Well-known builders who say instruments don't open up?

[Geoff B]

T.J. - is the point that you are making that there is no "controversy" over opening up among luthiers, therefore the non-luthier world should listen up and stop making it a "controversy"? I'm confused...

You should have included some working definition of "opening up" so we aren't all arguing about a phenomenon (or non-phenomenon) with a moving target and subjective criteria.

If "opening up" is a change in sound over time, you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who hasn't experienced it, even if it is a change in pick/string/bridge/frets/whatever. If opening up is the change in the first 24 hours, your argument is more geared toward luthiers and I suspect you would not find "controversy" there either. Your "lopsided distribution" is pseudo science, at best.

Luthiers tend to be a passionate group, so I'd expect them to be reticent about this topic directly as there is so much experience there that cannot be justified with language, it just has to be experienced.

So, there's a few possibilities.

Your 2 possibilities suggest that either 1) luthiers are too chicken to deny a phenomenon that is generally accepted or 2) that they are disillusioned by their own psychology (and you even mentioned "the secret" earlier which is an unfair juxtaposition that we think it into happening)...

I am not a "respected builder" as you are looking for, but I am a builder and I am respected by the folks I'm fortunate enough to work with. I don't get the feeling that my opinion would change your mind. You've also continued to say "no one will be able to come up with any regarded luthiers opposed to the phenomenon" although respected luthiers have weighed in on your assertion/query/position, but they weren't saying what you wanted so it seems you disregarded it.

"As to why one would believe in the field-related observations of people who are highly regarded in that field... is this a serious question? "Why would I believe doctors, with both their education and their hands-on training, should be trusted more with medicine than everyone else?" *laugh* "

I'd suspect that many luthiers have taken a 'less than scientific' approach to their building, which is not at all similar to being a Doctor. While they've got numbers, experience and their own system of work, there isn't an integrated system by which all luthiers understand their craft, and so, is why luthiers seldom come to a consensus on anything at all. Just spend a few hours in the builders section! At the same time, with such vague terms as "opening up" "developing over time" "breaking in" etc. you are not going to get straight answers. These issues aside, there is the issue of whether a change over time is necessarily a beneficial change. I suppose sometimes it could be, perhaps sometimes it isn't.

"And that was my point"
After reading the preceding parts more than i really wanted to, I'm still not sure what your point is! Can you, in one sentence, explain what point you are trying to make? This thread started with what seemed like a question, but it seems you just want to make an argument by way of having other people say it for you...

[Explorer]

T.J. - is the point that you are making that there is no "controversy" over opening up among luthiers, therefore the non-luthier world should listen up and stop making it a "controversy"? I'm confused...

After reading the preceding parts more than i really wanted to, I'm still not sure what your point is! Can you, in one sentence, explain what point you are trying to make?

The one sentence: Given all the people I've known or have met who build wooden musical instruments, and the fact that all of them have heard instruments bloom during their first days of being played (and then, although slowing, continuing to bloom over time), I believe those who claim there is a controversy are greatly overstating their claim (if not being completely wrong), and the only way their claim would have any weight is by their stated opinion having the same credibility as those people who not only have have heard that bloom, but who have demonstrated their credibility through consistently making excellent instruments.

Geoff, your restatement was actually more elegant. *laugh* However, I don't mean that everyone should just fall into line with what the builders have observed. I just think that "controversy" is definitely not the correct word, unless one is just talking about a controversy among those who post on the Internet, as opposed to builders.

Cheers!

[ralph johansson]

The plural of anecdote is not evidence.

Why should we assume that it's unlikely that people are fooling themselves? I mean; why automatically assume that? Wouldn't we all like to think that our instruments are improving over time, whether they are or not, and doesn't that introduce bias? Shouldn't a weight of objective evidence be shown to offset that bias?

A careful before-and-after recording test -- preferably across several different instruments over time -- would give us at least a start at answering these questions. And yet... odd isn't it? Nobody ever does that. Instead, we just get oodles of personal anecdote tossed around in these discussions. The few trials that have been done, like the one linked earlier (from one of my posts in another thread) about close-cousin violins, are automatically discarded by the diehard believers.

I simply don't understand how recordings could represent the relative responsivity of an instrument. Can we hear the effort that goes into playing?


At least in the guitar world there are the careful measurements
of frequeny response patterns performed by Al Carruth which I referred to earlier.

I fail to understand what's anecdotal about his findings. And I doubt you can find anyone in electrical or mechanic engineering who claims that frequency response is irrelevant to the properties of a vibrating system.

Again referring to guitars (note the word "instruments" in the heading) there are dead spots that can be very prominent in new guitars. A sudden loud onset and very quick decay. I have observed how a few of my instruments develop sustain at these spots,
often an f.
So as not to fool myself I strike a Bb triad and then mute two of the notes, and, yes, the f lingers in a way it did not do when the guitar was new. That is at least an indicator of important things going on, and musically significant in itself.

[ralph johansson]

I don't think most lutheirs weigh their options as far as what will sell more instruments and say an instrument will open up to sell it to someone who want's it to sound better, or say it won't change if someone likes it the way it is. I don't think most luthiers adopt a policy of proclaiming that their instruments will or will not change in sound one way or the other just to create more income potential. I think such speculation is rather demeaning of luthiers, in fact.

I believe the suggestion you're alluding to was stated twice or three times. I asked the poster to clarify his point and, quite expectedly, there was no answer.