Secrets Of Stradivarius' Unique Violin Sound Revealed, Professor Says

What makes a Stradivarius' violin sound different from other violins?
(Credit: iStockphoto/José Carlos Pires Pereira)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Jan. 25, 2009) — For centuries, violin makers have tried and failed to reproduce the pristine sound of Stradivarius and Guarneri violins, but after 33 years of work put into the project, a Texas A&M University professor is confident the veil of mystery has now been lifted.

Joseph Nagyvary, a professor emeritus of biochemistry, first theorized in 1976 that chemicals used on the instruments – not merely the wood and the construction – are responsible for the distinctive sound of these violins. His controversial theory has now received definitive experimental support through collaboration with Renald Guillemette, director of the electron microprobe laboratory in the Department of Geology and Geophysics, and Clifford Spiegelman, professor of statistics, both Texas A&M faculty members. Their work has been published in the current issue of the scientific journal Public Library of Science (PloSONE).

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The Power Of Music

(Image from University of East Anglia)

Amazing Power of Music Revealed -- Live Science

More than 7,000 runners who raced earlier this month in a half-marathon in London were under the influence of a scientifically derived and powerful performance-enhancing stimulant — pop music.

The dance-able, upbeat music at London's "Run to the Beat" race was selected on the basis of the research and consultation of sport psychologist Costas Karageorghis of Brunel University in England. He has learned how to devise soundtracks that are just as powerful, if not more so, as some of the not-so-legal substances that athletes commonly take to excel.

"Music is a great way to regulate mood both before and during physical activity. A lot of athletes use music as if it's a legal drug," Karageorghis told LiveScience. "They can use it as a stimulant or as a sedative. Generally speaking, loud upbeat music has a stimulating effect and slow music reduces arousal."

The link between music and athletic performance is just one example of the inroads scientists and doctors are making into understanding the amazing power that music has over our minds and bodies. Science is backing up our intuition and experience, showing that music really does kill pain, reduce stress, better our brains and basically change how we experience life.

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Musicians Use Both Sides Of Their Brains More Frequently Than Average People

Supporting what many of us who are not musically talented have often felt, new research reveals that trained musicians really do think differently than the rest of us. (Credit: iStockphoto/Emre Ogan)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Oct. 3, 2008) — Supporting what many of us who are not musically talented have often felt, new research reveals that trained musicians really do think differently than the rest of us. Vanderbilt University psychologists have found that professionally trained musicians more effectively use a creative technique called divergent thinking, and also use both the left and the right sides of their frontal cortex more heavily than the average person.

The research by Crystal Gibson, Bradley Folley and Sohee Park is currently in press at the journal Brain and Cognition.

"We were interested in how individuals who are naturally creative look at problems that are best solved by thinking 'out of the box'," Folley said. "We studied musicians because creative thinking is part of their daily experience, and we found that there were qualitative differences in the types of answers they gave to problems and in their associated brain activity."

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Old Violins Reveal Their Secrets

(Photo from Nashville Violins)

From Nature:

Acoustic measurements identify the signature of a Stradivarius.

Why do the violins made by Stradivari and Guarneri del Gesù sound so good? Countless theories have been proposed for the secret of these eighteenth-century Italian instrument-makers, but attempts to identify a unique acoustic signature have proved fruitless. Now a study has finally identified a measurable sound quality that distinguishes these old violins from cheap, factory-made instruments.

After spending ten years painstakingly measuring the acoustics of violins rated from "bad" to "excellent" by professional musicians, George Bissinger of East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina, says that the 'excellent' old Italian violins in his sample show a significantly stronger acoustic response in the lower octaves than do the 'bad' violins, whereas those rated merely 'good' have intermediate values1. The high-quality tone is caused by a single mode of vibration of air inside the body, which radiates sound strongly through the violin's f-holes.

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Music Therapy Improves Well-Being of Very Ill Patients

From Live Science:

(HealthDay News) -- Exposure to music therapy can dramatically improve the mental and physical condition of patients receiving palliative care, a new study suggests.

The research team says that this is the first large study to gauge -- and substantiate -- the potential of music therapy as a physical and psychological aid to patients coping with advanced illness.

"We've known for a while that music therapy can be used for a wide variety of things in a medical setting," said study author Lisa M. Gallagher, a music therapist with the Cleveland Music School Settlement and The Cleveland Clinic's Horvitz Center for Palliative Medicine. "But this particular study clearly shows that it helps improve mood while decreasing pain, anxiety, depression and even shortness of breath among seriously ill patients."

Gallagher was expected to present her findings Tuesday at the American Academy of Pain Management Meeting being held this week in Nashville, Tenn.

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