Here’s a fascinating research study. Violin experts have been saying all along that the instrument sounds like a human singing voice, but new research is proving that the greatest violin makers in history (Stradivari and Guarneri, whose violins now sell for several million apiece) really did intend for their wooden masterpieces to mimic the female soprano voice.
The study, featured in the current issue of Savart Journal, discovered that the violin produces several French, Italian and English vowel sounds.
What do you think? Do you hear “eeeeee-iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii-eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee” when you play? Do you hear a human voice at all?
Study author Joseph Nagyvary, an emeritus biochemistry professor at Texas A&M University, recorded Metropolitan opera singer Emily Pulley singing vowel sounds, and then compared her voice to a 1987 recording of violin virtuoso Itzhak Perlman playing a scale on a 1743 Guarneri violin.
Turns out, the two “voices” can be mapped out on the same scale.
“For 400 years, violin prices have been based almost exclusively on the reputation of the maker — the label inside of the violin determined the price tag,” Nagyvary said in a statement. “The sound quality rarely entered into price consideration, because it was deemed inaccessible. These findings could change how violins may be valued.”