>> From the Library of Congress in Washington, DC. ^M00:00:03 [ Silence ] ^M00:00:21 >> I'd like to introduce Chris Germain, director of the Oberlin Violinmakers Workshop. >> Thank you. Good evening, everybody, and welcome. Really happy to be here. And before we get into the program tonight, I'd like to just give a word of thanks to everyone here at the library of [tape skips] absolutely wonderful to work with, and so supportive. And there is no way we could have accomplished this -- our goal of the story that we're going to tell you tonight without their total help. And that's what we're going to do tonight. We want to tell you what I think is going to be a really interesting story that's going to span 300 years about violins, starting with Antonio Stradivari, and leading up the modern day. But before we begin to tell you the story, I would like to have the musical performance of the two violins, the original Betts Stradivari, which is in the collection here at the Library of Congress, and a copy that we made at our workshop at the BSA Overland Workshop. And to do that, I would like to introduce two very fine violinists, some friends, Claudia Chudacoff and Christopher Franke, please, both members -- ^M00:01:32 [ Applause ] ^M00:01:37 Both members of the President's own the Marine Corp, Orchestra, who perform at the White House. And I'll let you introduce your selections. ^M00:01:44 [ Silence ] ^M00:01:46 >> First we'll play the second movement of a Leclair sonata for two violins. It's a gavotte movement, Dante Egratsia [phonetic], so. ^M00:01:54 [ Silence ] ^M00:02:07 [ Violins Play ] ^M00:03:52 [ Applause ] ^M00:04:02 >> Oops, sorry, one second. I've got to take that one [inaudible]. Next we'll play a duet for two flutes by Telemann in G major. It's sort of a fugue. It's the second moment of the first sonata. ^M00:04:17 [ Silence ] ^M00:04:28 [ Violins Play ] ^M00:06:52 [ Applause ] ^M00:07:03 >> So this was a chance to hear the two instruments in a performance. We thought you'd like to hear just the clear sounds of a simple scale on each of the instruments. So Chris has agreed just to play a simple scale. ^M00:07:14 [ Silence ] ^M00:07:18 [ Violin Plays ] ^M00:07:51 [ Silence ] ^M00:08:00 [ Inaudible Comment ] ^M00:08:02 [ Laughter ] ^M00:08:05 [ Violin Plays ] ^M00:08:39 [ Silence ] ^M00:08:41 >> Well, Chris, thank you very much. We are purposely not revealing which instrument is which at this moment. We thought we'd let you keep these sounds in your heads while we reveal the story of how these instruments came about. Chris. >> Okay. So we were kind of sneaky with you tonight. Usually, you start a story out at the beginning and work your way all the to the end. What we decided to do was end the story with the most important part, the music that's played on the violin. Now, I want you to keep all of what you just heard stored in your memory. Think about what you just heard because we want to get back to you at the end, and would like to get your feedback about what you heard, what you think you heard, and we want your story about the music tonight. But we have to start back at the beginning and this is a project which has taken years to get through. It's been a labor of love and hard work. It began some years ago when John Montgomery, curator here of musical instruments at the Smithsonian, had suggested for our workshop at Oberlin College during the summer to study a great instrument. And we thought about what might be available. Back up a little bit and tell you, sometimes I'll meet people on the street, you'll start a conversation up, and the conversation will lead to, you know, "What do you do for a living?" And then I'll say, "Well, you know, I'm a violinmaker." And it's always interesting to see the response that you get back. And usually, people do one of two things. Usually, they'll first start to say, "You know, I didn't know did that anymore." [Laughs] and I assure them it's still a viable profession, even though we do things pretty much the way that things were done 300 years ago back when Stradivari was living and working. But then the next thing that usually bring up is Stradivari. It seems like anybody anywhere knows the name Stradivari. And they always ask, "What's the secret? Tell me the secret. It's got to be, like, you know, one sentence that you can tell me so I -- then I can make a violin like Stradivari." And this is something we makers have dealt with for a very long time. You know, it's my opinion, and I think also the opinion of many of my colleagues that there is no secret to Stradivari, that the secret was his genius alone. Here's a man with an incredible 80-year working period, who was totally dedicated to his craft in a time that fostered the arts like no other. And through his devotion and hard work, he became the greatest. So if that's the truth, then how do we discover what his secrets are? Well his secrets, I believe, lie right in front of us within the instruments themselves. And only through a systematic study of them, can we really understand Stradivari and how we worked and hoped to conceive an instrument in the same sentences as good as he did. So what we decided to do is like a "Mission Impossible" theme, put together the great dream team here that you see in front of you, many experts, mostly violinmakers. But we have a radiologist here. We have people with great tactical skill. And this was the theme of our Oberlin Workshop, to get the Betts Stradivari, to systematically analyze it, to gather information using the highest technology, and then also to incorporate the technology of today during the construction of an instrument through -- well, they'll tell you how they did it. But let's go ahead and begin. And I would like to introduce our technical experts, Dr. Steve Sirr, radiologist from Indianapolis, Minnesota; and he'll be joined with by Steve Rossow and John Waddle to his left. ^M00:12:25 [ Silence ] ^M00:12:30 >> Thanks, Chris. Thank you very much. I'm a diagnostic radiologist. I went to college for 14 years, and I taught medical residents radiology at the University of the Minnesota for seven years. And back in 1989 at Hennepin County Medical Center when I was responsible for teaching residents radiology, I had three really high-quality residents that could take care of the entire hospital for me. And I became very bored on weekends, and so I brought my violin in. And I'm not a very good player, but I brought it in to practice. And one on Saturday afternoon, there was a gunshot victim who needed some rapid attention. And so he came into the CT scanner, and we knew that he was going to surgery after the CT scanner. And one of the young residents was banging on my door as I was practicing and said, "Dr. Sirr, please come and help us look at this scan so this guy can go right away to surgery." So I ran out of my office carrying my violin down the hallway and put the violin next to the CT scanner. And then we read the CT scan, the patient went to surgery. And then as I turned around, I realized this -- my violin was next to the CT scanner. So I thought, "Well, why not just scan this?" And that was in [laughter] 1989. And then I realized that there's a lot of anatomy inside the violin that I had no idea what I was looking at. And I had purchased my violin from John Waddle, this wonderful man here. And so I took the CT scan to John Waddle's shop, and handed it to John on one Saturday morning. And John said, "What are these?" And I said, "I'm not going to tell you. You have to tell me." So I went back into his room and started looking at some of his old books that he had. And all of the sudden John -- this is my version of the story. All of the sudden, John started yelling, you know, "This is really great." And, you know, I walked out to where he was and he said -- I said, "What is it?" And he said, "This is a CT scan of a violin." And he said that there were things in that scan that he had never seen before, which was just what I was hoping that he would say. So, since that time we've scanned hundreds of instruments. And we have scanned about 60 instruments that were made prior to 1734, along with hundreds of other instruments. The study of the human body is a lot -- is very similar to the study of violins and stringed instruments. The first thing I always taught the residents was that there's a very wide range of normal anatomy. And once you understand the normal anatomy, then you can understand the "diseases" in quotes, of the violin, which are mostly due to trauma or infestation by worms, or a combination of the two. And then just like the surgeons go out and take the patients to surgery to try to fix them, the restorers, violin restorers go do the same thing with the violin. So in these old instruments, there's always very interesting features of the violin that we always see. So what I thought I would do is show today what a CT scan looks like. And this is -- these are two CT scans. And I've them going in synchrony here. So you can see right here is the lower block of the CT scan. And this is this -- the bass bar just came into view there in both of these scans. This is the widest part of the lower bout right there. And there's the F-hole, beginning of the lower portion of the F-hole. And you can see how they match up perfectly as they go back and forth. Also notice how the shapes of the violins are exactly the same and the thicknesses are the same. This is the sound post area. And you can see that right here is a little black line, and that's the sound post patch, which we always see on older instruments. So this instrument is the instrument that Strad made. And this is the one that was made with the CT and the CNC process that we have. And we scanned it -- after we made it, we scanned instrument just to show how good quality it is, and how accurately it reproduces. So then I'll continue up here. And these are the upper corners. I'll kind of go back and forth, and you can see the upper corners. This is the widest part of the upper bout right here. And then the sound post disappear -- or the bass part disappears, and both instruments are at exactly at the same spot. And then this is the upper bout -- upper block here. And this is the neck. The neck has been refitted here in the original. And there's our neck. And then going through the ebony, of course, is darker. It has higher density. And then we'll come into the box. Here's the box in both instruments. And then, this is something that I found very interesting, too. ^M00:17:56 [ Silence ] ^M00:18:01 This image right here, this is the Betts scroll, a cross-section of the scroll. And this is the cross-section of the scroll for the instrument that was made with the CT scan from this instrument, the Betts instrument, and carved with the CNC scanner from the CT data. And you can see that this looks like it's crossed. So I always thought that being extremely devout Roman Catholics that lived at the time in Italy, they always tended to -- well they always thought about Jesus and how important it was to be a good person. And so the violinmakers hid the cross in the scroll here. It seems to me to be pretty obvious. And then I'll go back again. ^M00:18:51 [ Silence ] ^M00:18:56 So this violin, the new violin, was made with wood that is very similar in quality to the original Betts. With CT scanners, we can measure densities of woods without taking the violin apart, of course. So we try to find wood that is the same density, has the same grain pattern, the same qualities of wood. And then use that to carve with a CNC scanner directed by the CT scan an instrument like this, or that. So that's my part. ^M00:19:30 [ Silence ] ^M00:19:41 And this is Steve Rossow, a good friend of mine. ^M00:19:44 [ Silence ] ^M00:19:48 And Steve was an apprentice for John Waddle. And we meet at John's shop every Friday after work for a session that kind of turns into a men's group. ^M00:20:02 [ Laughter ] ^M00:20:05 And one day -- >> But we still tell our wives that it's strictly professional and there's no -- ^M00:20:09 [ Silence ] ^M00:20:12 [ Inaudible Comments ] ^M00:20:14 >> Okay. So before I get to that night where we kind of figured something out this was from -- by the way, yes, Steve Rossow, violinmaker, St. Paul, Minnesota. ^M00:20:27 [ Silence ] ^M00:20:31 I had just -- actually, it was about six years ago, maybe six going on almost seven years ago, I -- a friend of mine, and I had taken on a project to build a CNC machine. And a CNC machine -- "CNC" is "computer numerical control". And it's basically a machine that's a three-axis carving machine that's driven by a computer. That's a real basic way of putting it. If you have a three-dimensional image, or a two-dimensional image of an object, you can plug it into the machine; it'll carve out that part. And you can get -- you know, you can create drawings in a CAD computerized design program or other ways, like CT scans. And so I had come into John's shop on a Friday night about -- might have been about five, six years ago, and had told these guys, "Hey, I've got the -- the machine's done. I don't really know what to do with it yet." But I had brought in some parts that I made, I think some inlays or something like that. And John and Steve, you know, they had been CT scanning violins for years, were already dabbling in a little bit of this -- using these files to create these plastic models of the Betts Stradivarius. And I think there was an example floating around here of a scroll. But that night, Steve had asked me what file format my machine takes to carve out a part. And I told him, I go, "Well, if it's a three-dimensional part, an STL file, it's what I need." And he said, "Well, I think I can save this image of the Betts Stradivarius as an STL file. Let's see what happens here." And so he goes through that process. He gives me this disk. And I'm like, "Yes, well okay. Whatever." You know. [Laughter] And I go back to my shop. I think it sat on my bench for, you know, a couple of weeks or something like that before I even thought about picking it -- you know, I thought, "Oh that's, you know, a cute idea." [Laughs] And so I finally open it up. It was this enormous file. And what I -- what you see on the screen right there is actually -- it's a program called "Rhinoceros", which is a 3D drafting program which I use. And what you see is a real fine mesh, little triangles called "polygons". And that's the file format that the machine at the time it can -- you can take -- use other file formats. But that's, at the time, what we were -- we figured out we could use, and enormously dense, about a million of these little polygons making up this -- the image of the whole violin. And so the computer I had at the time was old and slow and it was just hard to even manipulate this thing. I got to the point where I was able to trim the top off the sides of the violin and trim the back off of the sides of the violin. And I just, for the heck of it, took the file of I think the back. It was the back, put a piece of scrap wood, poplar, something like that, fixed it down to my machine, set the parameters I needed to. I hit "Go". And it started carving out the shape of a violin back. I'm like, "Oh that's kind of neat." And I got done with it and like, "Wow, this is kind of neat. I've got to show the guys on Friday." [Laughter] And pretty unrefined, yet there still had a lot of work to do with these files. Brought it in, and they were like, "Well, wow, I think we might have something here." And, you know, "Go work on it some more." [Laughter] So I got back, and I further -- you know, I had to rescale things a little bit, because of the translating from Steve's computer to mine was a little different, and, you know, the axes that they were placed on was different than what I needed. Refined it a little more, brought in another one, looked pretty good. Then I started adding the purfling channel, which is that decorative strip that's in -- from the outline of the violin. Working on the outline, eventually got to the point of, you know, cutting the F-holes, creating the scrolls from these files, which I have -- you know, I have this huge cabinet full of scrap things that didn't work out. So it was a lot of test wood going into this. And it got to the point where finally, "Alright; let's put some good wood in here and see what we can do." And finally carved out some parts that were successful and that were going to work. And I have some pictures here. [Laughter] There's the machine, and there we are. Here's a blank piece of wood, really nice piece of maple for a back being ready to carve. And it's sitting on a cradle that's vex, so it vacuums down, holds it in place and locates it. Here it is getting close to carving out the outside of the plate. And now the carving is done, and now the outline is going to get cut to clean up the outline. And from there -- I don't think we have pictures of the purfling channel and all that. But so -- >> Are you using [inaudible]? >> Yes; they're end mills; usually, use our round nose, half inch and mill for the carving. And this is a quarter inch end mill to cut the outline. And then, I'll use a little, you know, one point -- whatever the purfling channel width is one point two, one point five, to carve the purfling in this net. So finally, we got to the point where we had this really -- these neat parts that were cut out. And then as far as the connection to Oberlin, I guess if somebody else wants to talk about that, we were invited to be part of that. The mold is a whole different thing, and I won't really -- we don't have time to get into that. But here are some other pictures. John. >> This is John Waddle, the third of the three of us here. ^M00:26:40 [ Silence ] ^M00:26:42 >> So I don't want to spend too much time because I want to give Jeff and Antoine enough time. But I first became aware of the Betts Stradivarius in 1989 when the Strad Magazine published a really nice article about it by Roger Hargreaves [assumed spelling], with a nice poster. And I thought at the time, "Wow, what an amazingly beautiful violin." And so I kind of had it in the back of my mind. And years went by, and Steve Sirr and I started CT scanning instruments together. And around the same time, Gary Stern, who's sitting right here in the front row, and his cohort, Bruno Frohlich, over at the Smithsonian, were also CT scanning instruments. And Steve Sirr and I were trying to get scans of better instruments. And so I started bugging Gary Stern because I knew that they had CT scanned the Betts. And after a while, he very generously sent me the scans of the Betts. And that allowed Steve Sirr and I to study the Betts very closely. And I ended up writing an article for the Strad Magazine myself on the Betts, which was published in May of 2010. And as a result of that article, and as a result of Chris and Raymond Schrier [assumed spelling], and John Montgomery, and other people deciding to make the Betts the focus of the Oberlin Project, I was invited to go to Oberlin, along with Steve Sirr and Steve Rossow to talk about what we had been doing. And so that was a great honor for me to be included in that group, and to be able to study these instruments is amazing. I remember when I was in the violinmaking school, if a Strad came to visit the school, it was always a really big deal, and everybody would just drop everything. And just to be in a room with a Strad was a tremendously big deal. But to have the detail and the ability to study something so closely is way better and more interesting. So it's been a long project and it's been really fun. And like I said, I'm going to be short and give it over to these two amazing guys over here, who did the varnish work on one of those instruments there. ^M00:29:09 [ Laughter ] ^M00:29:12 [ Silence ] ^M00:29:20 >> While they're getting -- can you hear me? I can just shout. While they're getting set up, this is Jeff Phillips, this is Antoine Nedelec. They are not always joined at the hip. They work independently in Salt Lake City and in Dallas, Texas. They're old buddies and they're great friends of ours at Oberlin. And their role was to come on out and do their genius with varnishing. And the work that they do is absolutely fantastic. When you're a violinmaker, the thing that brings -- draws fear into your heart the most is when you have to start painting it; putting on the varnish. And then to do that in front of 50 other colleagues breathing down their neck was an incredible feat. So in advance, I'd like to thank you guys for what you've done. ^M00:30:07 [ Applause ] ^M00:30:10 [ Background Sounds ] ^M00:30:18 >> Hello. Jeff Phillips out of Salt Lake City. >> And I'm Antoine Nedelec from Dallas. So we have a few pictures but fortunately, we do have a video of the CNC machine, if you don't mind. ^M00:30:33 [ Silence ] ^M00:30:37 I believe it went something like that. ^M00:30:39 [ Laughter ] ^M00:30:52 Highly high-tech. [Laughter] And you went 14 years to school for this. ^M00:30:56 [ Laughter ] ^M00:31:02 >> On a more serious note -- >> That looks very serious. [Laughter] >> After the instrument had been put together in the 2011 Oberlin Workshop, it's then -- takes a year to get ready for the following year. In 2012, we came into the workshop and varnished the instruments. So one of the first things we have to do is get the actually wood part ready for the varnish. And so one of the first things we do is put it in a light box to get a suntan. >> Lots of the really nice dark colors you see on Stradivarius and older violins come from oxidation from simple exposure to UV lights and things like that. So there's the light box. Oops. ^M00:31:49 [ Laughter ] ^M00:31:51 So you see those are just UV lights. ^M00:31:52 [ Silence ] ^M00:31:57 >> Follow-up with that, we put a -- >> Here it's -- yes. >> Yes, yes; we put just a mild solution of -- an oxidizing solution on top of that. That sort of helps with the color, gives it that nice golden brown oxidized look. So you can see in the picture there, so the white sort of still unfinished instrument along with the Oberlin Betts before varnish is put on. ^M00:32:22 [ Silence ] ^M00:32:24 >> And varnish cooking. It's actually -- everybody's always looking for the secret of Stradivarius with the varnish. I believe that was very simple. I -- and you can obtain a good color just by cooking the resin longer. The darker you want your color, just cook it longer. >> Yes; we use fairly simple, sort of tree resins that come from different places, just cooked at different temperatures, different rates. And the process of cooking, you just had to -- produces a lot of color that ends up being in the varnish itself. ^M00:33:00 [ Silence ] ^M00:33:03 >> So Oberlin varnishing begins. This is actually the application of the ground. And this one, we don't apply it with a brush. I'll let the video speak for itself. >> And again, sort of the purpose of this is to also continue the coloration of the wood. So this is sort of put into the wood, sort of rubbed in. Just again, another cooked resin applied with a rag and then wiped off with spirits. >> Yes. >> If you wanted [inaudible] to the acoustics of the box as you were applying each layer? >> Yes. >> You know, as makers, we tend to sort of prepare for what the varnish is going to do to the instrument. It's not a huge change, depending on what you use and how much of it you use. But it's something you definitely have to take into consideration. ^M00:33:57 [ Silence ] ^M00:34:00 It can add weight, it can stiffen the wood. ^M00:34:03 [ Silence ] ^M00:34:07 >> Going to -- ^M00:34:08 [ Silence ] ^M00:34:11 >> So after the ground is put on, if you take a look at most Stradivari instruments and a lot of Cremonese instruments at the time, they put black on a lot of the chamfers, especially on the scroll. A lot of it is worn off. If you look on the Betts here, you will still see some ruminants left on. So that's put on, just some black ink painted onto the chamfers. ^M00:34:34 [ Silence ] ^M00:34:36 >> Next, we put a separator. That step is to protect the ground of the violin from being removed when we start removing the varnish. I'm not sure that that [inaudible] varnish, but it definitely works for our purpose. I -- sometimes I compare [inaudible] a little bit as sound editing in movie theaters. You'll hear the noise of the horse, and it's actually somebody banging rocks. So I'd say it's a little bit like that, meaning they did it 300 years ago, and go and we just don't really know exactly how it was done. ^M00:35:15 [ Silence ] ^M00:35:18 That's -- we apply the superior with a brush. ^M00:35:21 [ Silence ] ^M00:35:23 >> And then we begin actual varnish. So here's the Oberlin violin with its first coat of oil varnish, again, just resins cooked in with linseed oils. And in this case, we call this the clear coat, the first coat put on that does not have any color pigment in it. So all the color just comes from the cooked varnish itself and the wood underneath. ^M00:35:44 [ Silence ] ^M00:35:47 >> The color coat. ^M00:35:48 [ Silence ] ^M00:35:50 It's pretty self-explanatory really. >> Variety of different things you can use, earth pigments, lake pigments, dyes, so forth. In this case, we chose an Elysian resonate. It's sort of similar to a lake pigment, but attached to rosin, just something we were comfortable with using, we knew its results and something we were used to working with. ^M00:36:13 [ Silence ] ^M00:36:17 >> So --, yes. >> Antoine putting a coat on the Oberlin Betts. >> You know, Sam, I don't know if they applied the varnish thin or thick. It's very -- you've got some -- Filipe probably will know better than me, but there's couple of techs saying that Strad applied really thick varnish and he took force to put it on the instrument. And we just do it thin. For me anyway, it works better. I know plenty of people would do it differently and they get a very, very good result. And in violinmaker never say, "My way is the only way." There's plenty of ways of doing good work; and bad work too. ^M00:36:57 [ Silence ] ^M00:36:59 >> And if you put it on thin, you can put several coats on and you can control sort of the evenness of the coat as well, color adjustments as well. ^M00:37:06 [ Silence ] ^M00:37:08 >> Time for lunch while the coats are drying; very important. [Laughter] ^M00:37:12 [ Background Sounds ] ^M00:37:16 Sorry, we don't have a better picture. That's actually the Oberlin Betts before it was antiqued. So it was actually varnished to look like a new violin. So some people sometimes will start making the violin look old right away. Our process is to make it look just like it did, and then try to do 300 years' worth of antiquing in about five days. [Laughter] So antiquing begins. ^M00:37:46 [ Silence ] ^M00:37:49 >> So one of the first things we do is crackling of the varnish. And that's something that I think most or a lot of Cremonese instruments have gone through over the times. Although you tend not to see it so much, because it's -- a lot of it's been worn away. So what we see here is a picture on the left of a freshly-varnished instrument that has had a crackling process done to it, just fine little fissures and crackles into the varnish. And if you take a look at the picture on the right is actually a corner of the Stradivari Betts. And if you look closely, you'll -- we'll just see some fine little black lines, sort of through in here is what -- where dirt and patina [phonetic] would have gotten down into the original crackle before a lot of it has been worn away. >> So that's how the crackle was done, it's basically putting the solution that's applied. And what it does is it -- we hit up the varnish with soft [inaudible] and we apply that solution, and it kind of shrinks everything and creates a crackle. So that's how it's done. ^M00:38:53 [ Silence ] ^M00:38:57 And yes, it can bubble. [Laughter] ^M00:38:59 [ Silence ] ^M00:39:02 >> You can use a variety of protein solutions. In this case, we used a gum arabic and water. >> And the gum spreads really nice to get a very, very controlled thin layer. And if you do it with a brush, you could actually see the brush marks on your crackle, so -- >> And then it's wiped off afterwards. >> Yes, yes. Fascinating, huh? [Laughter] No, no; really, really fascinating. ^M00:39:26 [ Laughter ] ^M00:39:31 Oh, boy. ^M00:39:32 [ Laughter ] ^M00:39:37 It cannot get any worse, can it? Oh, boy. ^M00:39:40 [ Laughter ] ^M00:39:45 Chipping the varnish. ^M00:39:46 [ Silence ] ^M00:39:48 >> So the initial wearing of the varnish here after the crackling; so this was a lot of Cremonese instruments you see that's sort of fissuring and chipping of varnish as things get scratched and it gets released off of the ground. So one of the things we have to do is make sure that our varnish actually works in this fashion. So it does actually have to be chippy varnish. Using the right types of resins and oil concentrations allow the varnish to actually work in a similar fashion to some of the Cremonese varnish. >> And you're very lucky to have those violins at the Library of Congress, because you don't see that chipping on all the old violins. Sometimes they've been French polished, and worn, and used. That's -- those are really pristine and you see that it's actually rare to have it so good like that. And here's a little video of Jeff doing the chipping on the Oberlin Betts. The rocks he used actually help in releasing the varnish, creating little bumps and releasing. ^M00:40:49 [ Silence ] ^M00:40:54 We decided to turn the volume down because I am not good at jokes and I talk all the time on those videos. [Laughter] ^M00:41:02 [ Silence ] ^M00:41:06 And that's how it's done. ^M00:41:07 [ Silence ] ^M00:41:09 He makes it look easy. >> And what is that [inaudible]? >> It's tape. So the rock kind of just initiates the release of the varnish and then the tape will then pull it off. ^M00:41:20 [ Silence ] ^M00:41:26 It's a long process that goes over pretty much the whole instrument. ^M00:41:28 [ Silence ] ^M00:41:34 >> Shading. >> So then through the next form of varnish wear is shading, and it kind of refers to the smoothing and braiding of the whole varnish surface itself. And we do this in a couple of ways. One way is with alcohol; so alcohol rags gently to remove the varnish, hopefully in sort of these thin layers. It creates this nice gradient of varnish. >> Yes. If you look at old instruments, you know, they didn't have the cases we had back then. And, you know the chipping maybe happened where they were being banged during travels or maybe, I don't know, with the [inaudible] doing stuff on the violin or as a kid, you know. Or the shading may be more of the actual player rubbing against the violin. ^M00:42:28 [ Silence ] ^M00:42:30 So I'll call shedding. And again, that's Jeff. >> Yes. You can also do this sort of abrasion, sort of sandpaper and so forth, but find that it tends to make just too smooth of a glasslike finish, whereas taking it off with alcohol like this gives a much more realistic look. >> And again, he's making it look very easy. It's actually one of the very difficult parts. You could wipe off everything, if you're not careful. It's very good to have a varnish that reacts well to alcohol. I know I don't react to with alcohol. [Laughter] ^M00:43:11 [ Silence ] ^M00:43:14 >> And so once varnish has been worn down, then we start putting on patina, years and years of dirt. ^M00:43:20 [ Silence ] ^M00:43:23 >> Yes. You -- >> So yes, we start off with basically pigments in kind of an oil wash. >> [Inaudible]? Should I go back? >> So that's a picture there of the Stradivari Betts. And this sort of gray hue that you see in the wood and intermixed in here in the chips and so forth is patina that's been rubbed down. ^M00:43:43 [ Silence ] ^M00:43:49 And along with that patina, we also do painting and touch-up. So you can see on the left Stradivari Betts F-hole, and then sort of a work in progress in the middle there painting on some patina and sort of the general effect there on the right. ^M00:44:06 [ Silence ] ^M00:44:10 >> Some French polish to finish; Freedom polish. >> Freedom; yes. [Laughter] >> Oh, you know, I'm in Texas. I've heard that one a lot. ^M00:44:23 [ Laughter ] ^M00:44:25 [ Silence ] ^M00:44:29 French Polish is kind of frowned upon now on old violins because it's simply adding something that wasn't there before. It's there, and we're making a copy and we're adding it to our violin. So I think it's okay. It's got a tendency to blend things together. And honestly, something is needed to protect the bare wood. So that's the Oberlin group of 2012, right? >> Yes. >> The finished copy and the real Betts. ^M00:45:02 [ Silence ] ^M00:45:04 Time to celebrate. [Laughter] Ah, those burgers again. And the end of our rollercoaster. [Laughter] That's after the alcohol and the burgers. ^M00:45:17 [ Laughter ] ^M00:45:19 [ Silence ] ^M00:45:21 The end. ^M00:45:23 [ Applause ] ^M00:45:30 >> Well, thank you. You'll never look at a violin the same again. [Laughter] So I know this is a moment you've all been thinking about, is what we started the event with. And let me first ask a question -- and you can raise your hand, how many people during the pieces where both violins were played, found that they -- both instruments were equally enjoyable? ^M00:45:54 [ Background Comments ] ^M00:45:58 Okay. And then we'll go to the scales. How many people heard differences in the scales? ^M00:46:02 [ Inaudible Comment ] ^M00:46:04 So that's a very interesting thing to say there. Together, they were extremely enjoyable instruments. The scales were different. Of course, scales are harder things to ask do we like or don't we like, because it's just the sweat that the musician puts in to be able to create the music. But I think the interesting thing about this whole process is, of course, it's so many steps and so many years. If we just talk about the scanning, I think Gary started doing it 12 or 13 years ago maybe? And when he started doing it -- and this is true of so many inventions and progress, he actually didn't know why he was really doing it. And now you know why he started doing it. So all of these complicated things come together and create two incredibly great-sounding instruments. So we can cut to the quick. In the first piece, Claudio was playing the copy. And this one is the copy. And then they switched. And in the scales, the copy was played first and then the Betts was played second. So, you know, this is all information you can digest and you can think about. I think one of the things I like to think about is how the audience has permission to like everything the way they want. And I say that because there's been a little bit of a framework that we think about. When I hand someone or talk to someone about a Stradivarius before they even play it, they already think it's amazing. And so here was an opportunity for you to truly hear them without any preconceived notions. The other person I wanted to thank is a fellow named Bill Sloane who was the donor to the Library of Congress of this -- the Betts. He's a member of the Oberlin Workshop and when this was finished, acquired the instrument and then donated it here, so we're very grateful to Bill Sloane for having done that because now we have the chance to really compare the two and see them together. And the Library has a great opportunity to actually use both of them. And the exciting thing coming up Saturday night is the chance to hear the debut of a new piece of music here at the Library on the new Betts Stradivari. So we hope you'll all come for that. So we have a few minutes to open the floor for questions. And I see one back there already. And I'll bring you the mic because -- >> Oh, we have one. >> Oh, we have one. Okay; maybe you can wait for the mic to come to you. ^M00:48:20 [ Silence ] ^M00:48:22 >> Hi. What wood was used for the copy, and how does it compare with the original? And secondly, is the heat and humidity of the workshop important, especially in the varnishing phase? >> So the first question maybe, Steve, did you check the densities of the different woods? So maybe Steve Sirr can answer the first question, and Antoine and Jeff can answer the second. >> With CT scanning, we can determine densities quite accurately. So what we're doing now is trying to find matching wood that has the same type of grain pattern and as close to the original densities as we could get as possible. ^M00:49:02 [ Silence ] ^M00:49:08 >> And as far as varnish and humidity, I think it has bigger effect on wood than varnish. I have no problem with it; Salt Lake's so dry, you know. [Laughs] >> Plus it's pretty humid. >> Yes. >> So the varnish -- and oil varnish doesn't dry with -- well, there is a little bit of evaporation, but basically you're going to help me with a word that's complicated for a French man, "polymerization"? Am I saying it right? >> Good enough. >> Good enough? So all you need really is UV lights, and a UV box will do even in humid climate. ^M00:49:44 [ Silence ] ^M00:49:48 >> Any other questions? >> Yes; let me just stand up real quick [inaudible]. One of the things that we found out, which really ran counter to some of the instincts we have as violinmakers, generally, we -- in instruments we like to see a top -- the wood on the top being of relatively low density, but high strength. And the back can be in higher density. Also, we want it to be strong. One thing that we could only find through the scan of the Betts was that the top was actually very, very dense in the original Betts Stradivari. I think it was about point four -- four point four five, that region. Most violinmakers today if we had a piece of wood that was of that density, we wouldn't use it. And so just having the technology at our disposal, enabling us to know exactly what the original materials were like, helped us a lot in that. >> And another interesting thing about that is through the study of dendrochronology, we've actually found out that Stradivari, and Guarneri, and many of other great makers used wood that was between four, five and six years old. So that kind of dispels that thought that it has to be some ancient timbers from some Swiss chalet. [Laughter] The wood selection's important, but it's still here today. Erin. >> Yes. Thanks. What do the parts look like when they come off the CNC machine? And what I saw was like of the arching and the outline, but does it also do the under -- the inside? >> Yes. >> Yes, okay. >> We can also carve the insides out, you know, as well on the CNC machine. But I think for the Oberlin Betts, we had actually carved the outsides, cut the purfling channel. It looked pretty close; it needed scraper work to be scraped down to the final finish. I believe the insides we carved out -- >> By hand? >> Yes; you know, each piece of wood's going to have a little different stiffness to it. So, you know, you can kind of dial it in -- >> Right. >> That way by hand, so. >> Can I add a little to some of that? >> Yes. >> I just want to add to that that because we have the CT scans of the original instrument, we can measure the thicknesses of the wood, too. So when we're making the copy, we know what those are. And we can choose to copy them if we wanted to or not. ^M00:52:00 [ Silence ] ^M00:52:02 >> And one thing I would like to say, too, is that even though my part of the project is very high-tech, there's quite a bit of art in what I do. And it takes probably five to six years of just looking at normal variations and normal things to realize what the art of radiology really is. So this is not just some machine-made project. There's a lot of art involved, obviously, at every stage of this. ^M00:52:35 [ Silence ] ^M00:52:38 >> So I thought we'd take a second and get another perspective. We're so grateful that Claudia was willing to play for us. And, you know, when it all comes down to it, it's the relationship between the instrument and the musician. So Claudia, perhaps you can give us a few thoughts about what you thought of when you played? >> Okay. Well, we -- Chris and I arrived here about a half an hour before you did to play these instruments for the first time ever. And so that was interesting. I think the thing I was stuck by first for sure was really more the similarities between the instruments than the differences because, you know, any two instruments can be quite different in terms of how you approach at it, how you play it, and what it sounds like under your ear. Now, I didn't know -- I don't know as much as you do about what it sounds like at the back of the room, but there is a real similarity in character of the sound that was very striking to me. I would say there was something about the Strad, I have to just say it -- that is like it has sort of an extra tubular bow kind of gear or something like that. [Laughs] But both instruments are really beautiful and very enjoyable to play. ^M00:53:49 [ Silence ] ^M00:53:51 >> I don't want to use that word "turbo" with the Chrysler. ^M00:53:53 [ Laughter ] ^M00:53:57 Any other questions? Yes. ^M00:53:59 [ Silence ] ^M00:54:01 >> One of the things that is of interest to me is, you know, in trying to recreate the sound of a 300-year-old instrument is this thought of an instrument that's been played, and the sound that has been projected out of the instrument for -- if it's been played continuously for 300 years. How do you try to recreate that aspect? And to me that's, you know, the vibration from the sound and the playing on it. So has there been any thought about that? >> Well, let me also start by saying that those of us who build instruments find that when the instruments are finished, they actually sound quite stunning, quite amazing. So there is this thought that they have to be played a lot and yes, there is certain changes that happen with instruments as they're played. But we wouldn't be violinmakers if they didn't sound really great because nobody would want them. So it isn't that we have to wait until we're all dead before anyone wants to have these violins; [laughter] very important thing. Also there was an interesting -- and there's been many, many comparisons over the years of new -- brand new instruments and two, and three, and four hundred years old instruments. And many, many times, and most recently in New York City at an event called "Mondomusica", the new instruments actually were preferred too. So there is an interesting thought about what happens to wood, both as it's vibrated and maybe more importantly as the wood changes, because in a tree, it's growing, it's alive, the cell structure's full of moisture and there's sugars that later will crystallize and the thing does dry. So it's a very different piece of material when it's old. So we'll never argue with that and maybe that's that final subtle difference that Claudia was referring to. We'll see. But I think to leave you with the idea that a great instrument sounds great whether you vibrate it or not. Well, you have to vibrate it to hear it. Isaac Stern used to always say when they thought his violin sounded so good, he would put it up to his ear and go, "I don't hear anything." ^M00:55:52 [ Laughter ] ^M00:55:55 Any other questions? Yes. ^M00:55:56 [ Silence ] ^M00:55:58 >> Have you, or do you have plans to do any spectral analysis of the sound from the instrument or of the vibrational modes of the instrument itself, you know, not played with the strings but just from an acoustic point of view? ^M00:56:15 [ Silence ] ^M00:56:17 >> Yes; that was one component that we left out this evening is that both instruments, the original Betts as well as the copy went through a series of acoustical tests at Oberlin. And we'll go ahead and continue. The results have not been let out to the public. Yes; but we did analyze both instruments and we found more things in common than different between the two instruments. Yes, that's it. >> John, did you [inaudible]? >> No, I [inaudible]. >> Yes; it's being done. ^M00:56:46 [ Silence ] ^M00:56:49 Maybe one more question? ^M00:56:51 [ Silence ] ^M00:56:54 >> So I'm just curious, of the various violins that are in the Library of Congress or other ones you have access to, the comparison between these two, and between this Strad and other Strads, how -- I mean, what's the magnitude of differences; because you said that, you know, there's obviously a range of normal. Is there a range of, you know, Strad? Well, there's certainly a range of Strad. And are the differences here within the range of the Strads from the acoustical analysis and any other analyses that you've done? >> Well, the acoustical analysis that are graphing the sounds are certainly showing differences on all the Strads and even on all the other -- I mean, instrument -- sound is so complex now that you can -- but I think you want to always get back to that question of what do we the listeners like to hear? And what do players like to play? And if you do talk to many players, they'll talk about Strads that sound great and some that they're not so happy with; some that are easy to play and some that are hard to play. So that's going to be always there. The question is you can analyze it and you can look at it and see differences, but then how does that relate to what you like, I think is a big question there. >> But so are these two closer to each other than this Strad is to -- >> To another Strad? >> To another Strad; yes. >> To be continued. >> Okay. ^M00:58:23 [ Laughter ] ^M00:58:25 >> Okay; well thank you all very much for coming this evening. Thank you all. ^M00:58:28 [ Applause ] ^M00:58:36 [ Silence ] ^M00:58:38 >> This has been a presentation of The Library of Congress. Visit us at loc.gov ^E00:58:44