Global Warming Causes Crappy Sounding Violins

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They found no significant differences between the median densities of the modern and the antique violins but did discover far less variation between wood grains of early and late growth in the old ones.

Since differentials in wood density affect vibration and therefore sound quality, the discovery may well explain the superiority of the Cremonese violins, they reported in the online journal PLoS ONE on Wednesday.

So why is the maple and spruce wood in a Stradivarius so different?

Part of the reason may be that trees grow slightly differently today than in the past.

“Climate difference could explain part of it but treatment of the wood could be another explanation. A third answer could simply be the ageing of the wood over the past 300 years,” Dr Berend Stoel of the Leiden University Medical Center told Reuters.