Books › The violinist, 1900 › scan 41
Scan 41
The violinist, 1900
27 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1Is Every Violinist a Judge of Violin Tone?
2BY AUGUST M. GEMUNDER
4N ASKING this question, I guarantee that two-thirds of our violinists, amateur and professional, will answer in the affirmative.
6Practically all violinists have a shadowy, intangible "ideal" of violin tone, and he or she, without acquiring this "ideal" by any course of study or thorough knowledge of tone, will set up this ideal and fight for it to the last ditch regardless of how many better-informed persons may take issue therewith.
8To prove that the average violinist has not, and cannot, have a very vast fund of tone knowledge is readily proved.
10Let us assume that the Stradivarius or Guarnerius best instruments represent the ultimate ideal. Then let us inquire how many of our violinists have ever heard or played on one of these violins.
12It is certain that not one in a thousand ever handled a fine Stradivarius and, if we assume the Stradivarius to represent the "ideal" and we know that a big majority of our self-appointed judges—average players—have no intimate knowledge of this "ideal," how then can we believe that the average violinist is, or can be, a judge of true violin tone?
14Or let us assume that some master modern makers really produce violins the equal in tone of a Stradivarius—then let us inquire how many average players have had the privilege of hearing or trying the best productions of modern masters, and know how to play them.
16Again we must conclude that the bulk of the evidence is against the probability of the average violinist being a judge of the finer tone qualities of a violin, for the average player may have only a very limited knowledge of modern makers and their work.
18But, to my mind, the greatest reason that can be presented to prove that the average violinist is not a judge of violin tone, isn't the fact that he hasn't a Stradivarius to examine and base his valuations on. It is this:
20The average violinist purchases a violin which happens to strike his fancy, and thereafter the tone of that violin will be "his ideal." If it is a loud-toned instrument, then he'll be found in the ranks of those who belittle all instruments whose tone-quality doesn't border on the loud; and if it happens to be a smooth-toned instrument which he first likes, one that is pleasing to his ear but which really has no real tonal color, he will thereafter find fault with all instruments that do not sound similar to his own instrument.
22And the average violinist sticks to his mode of judging tone—sticks to the fallacious method of judging all violins by "his own," regardless of the fact that he often tries a $300 or $500 instrument and has the temerity to think it not so good as his own, which is probably not worth $100.
24The difference in price, it might be assumed, would stir the average violinist into wondering if, after all, his tone taste were not at fault. But, for some reason, matters are at a standstill in this respect.
26I believe that if the average player would devote more time to become a judge of violin tone, and basic principles of tone production by proper bowing and fingering, the
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