Can a violin be played underwater?

Originally posted by sonhouse
I never said cello's played pizzicato sounded anything like guitars. I said they have different ASDR envelopes, especially in the decay portion, the cello sound dies down faster than the guitar, doesn't resonate as long. Guitars are designed to ring longer than pizzicato played cello's. Cello's don't have to ring because they are bowed so the ASDR envelope ...[text shortened]... quilibrium instead of decaying as a pluck would because of just having one input of energy.

A cello's sound dies faster when plucked because of the tensile strength of the string at pitch. If a cello's strings were not at such a high angle to the bridge and at a much higher tensile strength they would not decay as fast. Again, it has to do with the architecture of the instrument.

Originally posted by Badwater
A cello's sound dies faster when plucked because of the tensile strength of the string at pitch. If a cello's strings were not at such a high angle to the bridge and at a much higher tensile strength they would not decay as fast. Again, it has to do with the architecture of the instrument.

Yep, for sure. Do you build them? I thought Norlys said you were a luthier. I had a best friend in Israel who died last year of a brain tumor who was an excellent luthier, guitars, dulcimers and mandolins, he built a unique dulcimer (lap dulcimer) for my wife and me a 12 string guitar. His name was Ray scudero, polymath genius type, luthier, guitar player, singer songwriter extraordinaire.

I've made violas and basses, but these days it's enough for me to keep up with rentals, sales, repairs, and restorations. Trying to make a living of making instruments is its own vow of poverty and I haven't taken that on as of yet. 😛 I still like bringing a broken down instrument back to life; that has its own special touch and I suppose there is something to be said for bringing instruments back from the dead. What that is - well, that's up to you. 😀

Originally posted by Badwater
I've made violas and basses, but these days it's enough for me to keep up with rentals, sales, repairs, and restorations. Trying to make a living of making instruments is its own vow of poverty and I haven't taken that on as of yet. 😛 I still like bringing a broken down instrument back to life; that has its own special touch and I suppose there is somethi ...[text shortened]... said for bringing instruments back from the dead. What that is - well, that's up to you. 😀

I had a friend in Lincoln Nebraska who had a martin classic guitar (they are not exactly the best at making classics) but at a party it got put under his car's back tire by accident and he ran over it. It was a mess! Our resident luthier was Leo Erricson in Omaha and he took the pieces, splinters really, and actually reconstructed his beloved martin! If I hadn't seen it I would not have believed it! ATT, I was in the Air Force and found a martin single oh 18 (0-18), called the 'little brown martin'. So I had Leo put on a new spruce top and it sounded great! It was in very bad shape, get this: it had a leather coating around the soundbox, leather about a 1/4 inch thick(!) and embossed with 'Johnney Reb' something like that. So first thing I did was to rip off that stupid leather (it sounded like it was being played underwater, hehe.) So I then found some assshole had drilled a hole in the side to install a pickup, wonder why he would have needed that?🙂 and it must have gotten whacked in a drunken brawl or something, the hole was there but no jack and a slice of wood missing about a 1/4 inch wide and 4 inches long where it looked like the jack plugged into it must have hit a wall with force and ripped part of the side out. So Leo found some wood that matched and restored the side and put on the spruce top and like I said, it sounded almost like a D18. So one day it was sitting on my upper bunk in my airforce digs and I hear this mighty BROING which sounded to me (my back had been turned att so didn't see it) like a couple of bricks fell on the guitar from the ceiling! I saw strings going every which way and just kept scanning it with my eyes not believing what I saw, not understanding what just happened, I should say. What happened was the bridge that Leo had glued on wasn't very well glued, maybe it needed to be set for a longer period of time, don't know but it just sort of exploded, pieces of it flying across the room, no bricks needed! Needless to say he fixed it again for free and this time it held! Great guitars usually get stolen, as was this and my D18, gibson classic, 2 5 string banjo's and an autoharp. All about two days after I got out of the airforce and made my way to Denver, looking in on a boarding house for a room. Lost three toolboxes full of mechanic tools, all my clothes, my instrument, hell, I don't know why they just didn't steal the whole frigging car! I am still devastated!

I'm sorry to hear about that. I hate getting ripped off; few things upset me more. There are way too many thieves in this world and nothing is sacred. 😠

Anything can be repaired in the guitar/violin world; it's just a question of whether it is cost effective to be repairing the item in question.