Oberlin Violin Acoustics Workshop - Days Two and Three

Days two and three of the Oberlin Violin Acoustics Workshop have included very interesting lectures by George Stoppani, Colin Gough, Evan Davis, and George Bissinger.

In addition, the projects have moved forward. First, for the "bridge island" project led by Colin Gough that I am involved with, we believe that we have successfully isolated the bridge island of the top plate for acoustic testing -- first by filling in the upper and lower bouts with an epoxy woodfiller (as described in my last post) and then by adding wooden bars to the bottom and clamping it to a flat wooden plate. This allows us to attach a microphone and tap the plate to get spectrum readouts on the computer:

We also added a bridge and "strings" for further analysis:

I am also involved in a project led by Joseph Curtin in which we are analyzing the acoustic changes involved with making the f-holes longer (as with the Ole Bull). To do so, we started with a standard factory made violin in the white, performed an acoustic analysis on it using the Curtin rig, and then progressively increased the size of the f-holes while making the same measurements. Here, you see the violin in the rig, with the bass side f-hole much longer than the treble side f-hole:

The results of these projects are yet to be determined, but they are examples of a number of interesting projects taking place at the workshop. More details to come in future posts . . .