MAKING THE STRADIVARIUS CHEAP

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 148, 25 June 1938, Page 27

MAKING THE STRADIVARIUS CHEAP

If Professor Frederick A. Saunders, of Harvard, is given time and money : enough he may lay aown principles which will make it possible to duplicate in a department-store violin the tonal quality of the best Stradivarius, says the science editor of the "New York Times." In his laboratory he now is mechanically' and manually scraping the strings of thirty violins ranging from one of excruciating badness (price 255) to some fine instruments fashioned by the best craftsmen of Gremona. Scores of experimental scientists have studied violins before Professor Saunders came along and made interesting and important revelations. But not yet is it possible to duplicate the tone of an old masterpiece. Every musical tone consists of a fundamental and harmonics or overtones. The fundamental is always the same. It is the harmonics or overtones that give clarinets, brasses, stringed instruments, and voices their timbre. The qualities in which a Stradivarius tone differs from that of any other violin maker's are generally known. The mystery resides in the way the tohe'of a Stradivarius is produced by'a .few pieces of wood glued together to make a resonant body, a bridge, four strings stretched taut over the bridge,'and by the friction of a bow. Although there are enough tone analysers available, Professor Saunders turned to Dr; Harry Hall, Professor Frederick V. Hunt; and George W. Pierce for a new one. It makes pic-

tures of tones up to 20,000 vibrations a second, which is about as high as the ear can hear. From the pictures it is possible to tell not only what harmonics or overtones are blended with the fundamental, but also the strength of the harmonics. Professor Saunders has alreatly found a striking similarity in five Stradivarius and five other old violins made by P. Guarnerius, G. Guarnerius. Guadagnini, and Gagliano. That is. the average responses were similar. The main work, still to be done, will reveal, if possible, how each part of a violin vibrates as the bow is drawn across the strings. The vibration of the mass of air within the body of the instrument must also be studied. Then then is the effect of the absorption of moisture on the wood, on vibration, on the elastic strength and internal friction of the wood. There is some evidence that the rawness of new violins may be caused by tight gluing. After a few months the glue dries, so that the. instrument can vibrate more freely. For some experiments Professor Saunders uses a mechanical bowing apparatus by which pressure, Speed, and position of bow can be controlled. He'finds, as did his predecessors, that pressure has little to do with change or volume of tone if the position and speed of the bow are consonant. But as soon as the speed of bowing changes or if the bow is shifted from the bridge the tone changes markedly in quality and strength. To test tone quality alone Professor Saunders bows by hand, finding no difficulty in obtaining uniformity.