Post by vastopol on Nov 15, 2021 10:28:34 GMT
That's a very interesting thread to read, it brings many clever ideas and enlight how each of us can feel something very special in a musical instrument.
Well I never figure that I could be the advocate of the mathematics...I had to confess that my brain is absolutely locked on the mathematics aspects, and my teachers had lost many hairs to try to make me understanding anything involved with numbers..........but:
We all know that mathematics are aplied in building any musical instrument, a fingerboard had to be calculated under some rules based on the string lenght (I vaguely remember the name of that guy who find this trick...a certain Pete...Pete A. Gore ! ).
The string lenght is also determined by the diameter of that string and the note choosen once tuned, to get the best physical factors, and the best sound, but there's a lot more mathematics in your guitar than you know.
Nowadays those notions are shaded by the freedom of buliding in the modern guitars, the solid bodies have blown away the limits, both sonicaly and estheticaly, and now even the acoustics guitars are made without any considerations on the mathematical and physical aspects.
If you want something special, shorter or longer, just draw it and send it to someone to build it...no matter how it sounds, it will sell...and sometimes it will sound not so bad...
The old instruments aren't made in this very simple perspective, and some of us should change their point of vue when looking on these great pieces of artistry that no one can duplicate.
There's a story that could bring some wind to the mill; when I've recieved my 1929 squareneck triplate, direct from a chicken shack somewhere behind a Texas barn, I was very excited as you can figure (even if that thing looks very...dirthy) I was so shocked by the beauty of this instrument that I had to show this one to my friends (even before cleaning these spectacular 80 years of dirt!).
One of my friends, brave enough to not be disgusted by the apearence of that musical fossil, but very involved in musical history (he wrote few books about medieval music, plays and built reproductions of obscure instruments, sometimes based on the only painting or sculpture of this special and unique forgotten instrument).
He look at it and says "wait", he take measurements of the lenght, the waist and soulders, the deepness, and tell me "it's a report of fourths"....( "un rapport de quarte" in french).
You can imagine how that means absolutely nothing to my very long ears...
My friend had to explain that any old musical instrument is built with very carefully planed measurement, interdertermined by a mathematical formula based on the "Golden number"...from a violin to a giant organ.
That can sound very esoteric...but as I had another friend working as an architect who explained me that the cathedrals (and many works of art of these times) are always made with that same mathematical approach...when you know that these buildings are somekind of resonators, acousticaly made to work with the music...it should be something usefull.
When you know how many masterpieces from great masters, in any arts, using these methods, are countless, from the Athen's Acropole, to Da vinci...you can wonder why ?
Even when music is not involved...
They don't just take a pencil and draw, they always applies some measurements to get the more harmony, beauty, whatever you call it, to reinforce the pleasing feeling we have to just look at it.
Any volume, a room, or a box have a natural frequency...some of us more cultured than me should explain this facts, but we can improve or tune these frequencies by choosing different combinations of measurements...I'm just stupid enough to put my head on an empty resonator guitar body to observe wich singing notes tend to ring and reverberate.........fascinating!
John Dopyera had this knowledge, he build his ideas on a heritage of traditional violin making basis.
How I am sad to admit that I'm not mathwise enough to better understand some more how he used to create such magical objects.
Nowadays not much luthiers keep these method in mind...(I'm afraid that perhaps some don't never heard talk about it....).
Of course the numbers aren't the only factors, we've lost many secrets about the the way to select the very best tree, and the best time in the year to cut him, and of course some alchemists still try to rediscover the good formula to get the Stradivarius varnish...
These countless factors we can talk about without finding any universal facts.
But when you look at an instrument that looks a bit...strange to your eyes, you can wonder if it can sound so good...
(I am talking about acoustics, as the advent of electronic amplification should had a significant role in the loss of these perceptions and the consciousness of the musicians).
Before playing, you can feel by looking if this one can be the one that can inspire your playing.
So do you really need a "cutaway" amputation roughly aplied on a well designed body, or a compressed parlor sized resonator, just reduced to the smallest possible shape?...perhaps all this is vain, as we ain't have the same ears, each of us had to built his sensibility on what he can hear...it's the main problem.
You can tell what you want, somebody who never had the chance to listen and play a very great, minty, absolutely well preserved old one, should says it's all posh babling....and here's goes the main "this brand sound better than this one"...
The beauty of an old National is even visual, many copies have lost fiew milimetters in the shape here or there...there's less grace...with all the amount of other factors of course.
Many other types of guitars, made to a "reissue" or "heritage" or "replica" specs are made with some alterations in the shape...and others details...
(To bring back the mule resonator in perspective, when we look at what we can see, and listen on line, the building process, measurements and stiffer materials are very different from the old Nationals...but closer to the modern "NRP" or newly renamed "National guitars", that's just something else physicaly and sonicaly).
Maybe in olden days arts and science were more closer and open to each other, with something very related to the nature than today, wich is a general fact.
Science went powerfull with the advent of technology, and tend to neglect everything that's "old" or primitive or "natural"...looks like human being always want's to get rid of what's not under his control, what's remain us that we're just a simple part of nature.
J.Dopyera had this futuristic approach, very optimistic and trustful in science and technology, but with keeping some traditional valuable principles, and from what we can read, this man was very carefull about health and diet, growing his own fruits and vegetables, with a certain grade of sensibility and consciousness of nature (just look at the special Style 3 triplate made for Elisabeth, his first wife), science seems to be a strong inspiration in his work but with keeping a wide space open to art, intuition, and perhaps luck too...