How soundboard wood species affects tone

shawarma_bees · 2024-05-27T12:12:58+00:00

Spruce is by far the most common choice for soundboard wood, with desirable structural and acoustic properties that make it well-suited for the piano. Sitka...

Seeker

Vuong Thanks. I guess it's just how I'm wired. I prune old trees, remove them when necessary; I plant new ones. My wife and I compost using a Lomi for household scraps; we take larger compostable items to a communal drop off; we garden organically as much as possible in our vegetable as well as our flower gardens; we have an RO filter for our drinking water. Anyhow, thought I'd let folks know who might be in a climate zone where Red Spruce will grow about the NH offer.

Vuong

Seeker
The meeting of the minds. I too have a garden and make about a one cubic meter of compost every year to help my melon and tomato plants and others. Good luck with your red spruce endeavor.

sweelinck

It is not just old growth that matters, but also slow growth due to elevation and/or latitude.

I think Alaska and Siberia still have significant stands of tonewood-quality timber.

Vuong

sweelinck
Sitka spruce comes from Alaska. Since Alaska is the largest state in the US, there is fortunately still quite a few of the old growth of those spruce. What is interesting is the Val Di Fiemme in Italy is not very large. However It is has been well managed for centuries, even before the time of Stradivari until the present time. It is at a relatively northern latitude and is also at a fairly high elevation so the trees can grow slowly, yielding excellent wood to build for the sound board.

sweelinck

The producers using wood from there generally are small producers, so it still can support them. While wood from the same valley as where Stradivari sourced wood makes a nice marketing story, I think the likes of Fazioli and Boesendorfer would make pianos just as good with Alaskan Sitka Spruce, or other spruce tonewoods.

Even Stradivari violins may have been a bit overhyped through the centuries:

https://www.science.org/content/article/million-dollar-strads-fall-modern-violins-blind-sound-check

Vuong

sweelinck
Stradivari violins are certainly well made violins. At the same time there were also Guarneri violins which were also well built. These people happened to live in Italy and the nearest area for them to source there wood was the Val Di Fiemme. At that time it was quite hard for any of these luthiers to travel far to look for wood. If for some reason they happen to live in Alaska, then surely they would have used Sitka spruce.. Both types of spruce need the skill of the luthier to be incorporated in the building of the instrument for it to be a good violin. The marketing hype of the 20th and 21th centuries is only one example of modern capitalism to fill the pockets of some people.

CrisOliveira

This discussion reminds me of a SciShow episode I watched. Stradivari had the good fortune of having available to him wood from trees that had grown in an especially cold weather, which slowed their growth. Still, guy was a great luthier anyway and his name got so iconic, that part of the experience of hearing a Strad is status. In double blind tests, players and audience couldn't consistently tell a Strad apart from other really good violins.

In the end, the video provides no definitive answer to the riddle, but presents some cool scientific findings.

Regarding synthetic materials, I hope they sound great enough so they can help lower piano prices, but the idea of more stuff made out of plastic composites worries me.

Vuong

CrisOliveira
Even today, Cremona is still the center of violin building. After Stradivari and Giuseppe Guarneri, there are still excellent luthiers honing their art in Cremona today. Later there were also other excellent luthiers in other parts of the world who used other spruce to build violins as good as Stradivari. In the 17th Century, The Val di Fiemme is the nearest location where Stradivari and Guarneri could source the wood. Of course there was also Bavarian spruce, but it was far away from Cremona. At that time there was no airplane to fly in Sitka spruce to Cremona.
Fortunately the Val di Fiemme still has old growths of red spruce thanks to careful management and the firm Ciresa in Tesoro can still obtain red spruce wood between 150 to 200 yo in order to supply luthiers and piano makers.

raagamuffin

I do wonder how much research is done today on wood species and new soundboards. For example, there are slow growth trees in tropical forests, would these also work?
As acoustic pianos wane in popularity, the craftsmen are also probably leaving the trade, so such research may not happen as much.

Gombessa

raagamuffin There are a few makers who have experimented with synthetic soundboards, including carbon fiber. And the results seem to be quite positive (if they're good enough for Steingraeber, that's probably good enough for a lot of others).

Even if high quality spruce becomes too rare/expensive to use, it sounds like there will be alternatives.

raagamuffin

Gombessa
Interesting.. I hope it works out well, though I hope it can be biodegradable/recyclable, which I assume, a good portion of a wood based piano is. Additionally ,I wonder if more synthetics will address the sound variability with temperature and humidity changes.

trecorda

The two great violin makers you mentioned reminds me of the movie The Red Violin. I have never thought much about the wood used in some German pianos. I never had any idea the wood of my piano soundboard was 150 to 200 years old. I almost feel sad about the tree, but thanks for letting me know Vuong, it is all very interesting. That document you posted was fascinating. So interesting that these really great violin makers used that wood from the forest of Cremona!
By the way “The Red Violin “ is a really wonderful movie. Anyone interested in these great violins should see it!

Vuong

trecorda
The violin makers are located in Cremona. They use the spruce wood from forest of the Val di Fiemme.

Vuong

trecorda
There is no forest in Cremona.

trecorda

trecorda For some reason my post does not have my name? It looks like it’s been deleated. I am talking about my reply to Vuong on 15 th of June

trecorda

Not in the town of Cremona! 🙂 That’s where the violin makers work. Cremona is however also a province. It sounds like the forest is in Northern Italy. I believe the forest was badly damaged by storms a few years ago.

https://craftsmanship.net/italys-endangered-violin-forest/

trecorda

Perhaps next year we will visit there? We hope to go to Europe in 2026. The last time we visited Italy was in the 80’s but that was in Livorno, Florence and Rome.

Vuong

trecorda
Then you will have the opportunity to visit Trent (Trento), which is not very far from Tesoro where the firm Ciresa is located. Trento is a beautiful city which has a lot of musical events of classical music concerts. It was also there that the Council of Trent was hold from 1545 to 1563 to try to counter the Protestant reformation. It was started by Pope Paul III.

trecorda

Trento sounds interesting, especially the concerts and recitals. So that’s the place where the Nicene creed was written. I am not Catholic just a boring Anglican but yes we say the creed. ( I do not attend services enough but always hope to improve. 😌) I think the Anglican ( Church of England) and Lutheran church kept the creed. I always wondered who decided what to say in that part of the liturgy. I always thought that the creed was created earlier. Anyway I am going madly O/T here. That forest and those trees sound great!

Vuong

trecorda
From Trento it is short drive to Tesoro where the firm Ceresa is located. You will have an interesting visit guided by Mrs Ciresa herself, going through the different steps from the 150 year old tree to the selection of the wood for the sound board.

trecorda

Apparently Steinway pianos are claiming there is no more quality Sitka spruce for their pianos.

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