Customer: “When you play my violin, it just sounds so much better.” Olaf: “Oh. Yea. That makes sense.” That was the biggest most unexpectedly savage burn
I've seen quite the opposite one time, my brother who was a young violin student could make sound his violin better than his teacher. The violin was an affordable price one : around 400 euros i would say. It appears that playing and playing again this little one made my brother make the most of it. The violin sounded more expensive than it really was. Make you think about the relationship between you and your instrument.
@@elfinan That's actually quite an interesting topic. I'm a beginner, and I've had a cheap violin (or vso). Around 300 pounds - it was decent for what it was. My teacher made ok sound on it, my friend who is more experienced - also managed to play nicely. For me - it was a scratchy plank that made ears bleed. I've upgraded, to master luthier violin. And now - magic happened, I suddenly can play in tune and enjoy the sound I make.
The fact that Ray stayed so calm when his string snapped just... blows me away. Such a pro. The one time I had a string snap, I ended up with shaky bow for the rest of my lesson and I was afraid to practice for two days! LOL Of course, I was about ten at the time and had only been playing 3 years or so.
Also the fact that he carried strings in his pocket during a concert and can just casually flip them out in the middle of a phrase is god-tier pro. I started carrying strings in my pockets to all of my gigs after seeing that video and it has saved me and my ensemble mates so many times. I carry cheap Chinese strings that are like like $1 a pack for string breaks during a gig so whoever breaks a string has something to play the rest of the gig on and I don't have to give away my super expensive strings. The intention was that they would change the Chinese string to a better string after the concert but I think there's a lot of people in my ensemble playing on .25 strings 😬
@@verfuncht Lol I did but we were all broke college students then so I don't think they wanted to drop a ton of money on strings. I'm picky about having my favorite strings that are like $90 a pack but I don't think other people were.
I guess he became used to broken strings over the years. I remember playing Mahler Symphony 4 in our state youth orchestra, where I had to tune up my violin for some solistic parts. I broke so many e strings practicing this piece...
OMG SAME The first time I touched a violin since quitting in third grade, I was tuning when the g string-yes, you heard me right-snapped. Within three days, the a string did too. It turned out that the strings were bad, as the violin was a rental. About a week later, the bow hair fell out from the tip...
I confess, I’ve been this guy...I was embarrassed to admit that I could not really play. Hearing a skilled player use my instrument helped me stay with it...30 years later and I can play!
Yay! If you tune into TwoSet and its community, you'll be inspired to keep going. Brett is constantly telling me (and the nearly 4M subscribers) to 'Go practice'.
I know the feeling. I have a new violin and it's just not sitting right with me sound wise. Some times I think it's bang on and others I feel it sounds damp. I'm tempted to go to my local luthier and get him to play a bit for me and give the violin a check over.
Guitar players are the same. I've wanted to have someone play my guitars so I could could hear it used to it's fullest extent and see how good it could sound. It sounds great when I play but I've only been playing 3.5 years. Not the same as someone who's played 20.
"So you can actually have an effect on the sound of the instrument by how you play the instrument." Brett and Eddy: *making screeching sounds on their violins regularly just for our entertainment*
Yes, as a luthier I can tell you that it's actually going to "imprint" a bad sound into their violins if they keep doing that. There are bad Strads because rich people (who couldn't actually play well) bought them and just messed around on them. Those Strads didn't grow tonally, as in, those particular violins didn't receive the correct bow pressure, intonation, vibrato, dynamics..... so soloists who acquired those violins decades/centuries later had to work really hard to get them to perform well in a concert setting. Brett and Eddy both have great new violins now, both made by Widenhouse, and I hope they continue to play them well since those violins will just get better and better over the years. Theoretically speaking: in 100 or 200 years time when we're all gone, those particular Widenhouse violins (and other well-made modern violins) will be very desirable and worth quite a bit!
I was wondering that too and their many antics such as 'two bois, one violin' when there was minor damage due to the bow catching the violin. Do they use their old violins for such? They'd have to surely...
Ohh nooo yeahh!! Thats sad they don't even realise what they are doing!! Olaf please help them!!....wait..nobody tell them I want more screeching content...
Reminds me of when Brett played Benny’s violin and it sounded completely different to when Benny played it...(in their $1 vs $10,000,000 dollar violin video)
This is actually true. When I was having violin lesson, my teacher sometimes played my violin to demonstrate a piece. When I went back home, I found the violin suddenly was able to project the sound a lot better.
Violins are a bit like a fountainpen in that they transmit the virtues of the player/writer. Whomever plays or writes with them makes a big difference to their sound/writing. You can ruin or perfect them by your own ability or lack thereof.
Love the story! I recently decided to sell my viola I had owned for the last 60 years. None of my children were interested in it and it is much easier for me to play the violin due to back pain, and my viola was being neglected. I decided to let it go so it could be played and appreciated. A violin instructor sent a student to look at it and she turned up her nose at it. It really didn't sound so good when she played it. I think she was tone deaf. A man who was out of state wanted it so I shipped it to him just like it was and he put new strings on it and sent me a video of him playing it. It turns out he had played professionally in the past and decided he wanted to play again while being quarantined. It sounds absolutely fantastic...just gorgeous. I'm so glad he ended up with it.
Hey Olaf, could you please make a video on proper rosining processes, because a lot of people are confused about the best way to rosin, long slow heavy strokes, short fast strokes, how to gauge the proper amount, and how to get it off if you have too much, also different types of rosins and how they suit different players, styles and what their virtues and drawbacks are, that would be very appreciated. Also could you make a video on humidity and best practices to store and maintain really old and valuable instruments. Thanks 😊
How to play violin: 1: Rosin your bow 2: Rosin your bow again for good measure 3: Rosin your bow again, but this time, like it owes you money 4: Seriously, wreck that thing with rosin 5: Ling Ling
Diego Serrato we all know how to rosin a bow we are talking about the nitty gritty, the speed and the most minute things on how to rosin a bow that only an experienced violin maker would know about rosining a bow so we can get our absolute best sound out of our violins.
But that´s actually true... Not only concerning your playing, but the instrument itself... When I got mine, it hadn´t been played for 2-3 years and the sound was really "closed" at first
As a guitar hobbyist I must agree on this fact. Many years ago I went to a luthier's trade show and learned about how aging of wood effects the tone. One way this can be done is by playing the instrument over many years or decades. Other experience I had when I was starting to write songs, a skilled musician played my Washburn Les Paul ('89) and shocked me what sounds came out of her- classic rock and blues riffs... I was like "What?!? How ?!? Is that MY Guitar?" He was impressed with it, handed it back to me and walked away....I just stared at it and thought, " Why don't you do that for me?". Lesson learned: Its how you play it and the skills you have..Practice Practice Practice. I really love your Dad stories...its wonderful you have them and the wig is classic.
I noticed last week when I changed an acoustic guitar I normally tune in dadgad back to standard (EADGBE) that the guitar sounded awful with all sorts of terrible overtones until I played it for about 30 minutes and then it found it's way back to beautiful free tone. So strange how these wooden acoustic instruments actually grow accustomed to how they're used and then when the change occurs it takes an adjustment period.
Guitars Are Best, did you use a tuner? 12 tone equal temp doesn’t allow an guitar to be 100% in tune, instead all 12 intervals split equally fall a few cents off; also strings can attack sharper and flatten into a more consistent pitch. Either of those factors could have been introducing different harmonics than you were hearing previously. A really good example of how out of tune a guitar is, RHCP scar tissue. Flat B string.
@@ReeWebster ..to be more specific, in that song the B string is tuned to just intonation to give a perfect major 3rd, instead of equal temp's slightly off major 3rd.
@@ReeWebster I did use a tuner and do understand the problems with 12 tone equal temp, but I'm pretty sure that doesn't apply in this case because I was playing simple open major chords that don't tend to sound discordant on this guitar normally and of course there was the resolution of the problem after playing it for 30 minutes or so. DADGAD is kind of a drastic change from standard tuning, but I left out a little bit of information. I actually had it in DADGAD a half step up (d# a# d# g# a# d#) so the tension isn't so drastically lowered from standard that the strings get "loosey-goosey". Also, I was tuned in a432 (which meant I still went a quarter step lower from a440). In retrospect I still think the changing of tension (although less than it would have been if I had dropped the full step down to dadgad) on the top and neck to standard tuning was what gave the guitar its adjustment period more than anything else.
Very interesting that it's finally got around to 2020. We learned this in New York in the 70's. My Viola teacher would play a viola for six months and sell it for much more because he actually improved the sound.. It was amazing. He never let his students play one note without warmth, love and reaching the bottom of the tone of each note.. Many professional violinists and violists still scratch over the surface and never reach the depth of their own instrument.. I guess one could say most people don't know who they really are but stay on the surface their whole life....
My violin teacher used to pick up my instrument, pluck a string and know how much practice I'd done. So next time I hadn't practiced, I leant the violin against a hifi speaker and left it with Itzak Pearlman blasting Paganini through it for an hour - it worked! On a serious note - you can get an electric guitar and hammer the body with a rubber mallet and it will sound better afterwards. A similar thing happens if it is exposed to a Marshall stack regularly. Wood is wood! :o)
Fascinating. My tutor teaches remotely which is a pity for many reasons but he knows I've put in my 40hrs a day just cos I can now play pieces I'd struggled with the previous week!
Plot twist : olafinawig is olaf from another dimension where humanity has managed to warp time and space with technology .. Why do they play violins there ? Well that's a very good question , because it's a magical instrument across all dimensions :P
I used to coach young kids at a middle school in the violin. This was something I use to show them often- they'd tell me that they couldn't sound good because of the instrument, so I'd take their violin and perform on it in front of the class to show them that while an instrument can have a quality, a large part of that can be done away with sheer practice. No one was ever allowed to say it was the instrument 🤣
I actually asked a luthier to play my instrument, it was to know whether the instrument was bad or I just sucked at violin, so when the video started I thought that that was what was happening lol
I'm not a violin player or a physicist, but I could imagine something like this: in order to make a sound a violin has to vibrate. Additionally both the strings and the bridge are slightly movable. Moveable objects try to reach and settle in a position that contains the least amount of stored energy when they are vibrated. I could imagine that on a small scale (sub-millimeter) both settle into a new configuration when you change the pressure the bow exerts on the strings, which would affect the tuning of the instrument very slightly, but enough for a trained ear to notice. I'm not sure whether the sound post could be affected as well. If anyone ever tries to find out - I would definitely read that paper!
I can imagine there are some psychoacoustic effects at work. A violin must sound different to someone standing a few feet in front of the player compared to how it sounds to the player. The player is getting the vibrations directly though their body and the sound holes are pointing somewhat away from them. The listener in front of them will probably have the sound holes facing more toward them. So that would explain why someone else playing your violin (or guitar) might make it sound different. Then you get your instrument back and now your expectation of the sound of the violin has changed. It sounded better so it now sounds better. Having the confidence that your instrument is good is very positive for your playing and learning.
@@JoanKSX From a biology/physics perspective (this is just off the top of my head-I haven't researched this particular topic at all), I think this is probably the correct explanation. Dried wood consists of a network of mostly-closed cells of various shapes and sizes. This variation gives the violin and other wood instruments their complex waveform and gives each violin a unique sound. However, the network of cells also consists of some loose material, strips or chunks of cellulose and other natural materials (not to mention varnish, dirt, chunks of salt from wood processing, etc.) that may be rattling around inside the cells or between them. The way you play affects the vibrational frequencies and amplitudes that any given part of this network experiences, and the loose material will find resting places that represent the lowest energy state for that style of playing. I can envision this tending to create the purest tones. Clearly, some violins would have more of this loose debris inside of them due to age, wood type, temperature, humidity, how they've been treated, etc. so if this hypothesis is correct, I'd expect this "learning" effect to be more pronounced in some violins than in others.
I don't want to make my violin tighter and tighter! Thank you so much for making me aware of this! Don't be afraid: I won't come to your shop tomorrow. There are no planes.
Sometimes, I like to have other people play my violin so I can hear what my violin sounds like from an audience perspective. Even if the player is not as good, you really get to enjoy the sound of your violin as it resonates throughout the whole room as oppose to next to your ears when you play it yourself.
I am only a measly guitarist but we’ve also long said that “tone is in the fingers.” 2 identical guitars, identical pedals and settings, amps, etc but the moment you have 2 different musicians playing them it differs. Fascinating
Thanks for including the clip after mentioning that one of your clients plays metal on the violin. For the life of me, I couldn't imagine what that would sound like.
I used to play the violin as a teenager, and preferred to play baroque. I had a pretty nice instrument. Some years later after I'd gone to university for a non music major my sister needed a violin of her own for her music major so I gave her my old one. She said it took her a year to get it to sound nicely for her and now if I ever play it it sounds like a completely different instrument.
There is another way of getting a solists instrument: become a really good luthier or befriended with one :P Also there is another reason to give a violin to somebody else. I love hearing it! I got a wonderful violin by Rittwagen which suprises most players and I am happy to give it out to other (good) players for a couple of minutes and enjoy its sound. I actually sold my Gagliano after getting it. Because the Gagliano, as beautiful of an instrumet as it is, always was very picky and I too had the feeling that its performance would be worse the day after being played forcefully. It seemed to be a different instrument every day, something the Rittwagen never does.
Great explanation. It's totally true, my wife opens the sound of every violin she gets, even the not so good ones. It's unbelievable how it works. Also one of my teachers use to feel the same about bows. The stick may perform differently after someone else play with your bow. Interesting
Love the story. Kinda reminds me of knowing when someone else drove my car. Even though everything was basically 'restored' to my adjustments...something just "felt" off.
While I have your attention, I am looking at investing in a 5 string viola. Glasser makes an affordable carbon composite one that would help me stay away from switching violin/viola. Do you have any experience with these?
I saw Sarah Change break a string during the big finish of the Shastakovich and the speed at which she changed violins with the concert master was insane. Still one of my favorite performances of all time. She is my second favorite violinist (living) after Itzhak Perlman. Third, after Stern and Perlman.
I had a clarinet repadded and adjusted. Went home to play and it sounded like crap. I spent a couple weeks with it, trying to figure out how to get it to sound good before I took it back and asked the tech to play and check it. What I found out is that it wasn't the clarinet, it was me. I sound like crap.
Did he use your reed? That wouldn't affect your skill but maybe you just had a bad reed and it made it worse. Also that's how I feel when my teacher plays my flute, I'm like my pads are leaky, the tone on this instrument sucks, whatever and then I'm like nevermind I'm garbage ;-;
@@fryloc359 A very good clarinet player can make a bad clarinet sound good. He can adjust the the tone in a milli second, My instructor was called in court as an expert, the clarinet buyers attorney asked him if he could make the clarinet sound good, he hated to do it, but he had to say, "Yes" Vic O
Thanks, Olaf. I enjoyed this very much. Also works for guitar. I thought you were going to say he could only hear it properly when someone else played. I play guitar and cornet and regularly play both up against a wall just to get the sound in my head. I'm also an amateur maker and repairer, and always play new (or repaired) instruments against the wall. Since the COVID 19 outbreak, I have, like many others been washing my hands with greater care. That also makes an incredible difference, not just to dexterity, but to tone (on the guitar, not the cornet, obviously). No amount of moisturiser approximates to natural skin oils. Finally, neglecting a guitar definitely affects the tone, so I rotate mine (you mustn't just play your faves). I have a Tonerite, which does work to a degree, but it's not the same.
Yes! This is the exact same thing for brass instruments when you buy them new! You have break them in and get the brass to resonate and vibrate and make the instrument respond quicker and give you the sound you want and basically make the instrument play to your needs. Well explained Olaf! Cheers from Mexico :D
The old man comes in and asks someone else to play it because he had a stroke and can no longer play his own instrument. Playing it made his week, to hear those tones again.
This is SO TRUE!!!! Once I had mute on my bridge for like one whole week....when I removed the mute, for a whole another week the violin sounded like the mute is still on it!!!!! I WAS SHOCKED!!!!
Oh wow, I was gone to NeObliviscaris concert in Italy... And Tim Charles is one of your Client. The world collide here, I love their music, only masterpiece from them and the violin is always solid af.
nice video Olaf! i was training for a while to make instruments and i realized this phenomen early on... and i like to implement it and even when i had a very shitty violin and practiced for a while in a really good time, it started to open up an sound far beyond its value and usual sound... nice video! enjoying your humor! :)
@@AskOlaftheViolinmaker What I learned from my dad was: (1) never join the military son; and (2) when you meet a girl, look at her mother. If you like the mother that's a good sign, because that's who you'll be married to in 30 years' time! Great advice really!
My teacher borrowed my antique violin and play for a minute with intense bowing Then when I went back home with my violin I notice a big change with the sound. It sound bigger than before.
Years ago there was a Canadian show called the Tommy Hunter show. On that show was a Classical Violinist named Al Churny. During most of the show he played a lot of Country Fiddle music. But once every show he would play a classical piece. He always used a second violin for the Classical part.
After 2 years of lessons my teacher told me that my violin sounds way better now, but it was a new one so that seems logic to me Obviously you are the pro here and i just played 2 violins in my life, but after i saw some videos, professors and professional musicians cant even tell a difference between a strad and a new master instrument sometimes, i feel like there are also many myths in violin world. In my thinking the chin pressure, bow pressure and maybe even the weight of the player make more difference than how you played it before. But thats just my 2 cents, without any luthier experience )
This was a very helpful video on many levels. When I was young, I was told a violin is like a fine wine. It gets better with age But, only if you play it. I have an old instrument that I had repaired and now it sounds dimmed. I am not sure why. You give me hope that I can open up the sound once again or, at least , that I have not ruined it permanently by trying to repair it.
Have you now, though, one year on? TwoSet inspired me to take up this instrument a few months ago and I'm loving it. It's HUGELY challenging but hugely satisfying.
Love the way you tell stories! I'm not a violinist, but the way you tell your stories are both fun and informative.
Thank you, I had fun making the video...
i'm going to subscribe
@@ChiefHerzensCoach Such a slick operation that you wouldn't discern anything was up if you weren't watching!
I thought he was going to say “I can’t tune”
Stray Kids so did I! 😂
Stray Kids I almost got fooled and thought you were actually stray kids lol
Hahaha now that's clever!
hello fellow stay!
HAHAHA ME TOOO😂😭
The moment you realize Olaf has a UA-cam channel
Edit: And it's the most wholesome thing ever
Me too!
Same xD
I got recommend and really didn't know Olaf has a UA-cam channel
yep
it played right after Ray's video on viola jokes lol. I was pleasantly surprised
I feel horrible that I was surprised Olaf could play 😅
All good... I think it is necessary for a violin maker to be able to play... I got nothing compared to Brett and Eddy though
Ask Olaf the Violinmaker Not playing 40 hours a day, no? 😂
@@CF_NeverForget nope, creating them 40h a day :3
somer summer Lin Ling approves.
@@LemonEyesNL If you can make violins slowly you can make them quickly.
Audrey, bring the kids in. Olaf's out in his wig again.
HAHAHA... I nearly fell of my chair... I often wonder what the neighbours think
@@AskOlaftheViolinmaker What is wig-man's name? As your mascot he needs one!
Customer: “When you play my violin, it just sounds so much better.”
Olaf: “Oh. Yea. That makes sense.”
That was the biggest most unexpectedly savage burn
I asked myself how does that make sense? Didn't even consider it was a burn. Lol
I thought it actually made sense. My guitar teacher used to make my guitar sound much better than I could.
i dont understand. how did it make sense if he has not heard the man play?
can someone explain pls?
HELP THESE POOR PEOPLE ^ SOMEBODY PLEASE.
Guys, it means that Olaf is agreeing that the guy played like shit 😂
I guess it's the first thing every violinst learn - "this doesn't sound the same, as when my teacher played".
Student Carla Ortega Major Flashback!
I've seen quite the opposite one time, my brother who was a young violin student could make sound his violin better than his teacher. The violin was an affordable price one : around 400 euros i would say. It appears that playing and playing again this little one made my brother make the most of it. The violin sounded more expensive than it really was. Make you think about the relationship between you and your instrument.
@@elfinan That's actually quite an interesting topic.
I'm a beginner, and I've had a cheap violin (or vso). Around 300 pounds - it was decent for what it was. My teacher made ok sound on it, my friend who is more experienced - also managed to play nicely.
For me - it was a scratchy plank that made ears bleed.
I've upgraded, to master luthier violin.
And now - magic happened, I suddenly can play in tune and enjoy the sound I make.
Violiszt*
Im calling it olaf is just a soloist in disguise that retired long ago and the man that showed up with the purple hair was him way back in the days.
That's no man it's a vomit haired degenerate
@@protestssopeacefulweneedad2017 Now now that is quite the vocabulary
George Floyd overdosed and that’s why he died
@@cecilyerker Yo what the hell dude, no it's not.
The fact that Ray stayed so calm when his string snapped just... blows me away. Such a pro. The one time I had a string snap, I ended up with shaky bow for the rest of my lesson and I was afraid to practice for two days! LOL Of course, I was about ten at the time and had only been playing 3 years or so.
Also the fact that he carried strings in his pocket during a concert and can just casually flip them out in the middle of a phrase is god-tier pro. I started carrying strings in my pockets to all of my gigs after seeing that video and it has saved me and my ensemble mates so many times. I carry cheap Chinese strings that are like like $1 a pack for string breaks during a gig so whoever breaks a string has something to play the rest of the gig on and I don't have to give away my super expensive strings. The intention was that they would change the Chinese string to a better string after the concert but I think there's a lot of people in my ensemble playing on .25 strings 😬
Pauline Arriaga Wait did you not tell them?
@@verfuncht Lol I did but we were all broke college students then so I don't think they wanted to drop a ton of money on strings. I'm picky about having my favorite strings that are like $90 a pack but I don't think other people were.
I guess he became used to broken strings over the years. I remember playing Mahler Symphony 4 in our state youth orchestra, where I had to tune up my violin for some solistic parts. I broke so many e strings practicing this piece...
OMG SAME
The first time I touched a violin since quitting in third grade, I was tuning when the g string-yes, you heard me right-snapped. Within three days, the a string did too. It turned out that the strings were bad, as the violin was a rental. About a week later, the bow hair fell out from the tip...
The first 3 minutes feels like a Philip Glass masterpiece 😂
Yes, it sure does 😂
Yes, I thought it was going that way
A Philip Glassterpiece
Lol
Secret behind it: The man couldn't actually tune the violin so he told Olaf to play because he always tunes the violin before playing
I thought the same! HAHA
we know olaf is a pro because he's only got one finetuner
I confess, I’ve been this guy...I was embarrassed to admit that I could not really play. Hearing a skilled player use my instrument helped me stay with it...30 years later and I can play!
Yay! If you tune into TwoSet and its community, you'll be inspired to keep going. Brett is constantly telling me (and the nearly 4M subscribers) to 'Go practice'.
I know the feeling. I have a new violin and it's just not sitting right with me sound wise. Some times I think it's bang on and others I feel it sounds damp. I'm tempted to go to my local luthier and get him to play a bit for me and give the violin a check over.
Guitar players are the same. I've wanted to have someone play my guitars so I could could hear it used to it's fullest extent and see how good it could sound. It sounds great when I play but I've only been playing 3.5 years. Not the same as someone who's played 20.
"So you can actually have an effect on the sound of the instrument by how you play the instrument."
Brett and Eddy: *making screeching sounds on their violins regularly just for our entertainment*
Cursed hahaha
Yes, as a luthier I can tell you that it's actually going to "imprint" a bad sound into their violins if they keep doing that. There are bad Strads because rich people (who couldn't actually play well) bought them and just messed around on them. Those Strads didn't grow tonally, as in, those particular violins didn't receive the correct bow pressure, intonation, vibrato, dynamics..... so soloists who acquired those violins decades/centuries later had to work really hard to get them to perform well in a concert setting.
Brett and Eddy both have great new violins now, both made by Widenhouse, and I hope they continue to play them well since those violins will just get better and better over the years. Theoretically speaking: in 100 or 200 years time when we're all gone, those particular Widenhouse violins (and other well-made modern violins) will be very desirable and worth quite a bit!
I was wondering that too and their many antics such as 'two bois, one violin' when there was minor damage due to the bow catching the violin. Do they use their old violins for such? They'd have to surely...
Ohh nooo yeahh!! Thats sad they don't even realise what they are doing!! Olaf please help them!!....wait..nobody tell them I want more screeching content...
Reminds me of when Brett played Benny’s violin and it sounded completely different to when Benny played it...(in their $1 vs $10,000,000 dollar violin video)
oof
When Benny made Eddy's violin sound good Eddy looked like a proud parent like "my baby sounds good!"
@@Roma-kp4qg haha ye
I saw a local orchestra that had a violinist who had a loaner Stradivarius. Suddenly there was 30 fiddles and a violin.
@@catherinehermansen4376 haha lmao
The suspense was killing me
Same!
This is actually true. When I was having violin lesson, my teacher sometimes played my violin to demonstrate a piece. When I went back home, I found the violin suddenly was able to project the sound a lot better.
Violins are a bit like a fountainpen in that they transmit the virtues of the player/writer. Whomever plays or writes with them makes a big difference to their sound/writing. You can ruin or perfect them by your own ability or lack thereof.
Maybe all the solo violinist are afraid that they’ll put 27 kilos of weight on it.
Haha... there already are 27kg ... (They just don't think about it)
@@AskOlaftheViolinmakersound posts
Love the story! I recently decided to sell my viola I had owned for the last 60 years. None of my children were interested in it and it is much easier for me to play the violin due to back pain, and my viola was being neglected. I decided to let it go so it could be played and appreciated. A violin instructor sent a student to look at it and she turned up her nose at it. It really didn't sound so good when she played it. I think she was tone deaf. A man who was out of state wanted it so I shipped it to him just like it was and he put new strings on it and sent me a video of him playing it. It turns out he had played professionally in the past and decided he wanted to play again while being quarantined. It sounds absolutely fantastic...just gorgeous. I'm so glad he ended up with it.
What a wonderful story 🙂
Ah, happy ending for all incl your viola...
WOW I didn't know that Olaf could play the violin!!
He's a violin maker... So... I think he has to play it sometimes...
Olaf said in another video that he's been playing the violin since he was 8 years old :)
You thought Olaf was like Cardi B with her lambos that she cant drive
@@emilia1911 my luthier can't play cello... so just because they can build them doesn't guarantee they can play them.
@Arseño Alvarez sounds like you're saying you've never had sex 🤣
Olaf is such a great person
Hey Olaf, could you please make a video on proper rosining processes, because a lot of people are confused about the best way to rosin, long slow heavy strokes, short fast strokes, how to gauge the proper amount, and how to get it off if you have too much, also different types of rosins and how they suit different players, styles and what their virtues and drawbacks are, that would be very appreciated. Also could you make a video on humidity and best practices to store and maintain really old and valuable instruments. Thanks 😊
2 Planks and 2 Wheels yes that would be great
Yes
Yes that would be very helpful
How to play violin:
1: Rosin your bow
2: Rosin your bow again for good measure
3: Rosin your bow again, but this time, like it owes you money
4: Seriously, wreck that thing with rosin
5: Ling Ling
Diego Serrato we all know how to rosin a bow we are talking about the nitty gritty, the speed and the most minute things on how to rosin a bow that only an experienced violin maker would know about rosining a bow so we can get our absolute best sound out of our violins.
I'm sure my instrument would sound better, if I spent more time practicing...
Definitely... Go practice 😀...
40hrs a day
@@Opus9ine 8 days a week
But that´s actually true... Not only concerning your playing, but the instrument itself... When I got mine, it hadn´t been played for 2-3 years and the sound was really "closed" at first
Is THAT what I've been doing wrong? 😉😉
He didn't realize that he had to marinate the violin for 40 hours first
Ray is such a pro. Mass respect every time I see that clip.
i can empathize, i often fantasize about a violinist playing my violin so i can hear it produce beautiful music, just for once..
As a guitar hobbyist I must agree on this fact. Many years ago I went to a luthier's trade show and learned about how aging of wood effects the tone. One way this can be done is by playing the instrument over many years or decades. Other experience I had when I was starting to write songs, a skilled musician played my Washburn Les Paul ('89) and shocked me what sounds came out of her- classic rock and blues riffs... I was like "What?!? How ?!? Is that MY Guitar?" He was impressed with it, handed it back to me and walked away....I just stared at it and thought, " Why don't you do that for me?". Lesson learned: Its how you play it and the skills you have..Practice Practice Practice. I really love your Dad stories...its wonderful you have them and the wig is classic.
I noticed last week when I changed an acoustic guitar I normally tune in dadgad back to standard (EADGBE) that the guitar sounded awful with all sorts of terrible overtones until I played it for about 30 minutes and then it found it's way back to beautiful free tone. So strange how these wooden acoustic instruments actually grow accustomed to how they're used and then when the change occurs it takes an adjustment period.
....
Guitars Are Best, did you use a tuner? 12 tone equal temp doesn’t allow an guitar to be 100% in tune, instead all 12 intervals split equally fall a few cents off; also strings can attack sharper and flatten into a more consistent pitch. Either of those factors could have been introducing different harmonics than you were hearing previously. A really good example of how out of tune a guitar is, RHCP scar tissue. Flat B string.
@@ReeWebster ..to be more specific, in that song the B string is tuned to just intonation to give a perfect major 3rd, instead of equal temp's slightly off major 3rd.
@@ReeWebster I did use a tuner and do understand the problems with 12 tone equal temp, but I'm pretty sure that doesn't apply in this case because I was playing simple open major chords that don't tend to sound discordant on this guitar normally and of course there was the resolution of the problem after playing it for 30 minutes or so. DADGAD is kind of a drastic change from standard tuning, but I left out a little bit of information. I actually had it in DADGAD a half step up (d# a# d# g# a# d#) so the tension isn't so drastically lowered from standard that the strings get "loosey-goosey". Also, I was tuned in a432 (which meant I still went a quarter step lower from a440). In retrospect I still think the changing of tension (although less than it would have been if I had dropped the full step down to dadgad) on the top and neck to standard tuning was what gave the guitar its adjustment period more than anything else.
Instruments are alive.
Aw, I love storytime with Olaf!
It's a good thing you were wearing that Yoda shirt. I feel like I learned a valuable lesson from a wise violin-jedi master.
I love your content. Both funny and informative. So glad twoset introduced me to your videos.
Very interesting that it's finally got around to 2020. We learned this in New York in the 70's. My Viola teacher would play a viola for six months and sell it for much more because he actually improved the sound.. It was amazing. He never let his students play one note without warmth, love and reaching the bottom of the tone of each note.. Many professional violinists and violists still scratch over the surface and never reach the depth of their own instrument.. I guess one could say most people don't know who they really are but stay on the surface their whole life....
petition for olaf to do more playing
Petition for Olaf to do more practice 😀
@@AskOlaftheViolinmaker Lol
My violin teacher used to pick up my instrument, pluck a string and know how much practice I'd done. So next time I hadn't practiced, I leant the violin against a hifi speaker and left it with Itzak Pearlman blasting Paganini through it for an hour - it worked!
On a serious note - you can get an electric guitar and hammer the body with a rubber mallet and it will sound better afterwards. A similar thing happens if it is exposed to a Marshall stack regularly. Wood is wood! :o)
Fascinating. My tutor teaches remotely which is a pity for many reasons but he knows I've put in my 40hrs a day just cos I can now play pieces I'd struggled with the previous week!
Plot twist : olafinawig is olaf from another dimension where humanity has managed to warp time and space with technology ..
Why do they play violins there ? Well that's a very good question , because it's a magical instrument across all dimensions :P
I used to coach young kids at a middle school in the violin. This was something I use to show them often- they'd tell me that they couldn't sound good because of the instrument, so I'd take their violin and perform on it in front of the class to show them that while an instrument can have a quality, a large part of that can be done away with sheer practice. No one was ever allowed to say it was the instrument 🤣
I actually asked a luthier to play my instrument, it was to know whether the instrument was bad or I just sucked at violin, so when the video started I thought that that was what was happening lol
this didnt have to be a 10 min video but for some reason the story and the beginning had me hooked
I wonder if there's a scientific explanation somewhere on this phenomenon. Olaf did a great job, anyway.
I'm not a violin player or a physicist, but I could imagine something like this: in order to make a sound a violin has to vibrate. Additionally both the strings and the bridge are slightly movable. Moveable objects try to reach and settle in a position that contains the least amount of stored energy when they are vibrated. I could imagine that on a small scale (sub-millimeter) both settle into a new configuration when you change the pressure the bow exerts on the strings, which would affect the tuning of the instrument very slightly, but enough for a trained ear to notice. I'm not sure whether the sound post could be affected as well.
If anyone ever tries to find out - I would definitely read that paper!
Konrad the Wizzard that's a very clever idea , I do think that's mostly the case .. although I would like to know more from a physicist
I can imagine there are some psychoacoustic effects at work. A violin must sound different to someone standing a few feet in front of the player compared to how it sounds to the player. The player is getting the vibrations directly though their body and the sound holes are pointing somewhat away from them. The listener in front of them will probably have the sound holes facing more toward them. So that would explain why someone else playing your violin (or guitar) might make it sound different. Then you get your instrument back and now your expectation of the sound of the violin has changed. It sounded better so it now sounds better. Having the confidence that your instrument is good is very positive for your playing and learning.
I think it's the sound board of the violin, the wood cells.
@@JoanKSX From a biology/physics perspective (this is just off the top of my head-I haven't researched this particular topic at all), I think this is probably the correct explanation. Dried wood consists of a network of mostly-closed cells of various shapes and sizes. This variation gives the violin and other wood instruments their complex waveform and gives each violin a unique sound. However, the network of cells also consists of some loose material, strips or chunks of cellulose and other natural materials (not to mention varnish, dirt, chunks of salt from wood processing, etc.) that may be rattling around inside the cells or between them. The way you play affects the vibrational frequencies and amplitudes that any given part of this network experiences, and the loose material will find resting places that represent the lowest energy state for that style of playing. I can envision this tending to create the purest tones. Clearly, some violins would have more of this loose debris inside of them due to age, wood type, temperature, humidity, how they've been treated, etc. so if this hypothesis is correct, I'd expect this "learning" effect to be more pronounced in some violins than in others.
Just me or is he playing like 3 different violins during that sketch?
No... Just the one 🎻
After closer inspection it is just the light but they really looked different
Lol I had captions on and when you were tuning it said “cheerful violin music” lol
Haha... I like to play cheerful music 😀
Berg Violin Concerto
I don't want to make my violin tighter and tighter!
Thank you so much for making me aware of this!
Don't be afraid: I won't come to your shop tomorrow. There are no planes.
😀
Sometimes, I like to have other people play my violin so I can hear what my violin sounds like from an audience perspective. Even if the player is not as good, you really get to enjoy the sound of your violin as it resonates throughout the whole room as oppose to next to your ears when you play it yourself.
Now I just feel extra honoured that my teacher (who's also an orchestra's concertmaster) lent me his violin a few times.
im sitll kinda upset twoset never gave olaf's channel a shout out. he's so informational and entertaining!
They did, even multiple times! They have made some videos together and there is a link to his channel in more than one of their descriptions.
dude, they told viewers to check olaf's channel a million times
i cant play the violin nor any instrument but here i am....
Same
Ive been feeeling that for years, good to hear someone else say it out loud. Btw,
love the way you teach, keep up the good work! Music sets us free.
Wow! Your actual *instrument* frees up! Interesting.
Our instruments have souls...
I found your channel through Two Set violins. I never ever, in my wildest dreams, would have thought Tim Charles was a client of yours =0
This is so sweet I want to cry and I’ve also been up all night studying so this just breaks me down😭😭
So original, couldn't stop watching...
I am only a measly guitarist but we’ve also long said that “tone is in the fingers.” 2 identical guitars, identical pedals and settings, amps, etc but the moment you have 2 different musicians playing them it differs. Fascinating
Thanks for including the clip after mentioning that one of your clients plays metal on the violin. For the life of me, I couldn't imagine what that would sound like.
What a wholesome man
I used to play the violin as a teenager, and preferred to play baroque. I had a pretty nice instrument. Some years later after I'd gone to university for a non music major my sister needed a violin of her own for her music major so I gave her my old one. She said it took her a year to get it to sound nicely for her and now if I ever play it it sounds like a completely different instrument.
There is another way of getting a solists instrument: become a really good luthier or befriended with one :P
Also there is another reason to give a violin to somebody else. I love hearing it! I got a wonderful violin by Rittwagen which suprises most players and I am happy to give it out to other (good) players for a couple of minutes and enjoy its sound. I actually sold my Gagliano after getting it. Because the Gagliano, as beautiful of an instrumet as it is, always was very picky and I too had the feeling that its performance would be worse the day after being played forcefully. It seemed to be a different instrument every day, something the Rittwagen never does.
I'm so happy that this channel got recommended to me
I thought he was doing the visits for inspiration to keep playing. Nothing inspires me more than a live performance.
If you turn your captions on, it says "(cheerful violin music)" when he is tuning.
Very interesting content. Thank you, Olaf.
Great explanation. It's totally true, my wife opens the sound of every violin she gets, even the not so good ones. It's unbelievable how it works. Also one of my teachers use to feel the same about bows. The stick may perform differently after someone else play with your bow. Interesting
Love the story.
Kinda reminds me of knowing when someone else drove my car. Even though everything was basically 'restored' to my adjustments...something just "felt" off.
Olaf: *tuning violin*
captions: *[cheerful violin music]*
Omg when you said metal band I immediately thought of Ne Obliviscaris...and it was them. You're my hero
While I have your attention, I am looking at investing in a 5 string viola. Glasser makes an affordable carbon composite one that would help me stay away from switching violin/viola. Do you have any experience with these?
I love your mini skits, and how you get in the character :D
I saw Sarah Change break a string during the big finish of the Shastakovich and the speed at which she changed violins with the concert master was insane. Still one of my favorite performances of all time. She is my second favorite violinist (living) after Itzhak Perlman. Third, after Stern and Perlman.
I had a clarinet repadded and adjusted. Went home to play and it sounded like crap. I spent a couple weeks with it, trying to figure out how to get it to sound good before I took it back and asked the tech to play and check it. What I found out is that it wasn't the clarinet, it was me. I sound like crap.
Did he use your reed? That wouldn't affect your skill but maybe you just had a bad reed and it made it worse. Also that's how I feel when my teacher plays my flute, I'm like my pads are leaky, the tone on this instrument sucks, whatever and then I'm like nevermind I'm garbage ;-;
@@sarahkraus8247 No he used his own reed and mouthpiece.
@@fryloc359 A very good clarinet player can make a bad clarinet sound good. He can adjust the the tone in a milli second, My instructor was called in court as an expert, the clarinet buyers attorney asked him if he could make the clarinet sound good, he hated to do it, but he had to say, "Yes" Vic O
Thanks, Olaf. I enjoyed this very much. Also works for guitar. I thought you were going to say he could only hear it properly when someone else played. I play guitar and cornet and regularly play both up against a wall just to get the sound in my head. I'm also an amateur maker and repairer, and always play new (or repaired) instruments against the wall. Since the COVID 19 outbreak, I have, like many others been washing my hands with greater care. That also makes an incredible difference, not just to dexterity, but to tone (on the guitar, not the cornet, obviously). No amount of moisturiser approximates to natural skin oils. Finally, neglecting a guitar definitely affects the tone, so I rotate mine (you mustn't just play your faves). I have a Tonerite, which does work to a degree, but it's not the same.
Yes! This is the exact same thing for brass instruments when you buy them new! You have break them in and get the brass to resonate and vibrate and make the instrument respond quicker and give you the sound you want and basically make the instrument play to your needs. Well explained Olaf! Cheers from Mexico :D
haha,ballet pointe shoes has the same story,we will break our shoes to make it softer,also it will be more curved,which suits the arch of our leg .❤
The old man comes in and asks someone else to play it because he had a stroke and can no longer play his own instrument. Playing it made his week, to hear those tones again.
This is SO TRUE!!!! Once I had mute on my bridge for like one whole week....when I removed the mute, for a whole another week the violin sounded like the mute is still on it!!!!! I WAS SHOCKED!!!!
Wow... I can imagine.
Oh wow, I was gone to NeObliviscaris concert in Italy... And Tim Charles is one of your Client. The world collide here, I love their music, only masterpiece from them and the violin is always solid af.
0:36 IM DYING THAT IT SAYS "(cheerful violin music)" WHEN OLAF IS STILL TUNINGGGGGG
Yes, my caption writer is just a happy person who get's cheered up by tuning 😂
nice video Olaf! i was training for a while to make instruments and i realized this phenomen early on... and i like to implement it and even when i had a very shitty violin and practiced for a while in a really good time, it started to open up an sound far beyond its value and usual sound... nice video! enjoying your humor! :)
This is my first time seeing Olaf play the violin, very awesome. ^_^
Thanks Olaf. Your father sounds like a great guy.
He really is... I've learned so much from him... especially about acoustics.
@@AskOlaftheViolinmaker What I learned from my dad was: (1) never join the military son; and (2) when you meet a girl, look at her mother. If you like the mother that's a good sign, because that's who you'll be married to in 30 years' time! Great advice really!
5:19
OMG IS THAT TIM CHARLES OF NE OBLIVISCARIS? I LOVE THAT BAND!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thanks! I came here looking for the name of that band. The sound is amazing
Auto-generated captions: [Applause]
Богуслав Павлишинець
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So Olaf has a UA-cam channel. Oooooo this is great
Another great video, Olaf! Keep up the great work!
Thank you 🙂... I had a lot of fun making it. Not too many weird stared from passers by 😀
Ask Olaf the Violinmaker I was wondering if people saw you in that wig, haha
I don’t even play an instrument yet find these super entertaining 👏
I can understand that story. I've just started learning about the violin. Your channel is a lot of fun.
My teacher borrowed my antique violin and play for a minute with intense bowing
Then when I went back home with my violin I notice a big change with the sound. It sound bigger than before.
One more thought: there is a book called "weird things customers say in a book shop". You would be the perfect person to write one about violin shops.
Love the idea! Thank you 🙂
I never thought about instruments changing their sound just because of the way you play it. O,o
Is it just me want to hear Olaf actually play a piece?
that wig 😭😭 it’s somehow funny and adorable at the same time vdbxbzbdn
This is the content we all need in 2020 to keep us happy and calm! 🖤🖤 so informative with hints of funny! 🖤🖤
Oh..my GOD that Yoda shirt is so majestic
Wow I love your stories those are so useful !!! Also I was finding a source to explore about Violin and this is the perfect space for it ❤️🎻💐
Years ago there was a Canadian show called the Tommy Hunter show. On that show was a Classical Violinist named Al Churny. During most of the show he played a lot of Country Fiddle music. But once every show he would play a classical piece. He always used a second violin for the Classical part.
Oh my gosh! Thank you so very much, now I am more aware how NOT to get my violin instructor mad anymore!
I like your videos and I don't know the first thing about violins but what I do know is I like their sound.
Thank you.
After 2 years of lessons my teacher told me that my violin sounds way better now, but it was a new one so that seems logic to me
Obviously you are the pro here and i just played 2 violins in my life, but after i saw some videos, professors and professional musicians cant even tell a difference between a strad and a new master instrument sometimes, i feel like there are also many myths in violin world.
In my thinking the chin pressure, bow pressure and maybe even the weight of the player make more difference than how you played it before.
But thats just my 2 cents, without any luthier experience )
This was a very helpful video on many levels. When I was young, I was told a violin is like a fine wine. It gets better with age But, only if you play it. I have an old instrument that I had repaired and now it sounds dimmed. I am not sure why. You give me hope that I can open up the sound once again or, at least , that I have not ruined it permanently by trying to repair it.
Very funny and informative! Bravo Olaf!!
Olaf please keep on making videos you are doing great
That manual zoom at 6:16 is the most wholesome thing 🥺
I've never touched a violin in my life, unfortunately, but between TwoSet and Olaf I'm learning so much, even as a violin philistine haha
Have you now, though, one year on? TwoSet inspired me to take up this instrument a few months ago and I'm loving it. It's HUGELY challenging but hugely satisfying.
Olaf is getting close to 10k subs!