Telling musicians to evaluate and choose their instruments in a “scientific” way?

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Another marvelous video, craftsman walking a stand of very special trees high in a mountain forest. He thumps on each one and you hear a unique sound, like so much different than any tree trunk you ever thumped you cannot believe it. Walks along thumping, thumping, until he finds the right tree.  

This one select tree is then cut down, aged, sawn into lumber, aged some more. Eventually years later some choice piece is selected and sawn by hand, shaped by hand, no machine tool touches it, ever. There is no guide, no rule that says it must be this thick here, that thick there. Nothing like that. Just the craftsman and his hand tools and his skill.   

They do not go to all this trouble to play a 440 A. They do this because such a fine musical instrument in the hands of a skilled performer can be made to bring tears to your eyes.    

If anyone can find that video I surely would appreciate a link. Thanks.

There is a terrific movie, The Red Violin. Fabulous movie. With a scene that makes this point in the most poignant way I can imagine.

The Red Violin is a sort of Stradivarius among Stradivariuses. The movie follows the life of this violin as it passes from one owner to another. A passionate performer. A band of gypsies. An activist in China. Each one building a bond with this wondrous violin. This all reaches a climax with the Red Violin being sold at an auction where all the various families are bidding to have it back.

But not only the descendants who have their own powerful emotional attachment. The world’s foremost authority has been searching his whole life for it as well. He has his own reasons for wanting it. He knows his violins, he is after all the world expert, but he has to be sure. Spoiler alert, the emotional climax of the movie comes when we learn just how the Red Violin came to have its special rare red hue.

The violin is being tested on a bench. The technician pronounces it a perfect acoustical instrument. Everyone else in the whole movie handles the violin like the precious gift that it is. Now it is bolted to a bench, and instead of being played it is being subjected to machines vibrating it. You have to see the movie to appreciate how this is intercut with scenes of the craftsman using his dead wife’s blood in the varnish. She died in childbirth. He had lost both his wife and the son for whom he had created his masterpiece. The contrast between the craftsman and his love of music and the technician and his abominable numbers has never been more clear.