Soundpost
Sixteen years ago in the mountains, I found two spruce trees with a fantastic structure. The quality of the wood was far better than the quality of soundposts in the instruments we were repairing. That spruce stood in water in the mountains for three years. I brought it to the workshop, where it again remained in water for the next three years. Many violin makers told me that spruce cannot sink in water. In water—especially during the warmer months—bacteriological processes take place; nutrients would be broken down, and because of that the wood would become lighter and more elastic. The density of the wood would be increased, making it more pleasant to work with. I have cut those trees down so that, once the wood had matured sufficiently, I could make soundposts.
We began making soundposts about half a year ago, and only now have we started selling them. It is impossible even with high-quality material to make a good soundpost by cutting rods 30 cm long. There is always a slight movement of micro-fibers in wood, and 30 cm rods are always outside the internal splitting line. Each soundpost must be made individually, which takes a great deal of time and requires great patience. The soundpost has a decisive role in the development of an instrument’s tone, so it is pointless to select soundposts into multiple quality categories:
Each soundpost must be perfect, and those that are not of high quality should simply be discarded.
I used to send small pieces of wood to violin makers for years from which they made soundposts themselves. Reactions to the quality of the material were extremely positive. In recent months I have been sending finished soundposts made from the same material to the violin makers. Here too, the reaction—without exception—was extremely positive. Such soundposts, of course, are not for every instrument. There are many instruments of poor quality, and a good soundpost will hardly help them sound better. But good instruments deserve a better soundpost, and it is guaranteed they would sound even better tonally, and musicians will be more than grateful for it.
Soundpost
The classification of soundposts into different classes is horribly wrong for several reasons: It is impossible for those who sell soundposts, to count years to determine which soundpost sounds better and which sounds worse. Also, the soundpost must be made of split wood. The classification should be according to the type of tone supported by the soundpost:
1. Harder – higher tone
2. Dark tone
3. Bright tone
4. Sharp tone
5. Soft (fine, velvety) tone
The whole story is quite complicated and requires quite a lot of experience of the violinmakers. The tree is fed from the roots and from the bark. Nutrition from the bark is sent to the interior of the tree, but it fails to penetrate to the middle of the tree, so the largest amount of nutrients is stored a few centimeters below the bark. That part of the tree (just below the bark) is called Splint. Splint, burdened with a large amount of resin and sugar, is not elastic, has low sound conductivity and is of very poor tonal quality. It is usually slightly lighter in color, easy to recognize and should not be used. The closer we are to the center of the tree, the speed of sound and the elasticity of the wood are greater, and thus the acoustics themselves.
The only way to determine the tone produced by the soundpost is to throw it on a wooden surface from a height of 10-15 cm. Each soundpost must produce (when thrown on a wooden surface) one type of echo.
Although several soundposts are the same length and thickness, when we throw them on a wooden surface, they will produce different tones. Soundposts that produce a dull sound when dropped on a wooden surface are loaded with resin and nutrients and should never be used.
1. Soundpost for instruments that need a harder and bigger tone: Usually a piece of wood is used where the width of the sound is a little larger. The line itself has to be very thin but distinctly clear. Bold lines are never good for soundpost. In ideal cases, the width of the years on one soundpost should be more or less equal, although this is not a decisive factor.
If we have determined that the instrument needs a harder and bigger tone, we must always have a dozen soundposts available and, by throwing them on a wooden surface, determine with sharp hearing which soundpost has the hardest and strongest tone. We will use him.
2. Soundpost for instruments that need a dark tone: For a dark tone, we will use a soundpost that is slightly thinner (we can thin it in the middle to make it vibrate better) and again by throwing it on a wooden surface, we will look for a soundpost that has the darkest – deepest tone.
3. Soundpost for instruments that need a bright tone: Same principle as before, only thicker soundpost.
4. Soundpost for instruments that need a sharp tone: The material should be a little harder and thicker, and produce a sharp tone when thrown.
5. Soundpost for instruments that need a soft tone: Here we need a soundpost with very narrow years, and with it, by throwing it on a wooden surface, we can recognize the tone we need.
Specific gravity of materials
The most common specific gravity among the old spruce masters was 0.37 gr/cm3. This should also be the maximum specific gravity of the soundpost. The vast majority of soundposts on the market have a specific weight of around 0.43 gr/cm3. It is actually unusable for the high demands of the instrument.
The ideal specific gravity of the soundpost, in general, should not exceed 0.37 gr/cm3. The perfect specific gravity is 0.44 gr/cm3.
• Cello soundpost: must be cut from a piece of wood close to the center of the stem.
• Viola soundpost: it is cut from a piece of wood next to the area from which we cut the soundpost for cello.
• Violin soundpost: everything after that until Splint.
The assumption that the width of the years on the soundpost should be matched with the width of the years on the upper board is theoretically interesting, but very difficult to achieve in practice. Newly built instruments can get a soundpost made of the same material as the top board, but since the soundpost changes frequently over time, it is very difficult to find a piece that has the same fretboard arrangement as the top board.
Putting the soundpost into the instrument
Stabbing the soundpost with a fork is bad. In the place where the soundpost is pierced, the material thickens and the soundpost loses its quality. There are various methods of getting the soundpost into the instrument without damaging it. Of course, it is necessary that the soundpost fits perfectly on both the upper and lower board. Many violinmakers deliberately prepare a slightly longer soundpost than is good, so that they can tighten it in the instrument so that it does not collapse. This is recognized on the “f” openings: if the inside of the “f” opening is higher than the outside, it means that the soundpost is too long. Very often, a soundpost that is too long has been standing in the instrument for years and the wood at the “f” hole has become deformed, so it is very difficult (although feasible) to return it to its original position. Theoretically, tapping the left and right side of the upper fretboard should produce the same tone (or at least close to the same). If the difference in the produced tone is large, it means that the left and right sides of the upper board vibrate differently and the tone of the instrument cannot be good. We would
have to strive to even out that difference by slightly shortening the soundpost.
In conclusion, violinmakers should be offered 4-5 different types of soundposts and clearly define the difference in the type of tone produced by the soundpost.
Baroque Bridges for Violin & Viola
The development of a baroque bridge in comparison with modern ones is known to all. Also, the difference in the tone of the past and present violins is obvious. A causal link is also evident. Of course, this involves sudden changes as well as a process that has evolved gradually, with oscillations, drifting and mistakes.
Not only the neck length but also a very perfidiously defined inner and outer form as well as the violin statics reached their optimum within a very short historical period in Cremona (Amati – Stradivari). Obviously, this was the best possible solution as we are making the same instruments nowadays as well. Considering that only gut wires were used in the Renaissance and Baroque periods, it is logical that the bridges had a form that rapidly conveyed the sound towards the upper bout.
Setting the length of the neck and defining violin playing (Leopold Mozart) allows musicians to play at high positions as well. However, there is a problem of excessive wire suppleness and too much wood above the heart of the bridge. It is evident, however, that the shape of the bridge is gradually changing. For the first time in history, violinists who develop an incredible playing technique appear and require much more sound from the instrument (e.g. Paganini, Tartini).
Tartini created many compositions that require a lot of virtuosity, and due to these compositions, the shape of the bow changed as well. Paganini demanded from a violin maker to create a bridge that gives a very high sound, and it went so far that at one period he used a bridge without a carved heart in the hope that such a bridge would make louder sounds (it may have sounded louder but it lacked the necessary tonal exquisiteness). Paganini, on the other hand, was the first renowned violinist who noted the bridge and sound post as the most important elements in tone tuning.
At the beginning of the 19th century, several English violin makers decided to make a great change in the shape of the bridge. Only a few models from this entire period have been retained, beautiful ones based on Baroque models, and it is a real shame that the development of the bridge has veered from that direction. In England they are called Transition Models, and several Transition models (TN, TM, TP, TT, TP1) can be viewed on www.milostamm.com. It’s a pity that there are no more.
Something similar was happening at the same time in the Paris Building School. French models did not survive for long and have no great significance for modern violin playing. Of course, Stradivari models were used in the 19th century, as well as others, and every violin maker changed, added or took away according to impulse. Increasingly simplified bridge designs appeared in France at the end of the 19th century, although very similar to the requirement of the modern violin.
It is a pity that this individual creativity disappeared with the advent of mass production of keels at the end of the 19th century. This shortened the time for violin makers and was of great help to them, as they did not have to make the bridges by themselves. Unfortunately, this individual creativity was pushed aside.
In the 20th century, the attitude towards the violin tone was increasingly demanding – we realized how important the bridge was. Also, the setting of the tone includes theoretical knowledge of physics and statics. Perhaps this delving into the minutiae took away from the artistic line in the complete construction of the violin: the search for the most diverse mysteries of the ground coat, lacquer, form, etc., for secrets that don’t really exist. Perhaps this mystification makes it possible for us to admire violins all over again – all of us, those listening and playing, and those making them. I hope it will stay that way forever.
Baroque Bridges for Violoncello
All Baroque models are historical, mostly from the time of Stradivari instruments. Amati had an idea of the bridge, whose basic form consists of two question marks leaning against each other. The transitional period (19th century) retained that idea, but the bridges shapes gradually changed due to the longer necks on the instruments, increasing pressure on the bridge. The acoustically brilliant idea of two question marks leaning against each other has survived to this day. Masters from Cremona often had massive bridge models (with a lot of material) to achieve a brighter tone on the instruments (gut strings did not have a clear and bright enough tone). Most of their bridges were not much wider at the top than at the bottom. Current Baroque instruments (instruments used for Renaissance and early Baroque music) often do not look the same as they once did.
Bridges for violin
The entire physics of the bridge should be focused on maximizing the vibration of the bridge in order to transmit these vibrations to the upper board. Everything we do to create a model is focused on this fact. The first thing that is important is to find trees in nature that have a high tone speed and high elasticity. An additional obstacle to tone quality are the nutrients in the wood. We try to remove some of these substances from the material before we start cutting the bridges out of it. We do this by stimulating certain biological processes in the tree. By doing so, we do not endanger the material or the health of the violinmaker. Violinmakers have additional ideas aimed at further improving the tone of the bridge. Different violinmakers have different ideas, and it often happens that they disrupt the static or acoustic moment of the bridge. We try to make the model so that the violinmakers do not feel the need to change the form of the bridge too much. Except, of course, adjusting the height of the bridge and aligning the foot with the surface of the upper board of the instrument.
To determine the size of the bridge, we measure the distance from the outer edge of the bass-bar to the middle of the upper board – multiplied by two. The most important thing here is that the ankles above the foot lie directly on the outside of the bass-bar. To determine in which direction we are going to arrange the thickness of the bridge, we need to react to the thickness of the upper board. If the top board on the instrument is too thick – we will make a slightly thinner bridge (we will try to find a slightly stronger material, of course), and if the upper board is too thin – we will find in our stock a bridge that is made of a material with a lower specific weight and we will completely organize that bridge to be a little thicker than is usually the case.
The distance between the strings on the violin bridge is 11 or 11.5 mm. This should be coordinated with the construction of the hand in the musician individually. If the musician has thicker fingers – then this spacing should ideally be 11.5, and if he has thinner fingers – then 11mm. The foot on the bridge for the violin should be matched to the size of the bridge. Violinmakers prefer to work with a length of 11mm. Acoustically, the ideal length of the foot is 10.6 mm, while the acoustically ideal thickness of the wrist is 3.8 – 4 mm. The exception are models that have a specific aesthetic requirement, so the feet are longer in that case. The length of the foot decides the space of the upper board between the feet. If the feet are too long – they will unnecessarily press on one part of the upper board, which endangers vibration. In order for the bridge to have direct contact with the instrument, it is desirable to remove the varnish from the upper board on the surface on which the foot rests. The varnish between the foot and the upper board muffles the tone. The outer part of the foot can of course be placed outside the edge of the bass-bar, but the ankle absolutely must be located where the bass-bar is located under the upper board. When processing the foot, the violinmaker is forced to slightly enter the wrist with the knife, so we try to leave him imperceptibly more material (about 4.2 mm).
The distance between the bow and the kidney on the bridge for violin
The measurements for this part of the bridge are relative (as well as all the other measures we list). In any case, the space between the bow and the kidney does not allow this part of the bridge to be elastic. When the bridge is too thin, when pressed, the wire will slightly lower down, but it will remain stiff in that position, which in the extreme case does not allow vibration. I think that the thickness of that part of the bridge up to 5.8 mm is quite sufficient. Depending on the model, it may be smaller. Many bridges fold in the space in the line of the heart.
The violinmaker is likely to make the following mistakes:
- He made a bridge that was too
- He got too soft
- He is not paying attention to the microfibers in the bridge: laterally on the bridge you can see if microfibers on the bridge have a curved No matter how the bridge is cut, it will tend to bend in the direction of the inner tear line.
- He enlarged the kidneys so that the space on the chest (under the heart) is too narrow and the material in that place is no longer stable.
- He enlarged the kidneys so that the upper edge of the kidney is above the lower line of the heart, so the space between the kidneys and the heart is too narrow.
Even if the bridge remains stable, and in these sensitive places we have taken away too much material, these places will stiffen under the pressure of the strings, the bridge will vibrate far less, resulting in reduced vibration of the upper board of the instrument. Here we are in the space that is most important for the formation of tone on the violin. Small errors in the subtraction of material in this space can have a big impact on the quality of the tone. From the kidney to the side, a thickness of 3-3.5 mm is sufficient, and this space is also organized so that it can vibrate. Both too thin and too thick in that place is not good. If the violinmaker needs to organize the space between the kidneys that is narrower than 17 mm, he must be very careful because he can easily compromise the statics of the bridge. The violin may sound good at first, but over the next few weeks, the bridge will lose its elasticity.
Space above the heart
We try to leave enough material in the feet so that the violinmaker can manipulate the space above the heart. If he wants to produce a lighter tone – he will organize the bridge so that the space between the heart and the strings is smaller (if he exaggerates the tone will be too thin and too bright), and if he wants a slightly softer and darker tone – he will organize a lower position of the heart (if he exaggerates the tone will be blurry). The height of the foot from 2.5 to 3 mm allows him to perform these manipulations.
Sometimes there are instruments where the fingerboard is set too low, in which case the bridge will be lower than usual. With these instruments, the angle at which the strings stand on the bridge is softer than necessary for optimal tone. Of course, it should be explained to the musician that the entire angle of the neck on the instrument needs to be changed or manipulated with the fingerboard, so that the optimal pressure of the strings on the bridge is produced. Often, musicians love their violin too much or don’t have the money for such repairs, so they don’t want the angle of the neck on the violin to change. For such instruments, we produce bridges that are arranged differently, so that the heart is located in a position 0.7 mm lower than the standard. In order not to change the statics of the bridge, the heart is slightly smaller, and so are the kidneys. That’s a difference of 0.2mm.
The place where the E wire is placed
This is a very sensitive space because the E string is very thin and produces relatively a lot of pressure on the bridge, so it will cut into the wood and after a while the musician will have a problem because the string is too low positioned in relation to the other strings. Violinmakers have all sorts of ideas with the materials they put under that string, and I wouldn’t go into that much except to say that something needs to be put under the E string. This something should not enter the space of the strings on which the musician is playing, as this will affect the scale (mensure ger.).
Slight belly on the chest of the bridge
In order for the tone to descend to the instrument in an organized and unhindered way, we must try to slightly round the sharp edges on the bridge, because the movement of the tone in the bridge is formed in a circular and spiral motion on the way to the top board. The vast majority of violinmakers try to arrange a kind of rounding in the form of a belly under the heart of the bridge. They do this by thinning the edges of the bridge. The result is that the bridge looks thinner than it actually is. By doing so, they produce another effect: They greatly reduce the vibration of the bridge under the heart, which negatively affects the tone. My suggestion is to pay attention to the hardness of the wood (they can control this if they measure the weight of the bridge) and leave the bridge completely flat on both sides.
Bridge height
The ideal bridge height is 33mm (measured from the middle of the upper board to the highest point of the bridge). This bridge height guarantees a pressure of 27 kp, which will not have a bad effect on the upper board. If the height of the bridge is even slightly higher, the pressure will be higher, the amplitude on the top board will be more frequent – which has an enormous negative effect on the tone. If the bridge is too low – this will also have a negative impact on the quality of the tone.
The ideal distance between the bridge and the top plank is about 5mm.
The bridge is made of wood. That wood needs to breathe and vibrate. Over time, it will change color due to light. Any coating of the bridges with different oils and all sorts of means does not serve anything, and adversely affects the tone. The transmission of tone takes place inside the bridge, so what we have added to the bridge surface cannot improve the tone except to dampen it, because the bridge will reduce its vibration.
Classical bridges for violoncello
The classical bridge for the cello originated, like everything else, from the baroque bridges of old masters. Over time, due to musicians’ need for a larger tone, the height of the bow between the legs of the bridge was raised. All cello bridges can be divided into two types: Belgian and French type. There are many different variations of cello bridges, but one element defines them all, and that is the heart shape on the bridge. The main issue is how the legs on the bridge react to the pressure of the strings. That’s why the old masters placed hooks on the legs. These hooks should be positioned exactly where the bridge experiences the greatest pressure in order to minimize leg spreading. Those hooks are important; they should not be seen as merely an aesthetic element on the bridge, nor should too much material be removed from them so that they can perform their function.
To completely prevent the spreading of the legs, and to ensure that the bridge wood remains stable and elastic in all parts, I incorporated a specific type of connection between the legs into the design. In 18th century England, Benjamin Banks, a renowned violin maker known as the ‘English Amati,’ employed this technique During the final stages of constructing his cellos, he experimented with various bridge shapes All of these bridges shared a common feature: a unique connection between the legs at the top of the bridge I have identified only three of his models Therefore, the concept of the leg connection on the cello bridge is not originally mine; I borrowed it from Banks His idea is very complex and incredibly correct: If the tension of the bridge is prevented in the region where the point of the bridge legs is the highest, the tone on all the strings will be of a more uniform color (for example the tone color on the C string is very close to the tone color on the G string). The pronunciation of the tone will be much easier, which is very important for musicians. This pressure enables the development of the bridge vibration, which ultimately affects the better vibration of the entire instrument.
All our cello bridges are available with the leg connection. When ordering, simply add the + sign For example: B – 90 + (Belgian model size 90mm with the connection between the legs).
In the last few years, we have experimented in our workshop, and from these experiments, many different forms of cello bridges have emerged. I have concluded that the less wood material there is in the bridge, the greater and more beautiful the tone. The total height of the finished cello bridge should be no more than 91mm. It actually concerns the pressure of the strings on the bridge. The sharper the angle of the strings on the bridge, the greater the pressure on the instrument’s top board. When this pressure is too excessive, it reduces the vibration of the top board and increases the frequency of vibration. The result is a thinner, less pleasant tone, poorer articulation, and reduced volume. If the deviation of that angle is too significant, the issue is likely in the cello’s neck and should be addressed there.
The weight of the finished bridge depends on the density and hardness of the material, so it is not possible to specify a definitive weight in advance. Violin makers have different ideas about this, so the weight can range from 12,5 to 18 grams. We have arrived at our ideal weight here, which is somewhere around 14 grams.
The sound travels spirally through the bridge. We can support this circular motion if we slightly round off all sharp angles on the bridge. Creating a kind of belly below the heart area does not serve an acoustic purpose and perhaps this should be avoided.
This concerns deep tones, deeper than those of the violin. The thickness of the bridge feet must not be too thin. The height of the feet should be between two and three millimeters in order for the vibration of the spruce to be properly initiated. The feet themselves should not be too long, allowing for maximum vibration space on the top board.
I believe that the ideal sizes for cello bridges are 90 and 92 mm, and in some cases 88 mm. Bridges wider than 92mm significantly alter the acoustic moment (slower sound movement towards the instrument) and the statics (increased pressure on the wood). To determine the size of the bridge, it is necessary to measure the distance between the globes on the f – openings. Of course, attention should also be paid to the position of the bass-bar and the angle at which it is placed to avoid making a mistake.
Gamba models
GAMBA instruments are made in various sizes. Bridges for these instruments also come in different sizes. For each bridge, it is necessary for the violinmaker to specify in the order: leg width, bridge height, and the width of the upper part of the bridge (crown). These bridges can only be ordered in the Royal and Premium categories.
Instrument varnishing
Just like witches, all instrument makers have their own formulas for varnish, and I won’t delve into that. On instruments from Cremona, we can observe that varnish was not applied everywhere on the instrument. In the parts of the instrument where there is the greatest vibration, only primer was applied instead of varnish. This helped the instruments have a better tone. With their highly developed sense of taste, the Italians managed to turn each instrument into a small work of art.
Splint (ger.)
Traders of wood, in order to earn as much money as possible, cut the entire tree into elements for instrument construction. Stradivari used only parts of the tree that have less sugar and nutrients because that wood is lighter and more elastic. The instrument-building elements that we purchase do not allow us to escape from the splint. The splint is the part of the tree beneath the bark that receives nourishment directly from the bark. This part varies internally in each tree, but the most critical section is 3 cm away from the bark. Whenever possible, this part of the wood should be discarded. Keen eye can recognize on the element (maple or spruce) the area that should not be used – the wood color is different than the rest of the wood closer to the heart. Most often, because instruments are made from two-piece upper and two-piece lower boards, in the middle of the instrument (where the wood should be freest and vibrate the most) there is a part of the wood that is filled with these harmful substances, thus reducing the vibration of the instrument. As we move away from the bark towards the interior of the tree, the material becomes lighter and more elastic, increasing the speed of sound. All of this is of utmost importance in instrument building.
The sound of Venice
For more than 400 years, builders have been investigating the secrets of construction in ancient Italian masters. From year to year, from century to century, technology advances, knowledge is increasing. We are witnessing the greatest technological, cultural and scientific progress in the history of mankind. Just in those last 400 years, demand behind the secrets in the construction of the violin, became more and more treacherous and more and more desperate. Tone code of old Cremonese is still drastically different from the newly made instruments. The tone is velvety, warm, brilliant, wearable, has a captivating “soul”, unlimited beauty, and every slightly better musician is able to distinguish tonally these instruments from newly made ones. The prices of old Italian masters are reaching incomprehensible, astronomical heights, and despite that, top musicians in the 20th century play exclusively on these instruments. For financial reasons, the newly built violins are intended for schoolchildren, students or orchestral musicians. Aversion to new instruments reached its peak in the 20th century. And the search for the “last” trick is getting crazier. The great physicists of today and even military institutes are involved in the search for secrets. At the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century the “secret” was revealed in the form – it wasn’t even that hard to find out. The whole 20th century is engrossed in the beautiful and mysterious varnish. In the meantime, we discovered which kind. It didn’t help us tonally either, it was obviously about aesthetics moment. In the 21st century, the thesis has obviously shifted to the ground… What are we going to do if we discover that “secret” and our violin doesn’t sound like it did with old Italians? Are we finally going to admit that the old masters were smarter, more advanced, smarter than us?
Not only the form, and definitely not the varnish and by no means the ground can hide the extraordinary tonal components of the old masters of Cremona. If these components carried some particular secrets, at least one of the numerous Cremona violinmakers would have recorded this, but they made no note of it.
The material used in the 17th, 18th, and 19th century was drastically different in structure and biology from modern-day materials. It was, indeed, maple (Acer Pseudo Platanus), but with a modified grain. I even doubt that the old masters had ever seen a ribbed maple in its original, white color. I am deeply convinced that, by force of circumstance and sheer coincidence, they had no choice but to buy this different kind of maple. And yet it had never even crossed their minds to use the spruce from a freshly cut tree, though dried old spruce was profuse in Italy in the era of carpentry.
But, let us start from the beginning:
In those days, it was believed that maple with rays could only be found in former Turkey (now Bosnia). The Venetian Republic, constantly at war with Turkey, purchased extensively from the independent city-republic of Dubrovnik, while Dubrovnik, besieged by Turkey, was forced to trade with it. It is not far from the truth that Dubrovnik could in fact preserve its independence
so that Venice could trade with Turkey, despite numerous conflicts and clashes. The trading was in petty merchandise, labor, weapons, but mostly in meat, leather and WOOD.
The issue of tree-cutting, unlike today, was taken lightly by the Turks: usually, trees were felled in the spring before being sold to Dubrovnik, at a time when the trunk had already begun to
take nourishment from its bark and soil, when it was becoming “alive” and accumulating fresh
sugars, nutrients, but also breeding bacteria.
These trunks were, as a rule, large in diameter – by my estimate, no less than 80 cm, and often over 1 meter. This is not hard to figure out if the ring structure and the depth of curves on the instruments are closely examined. The ribbed deformation then, as now, could not be found alongside any nearby roadside. Like today, one had to go into the remotest mountain areas.
However, trunks could not be cut with a chain saw in a forest, hoisted by a crane onto a nearby road and transported by truck to Dubrovnik! Not at all. The cutting was done with handsaws digging deep into 50-100-centimeter-long pieces which were hand-split down the middle into halves, then into quarters and eighths (depending on their weight and transport problems, as the deformation in the rays does not allow wood-chopping).
This process would have taken at least 30 days, and often much longer, interrupted by agricultural works, troop movements, rough weather, injuries, diseases or, at worst, laziness. Then, off they would go to Dubrovnik, on horseback if possible or if not, on foot. There, before the gates, hardened merchants would be waiting, bargaining, offering modest remuneration. Again, due to negligence, the wood would be left lying around under the blazing Adriatic sun and full of moisture, until the Venetians would appear and buy it.
Very similar to nowadays, isn’t it?! Actually, it is precisely the same!
The process of the bacterial decomposing of sugars in the wood would begin. The wood would be stained and gradually change color and therefore, the merchants of Dubrovnik had to lower the price. And the Venetians would simply purchase everything by either trading other goods for it or paying in Venetian gold. The goods would be loaded into a ship’s interior, serving as ballast. In conditions of even greater heat and humidity, the wood would have enough time to crack until, after stopping over in every harbor no matter how small, it would finally reach Venice.
In Venice, or, more precisely, in the “Arsenal” (the commercial port) there was, by our standards, an incredibly large wood-processing “factory”. At the site of today’s customs zone in Venice, by the lake Larghetto del Legname, the wood was stocked, sliced and sold all over Europe. Practically all of the classical age furniture was made from Venetian wood.
Furthermore, more than 40.000 people worked there.
In the hundreds of years of wood-processing (slicing), the Venetians had encountered one large problem: they could not prevent the huge stock of wood from cracking or staining under the glaring summer sun. By coincidence, after lying in the water for several years, the trunks from
which the pillars for the city of Venice itself were built were pulled out of the lake. Even today, this wood is quite mysterious – still compressible, crack-resistant, watertight, worm-proof. This is the beginning of the marvelous tale of the extraordinary wood from Venice used to make ships, oars, furniture etc.
Later on, the entire Venetian maritime fleet was built from wood from the water – and this is how a legend was born:
The Venetian merchant and naval fleet was lighter and thus faster than those of other, often warmongering nations. These sailing ships were difficult to set on fire or sink.
The Venetians were very proud of their fleet, which was much feared by their enemies. Naval authorities and ship-builders had specifically demanded that even the oars should come from the lake. Over time, the Venetian navy became the greatest maritime power, with sailing ships that no other state could rival, while Venetian pillars go down in the history of architecture as a conundrum.
Venetians immersed their stock of trunks in the nearby lake of “Larghetto del Legname” (Wood Lake), knowing that it was the only way of preserving it from further drying and cracking after which the stains, affected by bacteria, would grow bigger and, if there was enough patience to wait, would completely cover the wood, giving it a new color – darker and “more intense”. This was the wood sold to violinmakers!
In my opinion, the wood must have remained in the lake for at least two years. Sometimes it would wait for the customers from Cremona for seven years. Many different types of wood were soaked in water: beech, oak, maple, ash, and spruce – anything that could be purchased along the long way from Egypt to Venice.
Once in the water, the wood was heavily exposed to bacteria commonly named microaerophile, which systematically fed on substances from the wood. The bacteria were so active that the water of the lake was black and had a pungent smell. But, as much as this would have upset us nowadays, with so much concern about health and the environment, the Venetians were unperturbed by this, living amidst all kinds of “smells”.
Finally, usually at the time of the great summer “siesta”, the violinmakers from Cremona would come to buy the wood while the processes in the wood continued to develop on the way to Cremona.
And then, at last, the wood arrived in Cremona where it could not dry completely, since Cremona lies in a valley below sea level, and the air is therefore very humid. Consequently, the process of sugar decomposition continued in Cremona.
Had Cremona been located in a different place or had, God forbid, the Stradivariuses and
Amati’s lived elsewhere; I doubt that we would have such tonally fine instruments. My thinking is corroborated by several facts:
The old Cremona violins have a generally lower atomic weight than newly made instruments (as the decomposed sugars no longer dwell in the wood). The wood of old instruments does not transmit ordinary lamp light, unlike that of the new ones (due to sugar loss, the wood had self- compressed and, like a drawn curtain, does not transmit light). The wood color of the instruments made by old Cremona masters is different from that of, for example, German violins from the same age (Germans had their wood brought from Bosnia by land and it reached the customer much faster in its “healthy”, pale condition).
Due to the substances lost, the wood is not only lighter, compressed, but is also much more flexible, and the supple back plate can “breathe” much better with the membrane (front plate). Thus, the tone is completely different than in new violins. I am convinced that violinmakers had no other option than to buy what was available and the Venetians had to soak the wood in water to stop it from decaying further in order to sell it.
We can further trace the journey of the wood up to a finished instrument. Though we may find many coincidences, flaws, much negligence, we will not be able to encounter a single arcane system.
THERE WERE NO MYSTERIES. THIS IS WHY IT WAS IMPOSSIBLE FOR US TO RESOLVE THEM!
I would like to dedicate the following section to the process of instrument- making itself.
Again, I see no particular mysteries, especially since the old Italians traditionally had a high sense of the aesthetic and, in accordance with another time-honored tradition in carpentry passed on by one generation to the next, cherished the piece of wood they were working on. The wood had its intrinsic laws that needed to be recognized and observed:
No piece of wood is straight in its inside line of splitting; within each piece there is a slight arc which the old masters used to create curves on the instrument. The wood itself decides about the curves on the front and the back plate and only if this inside line of splitting is followed will the wood have maximum flexibility and enable the tone to develop in the instrument.
Paradoxically, the old masters in most cases made instruments from wood of poorer grain which can no longer be sold to the “spoiled” violinmakers of today. Still, these instruments sound better because the cut through the wood was ALWAYS perfect.
I only hope this text will help violinmakers to move away from dogmas, mystery searches and in this century dedicate themselves to the tone as a starting point. The tone is here, within our reach, in the material. We just need to stop looking at violin making in a complicated way from an obscure perspective. Moreover, with a little more patience, we need to consider the tone as the crucial issue.
Violin making is and should remain an art. An inner feeling will guide us in the creating of a high-quality instrument much faster and more poetically than a heap of precise measuring
instruments. We must not give up, as the time is coming when the old Italian masters will disappear from the scene. But we can reach them. And surpass them.
Milo Stamm