A study suggests that the seemingly ineffable tonal qualities of antique Italian violins might stem from their ability to mimic acoustic features of the human voice. Andrea Amati, the early 16th-century Cremonese luthier, is considered the father of the modern four-string violin. Amati's design has stood the test of centuries, largely owing to its favorable acoustic features. Hwan-Ching Tai and colleagues attempted to test the hypothesis that the acoustic properties of old Italian violins, including Amati and Stradivari violins, resemble those of the human singing voice. The authors used speech analysis techniques to examine the scales of 15 antique Italian violins played by a professional violinist and recorded at Taiwan's Chimei Museum as well as those of eight men and eight women, ranging in age from 16 to 30 years, who sang common English vowels. Analysis of frequency response curves and formants, which are resonance frequencies originating from standing waves in the vocal tract, revealed that an Amati violin dating to 1570 and a Gasparo da Salo violin dating to 1560 mimicked the formant properties of male singers, raising the possibility that master violin-makers from this period may have designed violins to emulate male voices. In contrast, Stradivari violins were marked by elevated formants, making them relatively more similar to female voices--a feature that the authors suggest might account for the violins' storied tonal quality. According to the authors, antique Italian violins can produce formants that recall the human singing voice.
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Article #18-00666: "Acoustic evolution of old Italian violins from Amati to Stradivari," by Hwan-Ching Tai, Yen-Ping Shen, Jer-Horng Lin, and Dai-Ting Chung.
MEDIA CONTACT: Hwan-Ching Tai, National Taiwan University, Taipei, TAIWAN; tel: +886 917134116; e-mail: < hctai@ntu.edu.tw >
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences