Stradivarius

This is a short article on the Smithsonian site about utilizing CT scanning on Stradivarius violins and the instruments of his contemporaries to attempt to distinguish physical characteristics

I've known of researchers chipping off varnish to analyze the chemical compounds, others who swear it's the types and seasoning of the wood that creates the sound. The most exciting thing about the research being done with the CT scanner is they can analyze the exact thickness of the wood at all parts, measure the volume of air inside the body, and take measurements they were never able to do without either guesswork or taking apart the instrument (which nobody wants to do with a Strad, because once you put it back together you've likely ruined its superior sound forever!).

I played a Strad once. I was a freshman in high school. The Baroque Violin Shop had one at the OMEA convention. I played Malaguena or some other silly thing. I probably sounded awful. But even my playing at that age was instantly elevated by this thing. I don't want to attribute any mythical properties to any one instrument, but people often wonder how it is that a violin can sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars while one can buy many other professional level instruments for a tenth of the cost. Instrument value is determined by the reputation of its maker, its age and condition, and its sound, though this last count is incredibly subjective. I've played $3000 dollar instruments I've liked better than $30,000 instruments. 

The other issue is that the violin has to fit your technique. If you're a kid taking lessons, the $30,000 violin's response could be so quick it's a little disorienting because you haven't developed the muscular reflexes to work with that (I've experienced that many times. As I improve, I'm able to sound exponentially better on a more expensive instrument). It's also a matter of developing a relationship with your instrument. After you've been playing one for a time, your muscle memory becomes acquainted with where the harmonics lie. There's a personal fit that has to occur. Some people like a wide neck on the violin; mine is comparatively thin. I like the facility I have with shifting as a result.

It's like living together. You know all the faults of your instrument, but you are in this permanent (or at least long-term) arrangement. For example, the instrument I used to have had an incredibly brilliant sound on the e string. It was clear and sweet, and when I go back to it today I'm shocked at how good it sounds up there with just a little vibrato. But the g string was terrible. Past third position, it was so cloudy and uneven that there was no coaxing a good sound out of it. My current instrument is more balanced overall, but less brilliant in the upper register. It has a wolf on the high C on the G string. And it resonates well in the extremities but I have to work harder to get the same sound on the middle strings.

The thing that makes violins and other stringed instruments so fragile is their material. Wood expands and contracts due to changes in temperature and humidity, and not only that, the wood is thin to allow for interior vibration. A well-made instrument must not buckle under changes; though improper care from the owner can lead to open seams and cracks. 

Of course, no matter how well-made the violin, there are so many other factors that can influence one's sound: the brand of strings you use, placement of the interior sound post, the interior volume of the instrument where the sound resonates, amount of bow hair in contact with the string, too taut or too loose of a bow, the material of the bow (carbon fiber vs. pernambuco wood), how much rosin is on your bow (which has an effect on the amount of friction generated between the horsehair and the string), even the style of shoulder rest (I've heard that this can have a slight impact on the vibration of the body due to the way they clip to the sides of the instrument). Not to mention all the technique they teach you to in order to achieve a particular sound!

Interesting side note: Pernambuco is toxic, and many bow makers die young (40s and 50s) from lifetime exposure to the wood shavings. I learned that on a tour of a bow making school. I have a carbon fiber bow. I prefer it because it does not warp in humid weather. I like its consistency and lightness, though my bow in particular is rather finicky for spiccato and tremolo strokes. It has to be just so, in about an inch of bow. I don't have a lot of room to maneuver.

And if you were wondering, I do listen to Stratovarius, the band. I posted on here once about my love of the song Stratofortress. First of all, that is one of the most hilariously metal song titles ever. Secondly, it uses harpsichord (or at least, a synthesized harpsichord).

Idle Chatter about Notjustmoreidlechatter

I've been flipping through my iTunes because I'm working on a mix for somebody I love, and I rediscovered my deep love of Paul Lansky's Notjustmoreidlechatter (all one word).

The piece is so fragmented-and could easily easily be duplicated in this modern computer age. But he composed the piece by fragmenting voice samples and re-arranging them on cassette in 1988. It sounds so modern, like it was composed this year. It impresses me because it sounds so soothing, and yet it's a collection of chaotic clips.

It seems an appropriate aural description of the modern era. Information flies at us so quickly we may not even have time to process the flow of ideas. Our generation is one raised on instant gratification. We are the generation that saw video games become a multibillion dollar industry. We saw the advent of social networking and as youngsters conversed with our school friends through AIM instead of a phone call. Our vocabularies consist of words like "multi-task."We grew up with pop music where the intonation could be fixed with the touch of a button, where a voice could be created almost entirely in a studio. We watched MTV, we used search engines, and we watched as Amazon and Ebay proved that just about anything can and will sell through the internet. We tweet, we text, we friend and un-friend, we announce to the world that "it's complicated" or that we are engaged.

With a click of a mouse, I can download custom content for my Sims game while I listen to Cambodian rock music on my iTunes and I check the temperature in my city and look up the song lyrics to a Björk song and make a grocery list on an iPod touch with recipes gleaned from Epicurious.com. I can look up the name to that Billy Collins poem I kept thinking about by typing the line I had stuck in my head. I can find my apartment building on Google maps and read the menu to a new restaurant to decide if I want to eat there. I can find a toy I used to play with as a child by searching for it under vintage (ouch) items on Ebay or Etsy.

I mean, good god. Have you ever stopped and thought about how many things you can do? I've been researching video game music for a paper (the paper topic was sort of a present to myself, I know), and when I look at system capabilities from only 15 years ago, I'm astounded at how quickly it improved and how seamlessly it all integrated into our lives. I think about when I was in elementary school and the classroom computer was used only to play Oregon Trail and Number Munchers (does anybody else remember that game?). Now you can pull up a youtube video of a symphony orchestra performance in a general music class, and even write directly on the screen of a Smartboard. You can surf the internet on a fiber optic network and buy external hard drives that store TERABYTES of data.

When you think about how quickly you learn how to adapt and integrate, it's sort of shocking and amazing.

I strayed quite far from the musical content...Paul Lansky's piece to me, is the perfect commentary on all of these things I have been talking about. The sampling of human voices so that they sound computerized, or lost in the shuffle of information exchange. The voices are unintelligible and numerous. They make me think of the millions of people who are able to connect through the internet, talk, share, fight, romance, comment...there's a din of human communication through completely non-sentient means. Does it matter that we can't discern a "text?" I don't think so. I think the fragmentation is familiar, it's comfortable. We're used to living lives completely enveloped in technology, the way the sound of this piece envelopes us in its eclectic musical line.

Channeling Ghost World

There was such a cool, unattainable quality to the characters in the film adaptation of Ghost World. I certainly didn't want to be Enid. Her creepy fascination with Seymour, her complete lack of ambition-but I wanted to inhabit her thrifted wardrobe (particularly her perfect thick-rimmed glasses) and look through her record collection.

She had the most indie music collection ever. When I think of the indie kids today trying to fight over which bands they discovered first, abandoning favorites once they attain any sort of following...all the posing, the hipster mentality with its American Apparel giant sunglasses. Enid was the type of indie kid I would have wanted to be in high school. Listening to obscure vinyl from our grandparents' generation.

The soundtrack is one of my favorites ever created for a film. It's eclectic, with old scratchy blues gems (Skip James "Devil Got My Woman" is my definition of blues) and 60s Bollywood. The cd had me at Jaan Pehechaan Ho, Mohammed Rafi's so-mod-60s-spy-movie-it-hurts track from Gumnaam. The Lionel Belasco and Vince Giordano tracks also charmed me completely. But, it was always Jaan Pehechaan Ho that captivated me. Though Enid was fictional, I wanted to be somebody cool enough to find foreign gems. But there's always been something about world music that has intimidated me.

In this culture, I know how to look for new music that I like. I know my way around a record store and can reasonably locate what I'm looking for. But drop me into a world music section and I chicken out. I don't take the same risks, since I don't have a lot of money to spend on such things. It wouldn't be so hard if I had one starting place-a band or a friend who knows the music and can lead me along the primrose path.

Ethnomusicology has given me a few tracks to love, though it remains to be seen whether I will fall for entire catalogs of artists or just one catchy song. Angelique Kidjo is one that has been promising. The first track that hooked me was Tumba off of her Black Ivory Soul album. None of the live ones I found live up to the sheer excitement of the actual track. Her collaboration with Joss Stone on Gimme Shelter also made me sit up and take notice. I've had a crush on Joss' voice ever since I got a free download of a live version of Tell Me Bout It.

There's been other, isolated tracks. Anoushka Shankar's Red Sun is just so wonderfully virtuosic and hip. I love the whole feel of it.

The long winded point I will eventually make is that I have recently found two albums of foreign music that I love dearly. The first was something John picked up. One of his co-workers had suggested Dengue Fever to him. Not the actual disease, the band that mixes Cambodian pop with psychedelic rock. John stumbled across an album (Dengue Fever Presents Electric Cambodia) by them at the record store. The vinyl is cream colored, which I love endlessly. I am a sucker for colored vinyl.

Once we brought it home, we realized it was a compilation album of Cambodian pop music from the 60s and 70s, not original material from the band. Does it matter? No. This album kicks ass. There is not a single song on the album I don't completely adore. The great thing is the tracks were rescued from cassette. They aren't easy to find on youtube or online (unless you get the compilation). The only video I can post to approximate the awesomeness is this one.

Pan Ron, featured heavily on Electric Cambodia.

The second album to rock my world? I'll have to post about it later. I have to get ready for a performance and if I begin to wax poetic about it, I will be late. I will say that it's another compilation of 60s music, but this time from Thailand.

The point? I finally, at 23, feel like Enid. A little bit. I won't be dying my hair green at any point, but at least I can begin to approach a more eclectic music collection.

Fun Facts I have learned in the midst of Paper Research

1. The original "ping" sound effect in Pong was created by Atari engineer Al Alcorn, from an amplified waveform from the game's own circuitry. Interesting, no?

2. Arvo Part's Sarah was Ninety Years Old was originally premiered by a pregnant singer! This is significant because the title refers to the biblical Sarah, who through a miracle gave birth at an extremely advanced age.

3. Computer disk storage units are as follows, from smallest to largest: bit, byte, kilobyte, megabyte, gigabyte, terabyte, petabyte, exabyte, zettabyte, BRONTOBYTE. Am I alone in seeing that and immediately thinking BRONTOSAURUS*?

*I can't be. There's no way I'm the only one.

4. Tintinnabuli is not functional harmony. It sounds diatonic, but it lacks the directional impetus of the tonic/dominant relationship, choosing instead to rely on quasi-stasis in harmonic material. I suppose this isn't really news to me. But I never really thought about it because the music is so lulling with its virtual lack of dissonance.

5. Schoenberg had triskaidekaphobia.

6. Nobuo Uematsu utilizes Wagnerian-style leitmotif in his compositions for the various Squaresoft Final Fantasy games.

Food for Thought

“It’s like a traffic jam. Sometimes we don’t even hear that there’s music playing. That’s the worst thing. We don’t hear the sounds any more, because we’ve built a protective wall around us. We don’t really need to hear that much music. It would be better to listen to just a little, the right kind of music, and to understand that fully.”

-Arvo Pärt