"Wood Be" Explanations Sound Hollow

Last Updated (Wednesday, 13 August 2008 10:31) Written by Raymond Nakamura

I was lamenting the difficulties of finding topics to blog about when my wife cued the violins. Then I heard about some research showing that the density of the wood is more uniform in Stradivarius violins compared with modern ones.

Even if, like me, you know next to nothing about violins, you've probably heard of Stradivarius. He and others made instruments in Cremona Italy about three hundred years ago. His violins are still prized today for their exceptional sound quality. Some scientists, however, don't seem comfortable with the idea that he was just really good at what he did and keep searching for evidence of some other secret.

The density explanation reminded me of a scientist I know who speculated that the sound of a sea urchin test could depend on how tightly the plates are sutured together. But even if uniform density is the key to superior sound in violins, how did Stradivarius achieve this?

Maybe he used some special treatment of the wood, like in that fun movie the Red Violin, or maybe the wood somehow became denser as it aged (which seems to be happening to me). Another intriguing possibility is that the wood came from trees that grew during a period of unusually cold weather known as the Maunder Minimum, named after a scientist who noticed the connections between a "mini-Ice age" in Europe and reduced sunspot activity.

This made me wonder if the recent spate of broken baseball bats might have something to do with climate change, though so far, that seems to be mostly about changing from ash to maple.

Then I saw this video showing that in a blind test, a panel of violinists, a violin maker and music critics COULD NOT IDENTIFY the sound of the Stradivarius. I laughed my head off. If this is true, then the reputation of the Stradivarius is some kind of psychological phenomenon. It shows why you always need to test assumptions and why correlations does not necessarily demonstrate causation.

"The great tragedy of science - the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact. "
— Thomas Huxley

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