Criteria of Excellence in Violins

Abstract

This report continues a series from the Harvard Laboratories of which the last was published in our Journal in January, 1941 (Watson, Cunningham, and Saunders). Recent work has produced the response curves of several excellent old and new violins, and also the rates of decay of a few of their tones. Some of these results will be shown. They disclose considerable differences in decay constants among both old and new instruments. Low damping implies greater volume of sound and an easier though slower response. Loudness (without deterioration of quality) is considered very desirable. This was demonstrated in a test conducted by two of the best violinists in this country on a large group of new instruments. The best of these were later measured by us, and showed relatively high emission in the lowest octave, and more uniformity than usual up to 4000 c.p.s. Experiments are now in progress in several places on the effects of varnish, etc., on the damping of vibrations in wood. The Chladni figures in a violin-shaped plate recently studied by J. A. Kessler (not yet published) make it clear that vibrations across the grain of the wood (whose damping is known to be very high) are as important as those across the grain. Lowering the damping of the wood by special treatment should increase the sound emission as a whole at the risk of increasing the unpleasant weakness of tones occurring between resonant peaks; but the experiment is decidedly worth trying.