Designing a Violin

How hard? No-one has been able to come close to the what Antonius Stradivarius built between 1700-1720. He spent his whole life making musical instruments.

A box with strings sounds like a box with strings.

How long does it take? Basics a 2 to 3 - depends on the student. To be a professional - about 12 years. To be an artist requires special talent. Check here and here.

They typically practice every day for a couple of hours.

Very difficult but very rewarding; competition is fierce.

Pay depends on the city, your experience, and how good you are, anywhere from $35K-$100K average. Exceptional artists can name their own price.

Conductor highest paid?- I think so

I think you fligh too high for this kind of music. Better listen to dome thing else more appealing.

Fascinating story about this very item on NPR yesterday:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=96708334

Creating a musical instrument is an art form. From the selection of the wood to method in which the surface is finished is all done with great care to get the tone desired.

You can just cut holes in a box and put strings on it and say its a violin but I doubt that you would get many to agree with you. Or play with you other than the old junk yard band.

I had a friend who was a near concert standard violinist.

Apart from the obvious fact that he had a large dose of natural talent, he developed to this level in about 6 months as a twelve year old!

His teacher owned a pineapple farm and my friend went to live with him. When faced with the choice of pick pineapples in the hot sun for 12 hours a day or spend the time practicing, he opted for practice.

The results of the combination of sustained, dedicated practice and natural ability was very evident many years later.

My wife went from scratch to grade 6 in 2 years with one lesson a week for a total of 18 months.

She was not as diligent with her practice as Glen (who is?), but natural talent and considerable practice got her where she is.

Given the time to devote to practice she could probably have made it to concert standard in another year or 2.

In general, I would say that a dedicated, talented individual could do it in about 4 or 5 years, but this would be very much dependent on individual factors.

Of course, once at that standard, a lot of work is required to maintain it.

re: Making a violin. Electric violins have been made with a bare skeleton and no resonator. They seem to produce a good sound. I have heard that the varnish on the frame is critical to the sound quality.

It's like the difference between Momma's homemade apple pie and one from the local discount grocery store; they may have the same ingredients, but they sure don't taste the same...

Note that anybody can build a bridge that will just stand there.

It takes an engineer to build a bridge that will just stand there.

There are probably similar subtle gradations of technique for the violin maker

How hard can it be to design something, anything that has already been invented? For example the violin: you have already enough examples to work from, but if you want to design, develop or invent your own instrument, machine or process I guess it will be a lot harder than you think!

Having played violin as a kid and my Grandfather had a Stradivarius (knock off?) not by the master but one of his students.

It still would buy a small house. I only played it a few times. It did not need a amplifier, the tone was incredible but it also amplified my every mistake.

When he died we decided it would be a waste to keep it when none of us could do it justice so his kids loaned it to a Symphony, maybe even eventually sold it. But now many get to hear it play by someone that can do it justice.

My Grandfather played it for many years, and he could make that fiddle sing.

Brad

I have a violin but never spend enough time on it - I can manage to produce a tune but the overall sound is awful - I would rate my playing as not for human consumption.

As a youngster I started of making a 2 string mini electrical guitar. I used the coil of a headset (the ones using a metallic plate) for the pickup.

It sounded nice but I could not manage the frets so I changed it to a 2 string electric violin. It was playable but not the sweetest sound .

I had access to a strong valve PA amplifier with 2 huge speakers, One night at about 2 I connected the lot on the outskirts of the town and played real ghostlike sounds.

The next day every one had a different explanation for the noise.

s hole and voice post position are very important. the box the resonator are made of special wood plate. dry process and bend etc. are all tech. Italy has very good classical violin, and now our chinese made violin has been rewarded in the world again and again. their porducts have been performed in Golden Hall.

My daughter has a Chinese made viola which we paid about $2000 USD for. Definitely concert quality. When we got it for her, we looked at violas from all over the world... some of them much more expensive. This one was light and had the best tone of any viola I have heard. Definitely a good job.

Bill

Hello all,

As a part time luthier for some years, I can tell you that to produce any useful design changes to a violin would be a large undertaking. A violin is not just a box to hold the strings in place, it is an amplification chamber which must be carefully tuned to resonate along with the strings, instead of in opposition to them. Also, the top plate(the face with the F holes<not S holes>) is tuned relative to the back plate. If the tuning of the wood is not correct, the instrument will sound horrible, to say the least.

People have made many odd shaped instruments over the years, but not many have come close for sound quality and tone by comparison to the long pattern Stradivari style violin. Every part of the instrument has an effect on the sound, and the now standard pattern violin responds well across it's vocal range because of the balance between hard and soft surfaces, graduations of the wood across the arched surfaces, and concentrations of density versus focal points of vibration.

Electric violins are a different story however, as they are a slab cut piece of wood used as a support for the strings, with a pickup driven by the string vibration. They can essentially be any comfortable shape and material, some have been made of metal, carbon fiber, even plastics.

-Mike Lynch

Try reviewing websites devoted to Luthiers and their art. It is not as simple as strings on a box.

You may find it easy to build a violin from common materials as I did my washtub bass:

However, I doubt that anyone would be interested in playing it but you and you probably couldn't sell it for much.

If you are interested in the monetary aspect of being a musician, forget about it. You have the wrong motivation to ever be any good at it.

In most cases it takes a great deal of time to become a decent musician but not always. Some people are naturally gifted from birth. They will still need to spend some time getting the motor skills cooperating with the inate abilities though. If you've got it, you need to develop it. If you don't, try basket weaving.

Regards,

Keywalker

As a side "note", Viola ! may be an interesting expression related to the field of violins and violas and so on but otherwise, if prononced in a demonstrative tone, it sounds like it should really be spelled Voilà !-)