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3 unusual facts about Joseph Curtin


Joseph Curtin

Neuroscientist Daniel Levitin and author of "This is your brain on music" was presented with recordings of an actual Stradivarius and a recording of a processed violin, and guessed incorrectly as to which was the classic violin.

Earl Carlyss, a member of the Juilliard String Quartet, was critical of the study saying "It’s a totally inappropriate way of finding out the quality of these instruments", and that what makes the older violins better is how they sound to an audience in a concert hall, not if the violinist likes it, in a hotel room.

Player preferences among new and old violins

In 2010, Claudia Fritz, a researcher from the Pierre and Marie Curie University in Paris, and the violinmaker Joseph Curtin organized a double-blind study, which was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, in which 21 professional violinists tried to identify which violins were old (including 2 Stradivarius and a Guarneri 'del Gesu'), which were new, and which they preferred.



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