To build a better violin; can scientists determine why some instruments sound great? - Cover Story

Science News, Sept 3, 1994 by Richard Lipkin

In an unusual concert aimed at comparing the sounds of 17th and 18th century Italian instruments with the tones of the best modern instruments, the Tokyo String Quartet in June performed music by Debussy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Among the leading modern luthiers represented were Hutchins, Robert and Deena Spear, and the team of Joseph Curtin and Gregg T. Alf.

"People don't realize how difficult it is to come up with technical descriptions that truly distinguish between a good and a really good violin," says Oliver E. Rodgers, a mechanical engineer at the University of Delaware in Newark.

"What Carleen has done over the years is to work out basic rules for violin makers to follow. She's done this partly by experiment and partly by intuition, coming up with a bunch of rules that, if followed, will produce a good instrument every time. Yet no one can tell today if any of those instruments will turn out to be great. That may take 50 years."

Hutchins admits that science never will -- in fact, can't -- supplant the art of a skilled craftsman. At best, science can augment it.

"To make a good violin, you still have to do the same things the old masters have done for centuries," she says. "It's just that now we can understand more clearly what's going on physically and why a plate sounds good."