Oh the pain.....

[Evermore]

I feel for this guy. this HAS to hurt bad...


$1,000,000 violin falls and smashes into matchsticks

[Sithos]

Anyone running round with a musical instrument that is valued at more than what most families make in 12+ years deserves no sympathy.

[Arlos]

I dunno, Sithos. That instrument is the guy's life. That's what he does, he's a virtuoso concert violinist. No one begrudges NASCAR drivers when they destroy cars worth far more, right? Same thing, just this guy doesn't have a huge conglomerate behind him, so if it's not reparable, he's in trouble, as there's only so many violins of that caliber in the world. They literally can't make them like that any more, no one knows how they did it then, and no one's been able to copy it either. The ones made by the old masters, like Stradivarius just sound leaps better than others, so...

-Arlos

[Kramer]

yeah, his story is was on NPR this week, he had had the instrument and many that were similarly expensive since he was aroudn 6 years old and had never had anything like that happen.

he has been a prodigy and that is totally normal for them to trade and use priceless instruments.

he said he didn't stop crying for like 3 days and he didn't move for like 2 hours after it happened.

saddest partis that it will probably never be repaired to its original tonal quality

[Tikker]

when I read this, I immediately thought of the 3 stooges skit where Larry destroys his violin with the judges gavel (trying to bash a parrot I think) and then moans "oh my stradivarius"


http://youtube.com/watch?v=r10LAL7Bdv0

i THINK that's the one

[brinstar]

i once read that part of what makes those old violins (e.g., stradivarian) sound so great is the music that was actually played by them over the years. like how you can stroke a nonmagnetic piece of metal with a magnet and turn it into a magnet, that sort of thing. it talked about how the vibrations of the music caused the molecules in the wood to realign to a more natural state for that type of music, causing it to sound better and better over the years

it kind of implies that if you took two identical violins made by stradivarius, placed one in a box with constant humidity, temperature, and light level-- and gave the other to a virtuoso-- 100 years later the one that had been used constantly would actually sound better

fascinating stuff

[Tikker]

I think that's mostly an old wives tale

just like if I managed to grab Clapton's guitar, I'm not going to sound anything like clapton playing

[Jay]

Or like if Clapton grabbed Jimi's guitar how he wouldn't sound nearly as good.

[araby]

he didn't say magical powers he said magnetic powers.

[brinstar]

I think that's mostly an old wives tale

just like if I managed to grab Clapton's guitar, I'm not going to sound anything like clapton playing

well obviously skill has a lot to do with it

but clapton's guitar isn't 100+ years old either

[Evermore]

i once read that part of what makes those old violins (e.g., stradivarian) sound so great is the music that was actually played by them over the years. like how you can stroke a nonmagnetic piece of metal with a magnet and turn it into a magnet, that sort of thing. it talked about how the vibrations of the music caused the molecules in the wood to realign to a more natural state for that type of music, causing it to sound better and better over the years

it kind of implies that if you took two identical violins made by stradivarius, placed one in a box with constant humidity, temperature, and light level-- and gave the other to a virtuoso-- 100 years later the one that had been used constantly would actually sound better

fascinating stuff

was my impression that it is the attention to detail, both acoustical and mechanical that went into building the instrament

[Tikker]

I think it's probably more of a case of good sounding instruments continually played by good musicians will sound good

[Lyion]

That's pretty heartbreaking.

It's not like this guy had this masterpiece buried in a basement trying to get value for it. It was something he was using to share his obvious gift.

At least it was the instrument that broke, and not him.

[araby]

That's pretty heartbreaking.

It's not like this guy had this masterpiece buried in a basement trying to get value for it. It was something he was using to share his obvious gift.

At least it was the instrument that broke, and not him.

very nice post,Iagree. stupidspacebar.

[Gaazy]

What a fag, violins are for pussys. The proper term is fiddle by god~

[Sithos]

He does not need a $1,000,000 violin to make music. He can have one made for a fraction of the cost and it would sound the same. He paid the million not because it would make him a better violinist but because he wanted the violin. Not every violin player has a 1 million dollar violin that they use. Most use ones that are a fraction of that price and they do just fine. It would be much like a Nascar driver who instead of spending 10 million on a car spends 100 million and the car and driver performs just as well as the others. (Using made up numbers as I know next to nadda about Nascar vehicle pricing)

[brinstar]

man you missed most of the discussion i think-- no, a violin a fraction of the cost would NOT sound the same

that violin was worth so much because they literally can't make them like that anymore, and because there are a finite number of them left in the world

it's like spilling wine on your original Matisse painting and replacing it with a poster of the painting from walmart. sure it looks the same, and it brings the same colors and feel to the room, but it's a $5 poster, not a famous work of art.

[Durothil Skyreaver]

Texas A&M University biochemist Joseph Nagyvary succeeded in making a violin somewhere near the quality of a Stradivari by leaving the wood to soak in brine. Because of the lack of land in Venice, during that period imported wood was often stored in the seawater of the Venetian Lagoon, where a type of decomposition had a slight effect on the wood. Nagyvary managed to acquire wood shavings from a Stradivarius violin, and under a microscope he found the natural filter plates in the pores between the tracheids were gone. He also treated the wood with a preparation of borax in the manner of Stradivari, who used it to prevent infestation.

By late 2003, Nagyvary refined his techniques and produced a violin that was tested in a duel with the Leonardo da Vinci Stradivarius of 1725. Both violins were played in each of four selections of music by violinist Dalibor Karvay behind a screen to an audience of 600 attended by 160 trained musicians and 303 regular concert goers. This was the first public comparison of a Stradivari with a contemporary instrument before a large audience where the audience would cast ballots on the performance quality of each violin. The consensus was that Nagyvary's instrument surpassed the Stradivarius in each category by a small margin.

Apparently you can get a violin better than a Stradivarius

[Evermore]

thats interesting. where did you find that?

[Gaazy]

by god, i heard this one old homeless dude in an alley one time when I went to DC play and he was the baddest player ive ever seen

[Kramer]

this is hysterical.

i imagine people who have played acoustic/wood instruments understand the dynamic that is being discussed here.

though that Texas A&M prof story is really interesting. though most everyone know that aggies are a bunch of toothless farmers, maybe he's the one city boy out of all of them.