What is Digg?28 Comments
- DangQuesadilla, on 11/10/2008, -1/+8This article was awesome. Here is a cool article about a guy playing a stradivarius in a subway to see if anyone would notice: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic ...
Also, for anyone else interested, google Joseph Nagyvary, a chemist who spent his life figuring out the chemical makeup of the stradivarius wood. Turns out Stradivarius used borax, mineral salts, and quartz crystals to treat the wood. And fruit gums also, from local trees. - BattleScars, on 11/10/2008, -2/+7A niche article about antique instruments making it to the front page of Digg, who'da thunk it?
- farfromhere, on 11/10/2008, -0/+4Seeing as how you're being dugg down, I'd say, yeah, you are the only one. =]
- inactive, on 11/10/2008, -0/+4there is also the almost mystical power of the fact that other violinists often great violinists have held and played the instrument
- inactive, on 11/10/2008, -0/+4joshua bell
josh played the violin for the movie 'the red violin'
my music professor's son is a world class carnegie hall playing violinist also so he (the son) knows josh
an interesting fact about these rare old violins is that in order to keep their beautiful tone quality they should be played
so often young virtuoso's are lent these instruments by the owner / collector heavily insured of course
but the day they can buy their own is like their wedding day an awesome experience a magical moment - Berkana, on 11/10/2008, -1/+5I'm a bit disappointed that the decades old findings of Alan Beavitt about why old Strads sound so good haven't been more widely disseminated. He found that one of the factors involved in the peerless sound of old violins is wood creep due to humidity cycling, from seasonal humidity changes and from exposure to the player's breath. The wood creep that an instrument experiences by being cycled between humid air (from, for example, a violinist playing it, and his breath entering the sound holes to expose the un-varnished insides to humidity) and dry air causes the wood to resonate more favorably with even harmonics, or something like that. Beavitt has been able to condition new instruments by artificially subjecting them to the equivalent of two centuries worth of wood creep from humidity cycling:
http://www.scoraig.com/arts/abeavitt/humiditycycli ... - DangQuesadilla, on 11/10/2008, -2/+6I know a guy who owned a strad and lost it because he had to sell it to pay a law suit. He touched a violin student's breast while teaching a lesson. Actually he did that to lots of people.
- Subliminational, on 11/10/2008, -1/+4I've often wondered why they couldn't have just done this sort of analysis long ago to replicate specific instruments. I suppose cheap measurement and analysis equipment has not been available until recently, and then backing out the features contributing to specific excitation frequencies is probably difficult. There are some fancy FEA (Finite Element Analysis) packages out there now that allow the simulation of acoustic systems coupled with nonlinear effects of air and (i suppose) wood, so perhaps this is the path being taken currently?
- atruskot, on 11/10/2008, -1/+4This is one of my favorite little social experiments. It's just amazing that nobody stops for a second to take notice of what is happening there... but then again, who would expect Joshua Bell to be playing in a subway?!
Makes me think of:
"It's the talent, not the promotion." -Circa Survive
...maybe the talent isn't all that important. - cros, on 11/10/2008, -1/+4Good to see Agatha passed hers on to good hands after I got her one from Vault 92.
- EnderWalcott, on 11/10/2008, -1/+3The Spring 2008 edition of SIIM News has a 3D reconstruction from a CT scan of a violin made in 1740. Check it out: http://siimweb.org/index.cfm?id=93 (scroll down a little bit).
- palehorse864, on 11/10/2008, -1/+3Oh my Stradivarius!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-pFPbfD2ms#t=5m49s - Berkana, on 11/10/2008, -0/+1Montagnana's cellos rock, but Strads are better violins.
- LonelyTylenoL, on 11/10/2008, -2/+3Interesting, so many rare instruments in one place. Kinda cool.
- inactive, on 11/10/2008, -0/+1yeah I meant cello's only
- krispykreams, on 11/10/2008, -1/+2This is pretty awesome.
- inactive, on 11/10/2008, -0/+1his name is alex kerr
there is another alex kerr not a violinist so you have to type alex kerr violinist into search
yes word is that josh is really into the ladies he has dated a goodly number - DangQuesadilla, on 11/10/2008, -1/+2Yep I know about Joshua Bell. A female friend of mine dated him. I'd be curious to know who this "son" you speak of is. I know many violinists. But of course there's the anonymity thing on here.....
- Harbinger67, on 11/10/2008, -0/+1Hah, the only reason I clicked this article is because I learned what a Stradivarius was from Fallout 3 :p
- supermanly, on 11/10/2008, -1/+1Even though it's completely random, it's pretty cool so I didn't Digg you down.
- fiji5555, on 11/10/2008, -2/+1wow thanks for the post of this! I heard this on NPR today while at work........yes I get to listen to my MP3 player while working ;) and I was going to look this up when I got home but forgot about it until now.
- h4rdcor3, on 11/10/2008, -4/+2He will never reach the level of a Strad. Instruments like that have way too much history for someone to willing choose his instrument over a Strad or the Gesu if given the choice.
- Ramenboy005, on 11/10/2008, -4/+1http://tinyurl.com/6dzomx
- inactive, on 11/10/2008, -6/+1buried for not having a domenico montagnana instrument in his possession.
- ohhsnap, on 11/10/2008, -12/+3GESU
- Seaseme, on 11/10/2008, -17/+767 diggs, no comments, front page. Interesting.
- AlphaDrake, on 11/10/2008, -16/+1Am I the only one who was hoping this had to do with the power metal band Stratovarius?
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