VIOLIN ACOUSTICS

Resources

A great deal of information and misinformation about the violin is available online and in print. Listed here are a few resources we consider reliable and relatively accessible to those without a scientific background. The list will be expanded and updated over time.

First and foremost is Euphonics.org by Jim Woodhouse. This book-length website about the science of musical instruments is beautifully written, and illustrated with both animations and sound examples along with the usual graphs and diagrams. Woodhouse is a Professor Emeritus at Cambridge University, England, and a leading figure in violin research. He has done foundational work on the bowed string (Chapter 9. Bowed strings – Euphonics) and many other aspects of violin acoustics, including the bridge and soundpost (7.5 Tonal adjustment in the violin: the bridge – Euphonics and 7.6 Tonal adjustment in the violin: the soundpost – Euphonics.) Woodhouse lives in Cambridge, England. Though now retired, he continues to work on stringed instrument acoustics and is a regular contributor to the First Friday Zoom sessions.

Also by Woodhouse is a series of eight short videos introducing the fundamentals of acoustics – a great starting point for violinmakers interested in grasping the basics:

British physicist Colin Gough has written an award-winning non-technical overview of how the violin works (2016 Acoustics Today.pdf - Google Drive) along with many formal papers on the violin, including 2005 Vibrato paper Acustica.pdf - Google Drive and his groundbreaking work on violin modes: JASA 2015 Shell modes.pdf - Google Drive and JASA 2018 bridge-island filter.pdf - Google Drive. More at www.colingough.com. Gough is an Emeritus Professor of Physics at the University of Birmingham, England, where he headed the UK's largest interdisciplinary research group on superconductivity. An avid amateur violinist, he led the University's Hayward String Quartet and many other local chamber and orchestral groups. He has been a long-time faculty member at the Oberlin Acoustics Workshop and contributor to the First Friday Zoom sessions.

French researcher Claudia Fritz focuses on how players and listeners perceive and evaluate stringed instruments. Her three papers written with Joseph Curtin covering a series of double-blind tests comparing new and Old Italian violins have significantly changed the terms of the new-versus-old debate. These and many other papers can be seen at Claudia Fritz's website. Fritz is a CNRS researcher in Paris, and a member of the Lutherie-Acoustics-Music team at the University Pierre & Marie Curie. Following her post-doctoral work at the University of Cambridge (UK), she has been investigating the correlations between player/listener perceptions and measured acoustical properties. She has frequently been on faculty at the Oberlin Acoustics Workshop.

Knut Guettler (1943 – 2013) was a double bass soloist, teacher, and researcher who did important and original work on the bowed string. See: Knut's Acoustics

Violinmaker and researcher Joseph Curtin has written many articles on the science of violinmaking, including Stradivari in Paris ( an informal overview of the above-mentioned blind tests (originally published in The Strad magazine), Measuring Violin Sound Radiation Using an Impact Hammer, Tap Tones and Weights of Old Italian Violin Tops, and others at Articles by Joseph Curtin. Curtin, who co-directs the Oberlin Acoustics Workshop, has collaborated on research with many scientists, including Claudia Fritz, Gabriel Weinreich, and Jim Woodhouse.