From Wikipedia: A Stradivarius is a stringed instrument built by members of the Stradivari family, particularly Antonio Stradivari. According to their reputation, the quality of their sound has defied attempts to explain or reproduce, though this belief is controversial.
So it is not surprising then that when somebody claims “global warming is to blame” they’ll get called on it as this reporter in the Vanouver base Province newspaper has done. h/t to reader Antonio Sans – Anthony
Musical prof a mouthpiece for eco-propaganda
She should know the jury’s still out on climate change
By Jon Ferry, The Province B.C. Canada
What set my teeth on edge last week was not the chilly weather, though Wednesday was the coldest March 11 on record. It was a University of B.C. professor’s claim that global warming is largely responsible for the fact folks can no longer make the heavenly-sounding violins they used to hundreds of years ago.
Not that I should be surprised: Global warming gets fingered for virtually everything these days, especially at our eco-infatuated universities. For these grant-hungry institutions, the fashionable notion that humans are mainly to blame for warming the planet is a godsend. It opens up so many fields of study where taxpayer funding can be justified on the grounds of saving Mother Earth and everything on it, including fabulous old fiddles, from climactic Armageddon.
Eugenia Choi, the UBC professor, clearly knows a thing or two about violins, including the 300-year-old Stradivarius she plays. She’s a concert violinist with impressive global credentials. And I wouldn’t dream of questioning either the moral duty she says she feels to protect these fine, handmade instruments or her interest in global warming. As reported in the university’s official news publication, Choi recently travelled to the Arctic with scientists and [U.S. president] Barack Obama team members, and “saw first-hand the plight of polar bears.”
No, where I take issue with the nimble-fingered professor is over her contention, as detailed in UBC Reports, that the reason a violin like a Stradivarius can now cost more than a house is largely because “global warming has changed how trees grow.”
How so? Choi explains: “You can no longer create new violins of the same quality. There just aren’t the same types of wood or density.”
And there’s a chance she’s right. Certainly, in 2003, a New York climatologist and a Tennessee tree-ring dating expert claimed that a mini ice age in Europe at the time master instrument-maker Antonio Stradivari was producing violins may have affected the density of the wood he was using — and hence enhanced the instruments’ tone quality. It was a theory supported last year by Dutch researchers. But it was far from conclusive.
Earlier this year, Texas researchers had a different theory, namely that the violins from the golden age of Italian instrument-making in the late 17th and early 18th centuries owed their celestial sound to chemicals in the wood preservatives. And other theories over the years have focused on everything from the fiddles’ glues and varnish to their unique shape. But as a Wikipedia entry on the subject concludes: “There remains no consensus on the single most probable factor.”
My point here is that the scientific debate over the violins made in Cremona, Italy, during a 70-year period of global cooling is far from over. It’s as unsettled as that over climate change today.
Our universities should be keeping an open and inquiring mind about both — at least if they’re interested in higher learning, as they claim to be.
Instead, they simply seem intent on cheerleading for the green team, pushing eco-propaganda. And that shortchanges us all.
She’s obviously a gifted musician, but, like a lot of these celebrity types stumping for, and spouting on about AGW, she is essentially clueless, and should just shut up. What she doesn’t get is that, even if what she says is true – that the reason we can no longer make stradivari-quality violins is due to the wood density being lower now (arguable, because there are many factors that can affect a violin’s quality), so what? Is she trying to claim that man is responsible entirely for the warming since then? Does she even know, or care about the MWP? I doubt it.
Finding good wood suitable for building guitars is also pretty tough to do these days. Fender and Gibson cannot build the quality of instrements they produced in the 1950’s thru the early 1970’s because that quality of wood does not exist any more. One piece Alder bodies, single piece mahogany bodies, ebony fretboards and Brazilian Rosewood are nearly impossible to obtain as the old growth forests have been harvested for these woods. Even the cheapest guitars made in the 1960’s were made from solid wood. Today the overwhelming majority of guitars are made of plywood. I’m doubtful you could make a violin sound good out of wood chips and glue.
Instead, they [“our universities”] simply seem intent on cheerleading for the green team, pushing eco-propaganda.
Who would have ever guessed that Demonizing and Witch Hunting would come to be actual Majors in Universities, much less “Science”? Meet the new pre-Enlightenment, same as the old pre-Enlightenment.
Related note: once I saw Milton Freidman on tv give his simple definition of a “Communist”: ~ “A Communist is someone who when confronted with a problem blames someone[else].” But it took me quite a long time to realize what he was saying so simply. Who’d-a-thunk this mentality would ever become so rampant again?
Supporting what Jason said, here is the Wikipedia entry, complete with appropriate references: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stradivarius#Objective_comparisons.
I think trees grow farther north in Europe where temps might resemble those of the LIA. I fail to see a problem here. Besides, I think Jason(09:07:26) is correct. A serious problem though is the sourcing of wood for the bows, namely pernambuco wood from Brazil.
OT, from the other end of Canada….
UN: Rising sea levels threaten Fundy coast
http://thechronicleherald.ca/Front/9011073.html
The Bay of Fundy starts just outside my front door, trust me it has not changed much over the years. The 2 areas mentioned in the article, Truro and Advocate are both built on floodplains, as are many other areas of the province and behind dykes that vary in age, but some have got to be pretty old.
Here is a great link to Truro’s problems (notice the .gc.ca web link, yup that’s our own government at work), it’s had some winners in the past, look about 1/2 way down the page for the “The Saxby Gale of 1869”. If it gets one again, could be real bad.
http://gsc.nrcan.gc.ca/marine/map/altm_e.php
Advocate, has a real problem, but it’s rather recent. They had a bad storm come through last December and took out part of the seawall, which blocked major wave action from reaching the dikes, this should be fixed as soon as possible.
http://www.amherstdaily.com/index.cfm?sid=207670&sc=58
Already wrote my Member of Parliament, this type of scare tactic has got to stop. Yes it’s dangerous to live on a floodplain. Yes the tides are quite high. And Yes, we’ve been here now for about, oh say as long as people have been in New Orleans, not that there are any other parallels between them.
Ah yes, back to the violin…
http://www.luisandclark.com/violin.php
Kill 2 birds with one stone, quality music, carbon sequester, lol
Cudos to John Ferry and The Province for “allowing” him to write a reasoned, responsible piece about this. The Canadian public are bombarded with all manner of “assumptions” about “climate”, chief of which is that everything is linked to anthropomorphic “climate change”, and especially in certain quarters of politics, in the press, and in advertising. “Green” is tied to everything, along with “carbon footprint,” and when I encounter acquaintances and the topic arises, first I challenge them to define “green” and “carbon footprint”, ask them what they know about how “world temperature” is measured, and go from there. And by the way, Ms. Choi and any others who don’t know the facts, the polar bear population is in great shape, as it has been for over 200,000 years. Did you know that this species was brown at one time? Maybe it will be again. Imagine that! And thanks to WUWT for providing information and links to valid research that has given me so many answers that I’ve been looking for!
Meanwhile other traditional items handcrafted from dense wood such as maple, oak or walnut for several centuries remain unaffected – rifles, shotguns, hunting knives, guitars, sitars, pianos, organs, harpsichords, etc etc
Everything except the Stradivarius.
“If we’re going to tackle something like climate change, you really have to speak to both peoples’ hearts and minds,” Choi says.
And with any luck, she’ll change the minds of both of them.
Maybe the key was a century of growth in warmer temperatures and then progressive cooling of the mature but still growing tree into the Little Ice Age?
If so, then planting trees now should be the way to go to make new vintages in 2300 – 2500?
Re: Bill Marsh (08:28:31) :
Bill, I remember reading a similar article from the ISA about recent research regarding Stradivarious violins and their tonal qualities. It was suggested by the researcher that it was the interaction of Stradivarious’ varnish and the wood preservative. Apparently, insects were a problem even in the good ol days and they used a wood preservative that protected against moisture/rot and insects as well. Seems like there was some heavy Arsenic and Lead presence.
The guy examined an actual sample of a piece of an actual violin that needed repair. I’ll look back and see if I can find the article.
There is never a shortage of morons with nostalgia to the old, low-tech way of doing things. Nowadays, carbon fiber reinforced violins are commodity.
Actually googling “Blind test, Stradivary” pointed to a curious article:
http://newagnews.tamu.edu/dailynews/stories/BICH/Sep2203a.htm
Indeed, only a fool can actually compare things created at the time people were riding mules to modern technology. Sure they didn’t have oscilloscopes to visualize the sound produced by the instrument, no CAD to model instrument prototype without actually having to build one, no chemistry to produce variety advanced materials, and so on.
The Growth rate == dense wood line of thought is completely bogus. I build mandolins and I can tell you that tree ring density (and by extension growth rate) has very little to do with wood density. I’ve seen trees with 5 grains per inch (very fast growing) that were some of the most dense wood I’ve ever seen, and 32gpi boards that are floppy like cardboard with terrible dampening characteristics. You can get wood with very similar characteristics today as you could have 3-400 years ago.
The age of the wood has more to do with the sound in my opinion, in that the resins in the wood have time to really cure up. As for finish being the ‘magic’ in a strad, most strads have none of their original varnish on them, and they’ve been had the finish worn off/refinished/played/refinished multiple times. Also I’ve never seen a double blind test where anyone has every show that a strad was any better than any other very good violin.
Bottom line is, Antonio Stradivari was a HECK of a builder. Thats all there is to it. An instrument sounding exceptional has more to do with the one building it than the materials it is built out of.
A bit of indoctrination for your children:
http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi1060111129/
http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi3577479961/
I like the part where it says you shouldn’t buy food that has travelled half the world, only buy local farm produce instead.
So we have to stop trade partnerships that keep millions of farmers in developing countries employed.
Do these people really go to farmer’s markets and not realize that most of the produce there would not be available had they not been imported from far across the world many years ago?
I have read The Province and it, like all MSM is under constant pressure to tow party lines. They are still fearful of reporting government corruption and opposing points of view . But they did print this which is a small step forward. What any in MSM have yet to acknowledge is how unnecessary AGW campaign is to meet green goals. There are plenty of non-climate related reasons, (conflict, real pollution, oil addiction, export of dollars, security) to transition to domestic energy sources. But the press has so bamboozled itself it seems incapable of digging a way out. And now they look on dazedly as their best demographics head for the internet.
There is a way to save face however. By morphing the climate message to Energy Independence, they can let go of the failed AGW component and continue with the energy issues. The results will be beneficial for all but those who thought they could “end of western civilization.” In the absence of adopting this tact, the AGW crowd, MSM, politicos, and toadies will all look like the hated Nazi “collaborators” of WW2.
sorry, previous was meant for the Province thread.
Wood density varies significantly, sometimes hugely within a single stand and even within an individual tree.
The notion that trees are machines sensitive to global temperature changes of a couple of degrees is such absolute poppycock. It demonstrates utter ignorance about the way the real world works.
Conifers have been around for 200 million years plus. They have seen it all and survived it all. Jumping Jiminey! And this person is an educator??? The masses are getting stupider by the minute.
Sylvia
“There’s also the concept that playing a fine instrument for 300 years changes the quality of tone.”
Makes sense to me. Especially since leaving a fine instrument unplayed for even a couple of weeks makes a difference. Which is why I was given possession of a Strad viola for a few glorious weeks because my teacher was going to be occupied elsewhere. I was almost afraid to touch it, but that didn’t last long.
Steve Keohane (09:41:37) :
“Even kiln-dried wood has to sit for a minimum of three years, in a dry climate, to get the cell walls to collapse so that the wood cannot ‘re-inflate’ with moisture. This permanently changes the wood. ”
I would sure like to see a reference for this statement, as I don’t think it’s true.
cyr (12:44:38) :
“The Growth rate == dense wood line of thought is completely bogus. I build mandolins and I can tell you that tree ring density (and by extension growth rate) has very little to do with wood density. I’ve seen trees with 5 grains per inch (very fast growing) that were some of the most dense wood I’ve ever seen, and 32gpi boards that are floppy like cardboard with terrible dampening characteristics. ”
Not bogus at all. It depends upon the wood species. For softwood (gymnosperms), higher density is normally associated with slow growth rate, since most of the growth rings will be comprised of very dense latewood and little of the much lower density springwood. However, with ring porous hardwoods (angiosperms), like oaks, the faster growing trees have higher densities, since less of the volume is occupied by the large pores formed in the spring time.
“You can get wood with very similar characteristics today as you could have 3-400 years ago.”
Very true.
Vadim,
You gave me an idea. The greatest danger facing us is not AGW, but AMG (Anthropogenic Moron Generation)
There is a way to save face however. By morphing the climate message to Energy Independence, they can let go of the failed AGW component and continue with the energy issues.
I have been saying this for ages but how do politicians turn their backs against the radicalism they helped foster among Green groups without it biting them in the back? It’s not possible. If you shut the Greens out now they’ll feel like the politicians dumped them, then their Direct Action will be transform from activism to terrorism.
This is how al-Qaeda formed. We gave the Muslim fights all the support they needed, fostered Islamism to counter the Soviets (who were doing the same) and then dumped them when they were no longer useful.
Our political elite have a lot to answer for creating this mess – this religious mania (Green and Islamist) which is used as a tool. How dare someone like Ed Milliband encourage young naive activists by telling them they should take Direct Action campaigns to foreign countries to cripple their economies when we have already sent the likes of Abu Hamza to prison for encouraging young Muslims to do the same thing?
When we condemn these internet Alarmists we must not forget that they did not invent global warming hysteria. They are brainwashed pawns and we should embrace them, show them how they were manipulated by short sighted irresponsible politicians who pay lip service to every damn thing in sight which confuses and divides society even more.
you know, there’s no reason to knock the violin along with the violinist here. It’s one thing to say she’s wrong in her view about climate change, another thing to say in essence that Strads are really nothing special.
Anyway, Guarneri and Amati are special too. 🙂
and
CodeTech (09:47:20) :
“Thus, logically, Strad’s all sound great because only an accomplished violinist is ever going to play one.”
I assume you’re being facetious, but just in case you’re not, unfortunately most listeners probably couldn’t tell the difference either way. Every violin sounds different from every other violin. Even two Strads don’t sound the same. But play simple scales or something on one then another then another and even a mostly untrained ear can actually hear a difference.
But throw them all together in a concert hall and it’s all a great big mess, er, sound. The richness that seems to come from the violin section has less to do with the tonal quality than with each musician playing off tune a little bit more or less than the player next to him. 🙂