrument are 2 entirely different things and a lute, violin or guitar built the way Sonus Faber build their cabinets is not an instrument I'd like to own :-)
You quoted my statement "In the end, a Stradivarius may produce a different sound simply because of the way the player feels about it," and responded "No, it sounds different because it IS different and shockingly better and more powerful sounding than most other violins...the difference in the hands of a professional is not subtle."
I agree wholeheartedly. The point I was making was a continuation of my previous paragraph, that even if the Strad and something else 'sounded the same'—whatever that meant by whatever test someone crazily designed to try and prove or disprove that statement—it would still sound different because of the difference in the way the player felt about it. That's simply one of the things that makes trying to measure instruments an almost pointless task. Standardised mechanical playing won't bring out the range of what the instrument can offer, and once you remove the standardisation and let the player include their response to the instrument in the way they play it, you've ensured that they'll do something different with each instrument and you've destroyed comparability again in a different way.
I envy your wife her time with the Strad and the other instruments you mention, and I envy you your time with her and them. I really don't think you hear the best of many instruments in a performance venue. Individually at least, many instruments are best heard and appreciated in a living room, at much closer distances, more moderate levels, and in what is essentially a much more intimate environment in every way. There's something you get there, when there is a personal interaction between the listener and performer, that you can never get elsewhere. Who cares if part of that is simply your emotional response to the moment rather than a real difference in sound, though I'll swear there is that difference. It's those sort of musical moments that keep me coming back to music in other settings, whether live or recorded. It's those moments that give me my reference for how a particular sort of instrument sounds and, more importantly, for how music sounds. They may not be the most brilliant performances but they're the performances that stick in the heart in a special way and show me at least just what the value of music is.
Does that put my comments in a more agreeable perspective for you? :-)))))))))
David Aiken
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Follow Ups
- OK, I won't disagree… - David Aiken 16:05:50 04/04/07 (1)
- Re: OK, I won't disagree… - morricab 16:17:41 04/06/07 (0)
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