# Preliminary results from a survey of musicians and luthiers regarding beliefs about playing-in

Andrew Piacsek, Claudia Fritz

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Andrew Piacsek, Claudia Fritz. Preliminary results from a survey of musicians and luthiers regarding beliefs about playing-in. International Symposium on Music and Room Acoustics, May 2025, New Orleans (LO), United States. pp.035011, 10.1121/2.0002149. hal-05350759

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SEPTEMBER 22 2025

# Preliminary results from a survey of musicians and luthiers regarding beliefs about playing-in

Andrew Piacsek; Claudia Fritz

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Proc. Mtgs. Acoust. 58, 035011 (2025)

https://doi.org/10.1121/2.0002149

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Advance your science and career as a member of the
**Acoustical Society of America**
**International Symposium on**
**Musical and Room Acoustics**

24-28 May 2025

Loyola University
New Orleans, Louisiana

**Musical Acoustics**

**Preliminary results from a survey of musicians and luthiers regarding beliefs about playing-in**

**Andrew Piacsek**

Department of Physics, Central Washington University, Ellensburg, WA, 98926-7422, USA;
andy.piacsek@cwu.edu

**Claudia Fritz**

Institut Jean Le Rond D'alembert, Sorbonne Universite Campus Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris, Ile de France,
75005, FRANCE; claudia.fritz@sorbonne-universite.fr

The phenomenon of "playing-in," whereby the tonal characteristics of a stringed instrument are improved by it being played, is anecdotally reported by many musicians, with sufficient acceptance to support commercial products designed to accelerate or enhance the process. To guide us in the design of laboratory experiments and perceptual tests for investigating the efficacy of playing-in, we developed a survey of specific views held by performers and luthiers about this phenomenon. Questions were carefully worded to provide a clear and consistent definition of terms, for example, distinguishing between "playing-in" and "seasoning". As a baseline for sensitivity to both tonal changes and playability, respondents were asked to compare the effects of playing-in with the effects of humidity changes. The survey also asked about changes in tone and playability associated with phenomena related to playing-in, such as aging, warming up, or letting an instrument go dormant for a long time. Preliminary results indicate that the phenomenon of playing-in is widely accepted, although there is less support for the efficacy of mechanical devices. There is also a diversity of opinion about which attributes are affected the most by playing-in. Implications for future experiments will be discussed.

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ISMRA 2025
NEW ORLEANS
*Playing the Room*
# 1. INTRODUCTION

## A. BACKGROUND

The term "playing-in" refers to the notion that the tonal characteristics of an individual stringed musical instrument can be improved by the act of playing the instrument. Anecdotal accounts differ in the details, but the belief that an instrument needs to be played in order to sound better and be more responsive appears to be widespread among performers and builders of violins, guitars, and related instruments. While playing-in is usually associated with new instruments, there is a similar belief that mature instruments (especially high quality ones) require some amount of playing to maintain their desirable sound.

Luthier and researcher Carleen Hutchins summarized the phenomenon: "String players are well acquainted with the need for playing-in a new instrument to obtain increased ease of playing as well as overall smoothness of response."¹ Other qualities of an instrument that are thought to be improved by playing-in include *volume*, *tone*, *response*, *resonance*, *balance*, and *range*. Among musicians and luthiers, belief in the efficacy of playing-in is not universal, but it is sufficiently widespread to provide a market for commercial products, such as the Tone-Rite and Dr. Herringbone's Tone Traveler, that purport to accelerate the playing-in process by continuous mechanical stimulation of the instrument.

Despite widespread acceptance, to varying degrees, of playing-in, there have not been many rigorous experiments designed to test or quantify the phenomenon. Hutchins and Bissinger separately reported observable shifts in some signature modes of violins that were subject to continual mechanical vibration for several weeks.³,⁴ Both of those studies were simple before vs. after comparisons that did not unambiguously demonstrate the causal effect of playing-in. More recent experiments that measured changes to violin response over time due to sustained mechanical vibration, in comparison to a control violin, did not show any changes that exceeded experimental uncertainty.⁵ Experiments involving listening tests have yielded inconclusive results.⁶,⁷

There are multiple challenges confronting those who take a scientific approach to studying the playing-in phenomenon. One impediment is the lack of precise and universally accepted descriptions of the effect and the inconsistent use of terminology related to playing-in. The terms "breaking-in" and "seasoning" are commonly used in place of "playing-in," although the latter can also refer to the process of seasoning or aging wood prior to the fabrication of the instrument. Also, it is not clear how playing-in a new instrument might be distinct from "warming up," which is associated with the first several minutes of playing any instrument on a given day. Another challenge for researchers is that performers experience multiple processes associated with playing a new instrument whose effects may be confounded with playing-in, such as making minor adjustments to the bridge or sound post and becoming more familiar with how the instrument plays. There may also be seasonal variations in environmental conditions, such as temperature and humidity, that affect the instrument's sound. Finally, and perhaps most difficult to account for experimentally, is the psychological component of confirmation bias among musicians who expect playing-in to produce desirable changes.

## B. RESEARCH OBJECTIVES

To better understand both the extent and pervasiveness of beliefs about playing-in, as well as the nuances, similarities and differences in how people describe and attribute the phenomenon, we developed a comprehensive survey that is being distributed among the communities of performers and luthiers of violin and guitar family instruments. The results of the survey will be used to guide future experiments that test specific hypotheses about playing-in.

The goal of the present survey is to address some of these challenges by compiling and characterising the wide spectrum of views and practices regarding playing-in.

# 2. SURVEY DESIGN

## A. DESIGN GOALS

We designed the survey to accomplish the following specific objectives:
* Determine how the rate of acceptance of playing-in varies among subgroups of respondents, especially performers vs luthiers and violin family vs guitar family instruments. Other subgroup categories include professional vs amateur and years of experience.

* Determine the rate of acceptance of the playing-in corollary: that a mature violin will lose desirable tonal characteristics if it is unplayed for a length of time.

* Distinguish the effects of playing-in on audible characteristics (tone) vs tactile feedback (playability).

* Distinguish beliefs about playing-in from beliefs about related phenomena, including seasoning, aging, and warming up.

* Determine the rate of acceptance of "artificial" means of playing-in, including commercial products designed for this purpose.

* Assess how the effects of playing-in compare with the effects of humidity.

## B. SURVEY STRUCTURE AND QUESTION DESCRIPTIONS

The survey is divided into two sections. The first section is completed by everyone; the second section is completed only by those who indicate that they have direct experience with playing-in.

The first section has two question blocks that we can refer to as the Demographic Block, which contains three questions about the respondent's background, and the Belief Block, which contains 14 questions about their general beliefs regarding playing-in and related phenomena. The first background question establishes their primary mode of interaction with musical instruments; choices include luthier, professional performer, amateur performer, and educator. The second question asks about the amount of experience in their primary mode. The third question asks them to identify their primary instrument; a drop-down menu includes common stringed instruments, but there is an option to specify something else.

The Belief Block of playing-in questions are formulated as statements to which respondents select their level of agreement within a standard 5-point Likert scale: "strongly agree," "somehow what agree," "neither agree nor disagree," "somewhat disagree," and "strongly disagree." Each statement is prefaced with the following definitions of terms to ensure a consistent interpretation among respondents:

* **Seasoning or aging** refers to dehydration or other physical changes in wood that accumulate with time, depending on environmental conditions.

* **Playing in** refers to prolonged and consistent playing of a stringed instrument, especially one that is new or has been dormant (not played for a long time), and its effect on the body of the instrument. Playing in does **not** include the effects of wear and aging on strings, which are periodically replaced.

* **Warming up** refers to the initial period of playing a stringed instrument (within a single practice or performance session).

Each statement in the Belief Block has two versions: one version refers to the effect on the "sound or tone" of an instrument; the other version is worded identically, except that the phrase "sound or tone" is replaced by the word "playability". In all cases, respondents are instructed to apply these statements to their primary instrument identified in the preliminary question block. The first four statements (eight, including both versions) address beliefs about each of the three defined terms, plus the corollary to playing-in:

1. The sound or tone of a brand new stringed instrument will improve with playing in.

2. The sound or tone of a brand new stringed instrument will improve with seasoning, regardless of the amount that it is played.

3. The sound or tone of a used stringed instrument will be noticeably different after a prolonged period (months or years) of not being played.

4. Warming up will improve the sound or tone of a stringed instrument that has been left alone for at least a day.

The next three statements in this question block ask about the effect on "sound or tone" due to changes in humidity. Previous experiments have shown that changes in moisture content in violins produce a consistent shift in the frequencies of most signature modes [cite Piacsek], so we include these statements in the survey to assist in our ability to calibrate the perception of subtle, but measurable, changes:
5. The sound or tone of a stringed instrument that is kept in a humid environment changes noticeably when it is brought into a dry environment.

6. The sound or tone of a stringed instrument that is kept in a dry environment changes noticeably when it is brought into a humid environment.

7. The effect of playing in on the sound or tone of a stringed instrument is more significant than the effect of humidity change.

These are followed by another statement relating to playing in that requires the respondent to evaluate the effect in a different way:

8. It is possible to determine whether a stringed instrument is brand new based solely on its sound and/or how it plays.

The final Likert scale statement refers specifically to techniques for accelerating the playing in process:

9. The desirable effects of playing in can be accomplished in a relatively short amount of time via "artificial" playing methods, such as electromechanical shakers or loudspeakers.

The final question in the Belief Block asks about the respondent's direct experience:

10. What is your own experience with playing in a stringed instrument? Check all that apply.

* I have observed changes in a new or dormant instrument that can be attributed to playing that I did myself.

* I have observed changes in my own new or dormant instrument that can be attributed to the use of a playing-in device.

* I have observed changes in someone else's instrument that can be attributed to their playing.

* I have observed changes in someone else's instrument that can be attributed to their use of a playing-in device.

* I have not personally observed changes in an instrument that can be attributed to playing in (directly or with a device), but I have heard others describe their experiences with playing in.

* I am familiar with the process of playing in, but have not heard about playing-in devices.

* I have no personal experience with playing in, nor have I heard or read about others discussing playing in.

If respondents select either (or both) of the first two statements, they are directed to the second survey section, otherwise they reach the end of the survey with an opportunity to leave open-ended feedback. The second section consists of a single question block, the Experience Block, that asks about their specific experiences with playing-in.

Questions in the Experience Block are varied in format. Some have lists of possible responses and others are open-ended. Although responses to open-ended questions are more difficult to analyze, they are needed in order to capture the wide variability in personal experiences and to capture the idiosyncratic ways of expressing these experiences. An example of an open-ended question is "Please fill in the blank: A brand new instrument needs to be played in so that ________."

Some questions have a list of responses to choose from, including "other", which also allow for open-ended response. A third type of question asks the respondent to use a 10-point slider to indicate the importance to the playing-in process of particular attributes of how an instrument is played, including total time of playing, intensity (loudness) of playing, style of music played, and quality of playing.

### C. DISSEMINATION

The survey is administered online using the Qualtrics survey platform. The link to the survey was distributed to multiple email lists that primarily targeted luthiers of violin family instruments. The survey is still open and we are exploring other venues for distribution that target the guitar/lute community and performers of all instruments.

## 3. PRELIMINARY RESULTS

### A. GENERAL BELIEFS ABOUT PLAYING-IN

As of April 15, 2025, 208 complete responses to the survey have been received. Of these 163 identified primarily as luthiers, 13 identified as professional performers, 32 identified as amateur performers, and 2
identified as educators. With regard to their primary instrument, 112 respondents selected the violin, 21 cello, 8 viola, 4 double bass, 4 viol da gamba, 37 guitar, 8 other lute family (some left this field blank).

Responses to Belief Block questions 1-4 are summarized in Table 1a (relating to "sound or tone") and Table 1b (relating to "playability"). The data in these tables are the number of responses corresponding to each level of agreement for each statement; the rightmost column is the weighted average in the 5-point Likert scale. Interpretation of these weighted averages is aided by dividing the scale into equal segments⁸ between 1.0 and 5.0, as shown in Table 1c.

<table><caption>Table 1a. Responses to four statements about effects on sound or tone.</caption><thead><tr><th>Statement topic</th><th>strongly agree (5)</th><th>somewhat agree (4)</th><th>number who neither agree nor disagree (3)</th><th>number who somewhat disagree (2)</th><th>number who strongly disagree (1)</th><th>average score (L<sub>av</sub>)</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>playing in</td><td>37%</td><td>33%</td><td>12%</td><td>10%</td><td>8%</td><td><strong>3.8</strong></td></tr><tr><td>seasoning</td><td>15%</td><td>30%</td><td>24.5%</td><td>16%</td><td>12.5%</td><td><strong>3.2</strong></td></tr><tr><td>not played</td><td>19%</td><td>33%</td><td>18%</td><td>17%</td><td>13%</td><td><strong>3.3</strong></td></tr><tr><td>warming up</td><td>12%</td><td>33%</td><td>20.5%</td><td>13%</td><td>21.5%</td><td><strong>3.0</strong></td></tr></tbody></table>

<table><caption>Table 1b. Responses to four statements about effects on playability.</caption><thead><tr><th>Statement topic</th><th>strongly agree</th><th>somewhat agree</th><th>neither agree nor disagree</th><th>somewhat disagree</th><th>strongly disagree</th><th>average score (L<sub>av</sub>)</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>playing in</td><td>20%</td><td>29%</td><td>12%</td><td>19%</td><td>20%</td><td><strong>3.1</strong></td></tr><tr><td>seasoning</td><td>7%</td><td>12%</td><td>28%</td><td>24%</td><td>29%</td><td><strong>2.5</strong></td></tr><tr><td>not played</td><td>12%</td><td>24%</td><td>26%</td><td>20%</td><td>18%</td><td><strong>2.9</strong></td></tr><tr><td>warming up</td><td>6.5%</td><td>20.5%</td><td>25%</td><td>19%</td><td>29%</td><td><strong>2.6</strong></td></tr></tbody></table>

<table><caption>Table 1c. Likert scale divisions.</caption><thead><tr><th>descriptor</th><th>strongly agree</th><th>somewhat agree</th><th>neither agree nor disagree</th><th>somewhat disagree</th><th>strongly disagree</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>value range</td><td>4.2 - 5.0</td><td>3.4 - 4.2</td><td>2.6 - 3.4</td><td>1.8 - 2.6</td><td>1.0 - 1.8</td></tr></tbody></table>

The average scores in both tables indicate that the respondents, as a group, did not 'strongly agree' or 'strongly disagree' with any of the statements related to playing in. However, the primary statement for this survey ("The sound or tone of a brand new stringed instrument will improve with playing in.") did elicit an average response of 'somewhat agree' (L<sub>av</sub> = 3.8). At least 70% of respondents agreed with this statement, most of them strongly, while only 18% disagreed. As a group, the respondents somewhat disagreed with two of the statements, both related to the playability of an instrument. For the other five statements, the average response was 'neither agree nor disagree'. A small majority (52%) agreed with the playing-in corollary: that an instrument's sound or tone will be affected if it is not played for some time.

Aside from the average scores, it is instructive to compare the distribution of responses to each statement. In Table 1a, regarding the statement about playing in, we see that the number of responses follows the level of agreement (i.e. the mode is also the maximum); with the statements about seasoning and not playing, the mode shifts to 'somewhat agree', while the statement about warming up has a bimodal response. It is somewhat surprising to see a significantly lower average response to the effect of seasoning (aging) relative to playing in, given that seasoning has a plausible mechanism associated with changes in wood moisture content that could affect tone. The bimodal response to warming up is interesting in that it suggests some groups experience or interpret the phenomenon of 'warming up' differently from others.

In Table 1b, the statement about playing in received the highest response score, L<sub>av</sub> = 3.1, but this is essentially in the middle of the scale. In general, the responses in this table suggest uncertainty, disagreement, or skepticism among respondents about the extent to which playability is affected by an instrument's age or by being played.
The responses to the final five Likert scale statements in the Belief Block (items 5-9 in section 2B) are presented in Table 2.

<table><caption>Table 2. Responses to statements about the effects of humidity on sound or tone.</caption><thead><tr><th>Statement topic</th><th>strongly agree (5)</th><th>somewhat agree (4)</th><th>neither agree nor disagree (3)</th><th>somewhat disagree (2)</th><th>strongly disagree (1)</th><th>average score (L<sub>av</sub>)</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>humid to dry</td><td>53%</td><td>33%</td><td>10%</td><td>4%</td><td>0</td><td><strong>4.3</strong></td></tr><tr><td>dry to humid</td><td>53%</td><td>33%</td><td>10%</td><td>4%</td><td>0</td><td><strong>4.3</strong></td></tr><tr><td>humidity vs playing in</td><td>12%</td><td>17%</td><td>28%</td><td>25%</td><td>18%</td><td><strong>2.8</strong></td></tr><tr><td>identify new violins</td><td>8%</td><td>14%</td><td>17%</td><td>25%</td><td>36%</td><td><strong>2.3</strong></td></tr><tr><td>mechanical playing in</td><td>6%</td><td>21%</td><td>36%</td><td>19%</td><td>19%</td><td><strong>2.8</strong></td></tr></tbody></table>

The respondents, on average, strongly agreed with both statements that changes in humidity have an impact on the sound or tone of an instrument, which was expected. The role of these two statements was to have respondents think about the effects of humidity, preparing them to judge the following statement: "The effect of playing in on the sound or tone of a stringed instrument is more significant than the effect of humidity change." The average response was within the range of 'neither agree nor disagree.' This is one of the key results of the survey, since it compares the perceived level of effects due to a poorly understood process (playing in) with the level of effects due to a reasonably well understood process (mass loading of wood components from absorbed water). That the average response was in the middle of the Likert scale suggests that the two effects may be comparable, as perceived by the average musician or luthier. We were somewhat surprised that the average response to this statement was not lower on the scale, since we expected the perceived effect of playing-in to be more subtle than that of humidity changes.

The next question also has respondents thinking about the magnitude of effects that can be attributed to playing-in; in this case, whether an instrument can be identified as very new (not yet played in) just from its sound. The average response to the statement that it is possible to make such an identification was 'somewhat disagree'. The goal of this question was to ascertain whether there may be audible characteristics shared by new instruments not masked by the variation among individual instruments. The result suggests that this is not the case.

The response to the final Likert scale statement, which claimed that the effects of playing in can be accelerated via mechanically simulated playing, was essentially 'neither agree nor disagree.' This is of interest because of both the commercial stake in the viability of playing-in and the convenience and controllability of mechanical playing for the purpose of conducting experiments. It is interesting, and somewhat surprising, that the average score for this statement is significantly lower than for the primary statement about playing-in. The discrepancy suggests that many believe that the mere act of putting vibrational energy into the corpus of an instrument is not sufficient to effect the desired changes in tone (or playability); specific characteristics of the vibrational energy, such as spectral content and time-dependent features, must also play a role.

The final question in the first section asked respondents to identify their own experience with playing-in, selecting all statements within a menu that applied to them (see item 10 in section 2B for details). Nearly 75% of respondents (125 of 168) indicated that they had observed changes in their own instrument that they attributed to their own playing. Within this group, 80 respondents also observed changes attributed to a mechanical device and 69 had separately witnessed the effects of playing-in on the instruments of others. An additional 20 respondents indicated that had only observed changes in someone else's instrument associated with playing-in. Only 37 respondents (22%) indicated that they had not observed the effects of playing-in, regardless of method, although they had heard others describe their experiences. No one reported observing the effects of playing-in due to mechanical devices only. The 125 respondents who directly observed playing-in effects were directed to section 2 of the survey. Some preliminary results for this part of the survey are described in the next section.
## B. PLAYING-IN PARAMETERS AND PREFERENCES

The first question in section 2 asks respondents to fill in the blank in the following sentence: "A brand new instrument needs to be played in so that __________". One way to portray the results of this open ended question is to generate a word cloud, which highlights the most frequently used words among all the responses. Common words that served only a grammatical purpose are not included in this cloud, which is shown in Fig. 1.

<figure><img src="image_8.png" /><figcaption>Figure 1. Word cloud of responses to an open question about the effects of playing in.</figcaption></figure>

When asked to choose from a list of specific attributes that are improved by playing-in, 84 selected "responsiveness", 78 selected "tone", 67 selected "clarity", 62 selected "loudness (projection)"; note that more than one attribute could be selected. Respondents could also select "other" for this question and enter their own description of attributes that are improved with playing-in. These open-ended descriptions tended to be analagous to the terms supplied, especially "tone" and "responsiveness", emphasizing the challenge of having a uniform interpretation of such terms. It should also be noted that many of the respondents were not native English speakers; the community of musicians and luthiers is truly international.

A followup question asks the respondents to rate the relative importance of five different parameters of playing-in on the qualities they selected: total amount of time played, intensity (amplitude) of playing, style of music played, quality (expertise) of playing, and the amount of time per day spent playing. Each parameter was rated using a slider with a 0-10 point scale. The average slider response for each parameter is shown in Table 3 in decreasing order of relative importance.

<table><caption>Table 3. Average rating of the relative importance of five parameters of playing-in.</caption><thead><tr><th></th><th>total time played</th><th>loudness of playing</th><th>amount of time per day</th><th>quality of playing</th><th>style of music played</th><th><strong>ensemble average</strong></th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><th>average rating</th><td>7.4</td><td>6.1</td><td>5.6</td><td>5.1</td><td>2.6</td><td><strong>5.3</strong></td></tr><tr><th>standard deviation</th><td>2.3</td><td>2.7</td><td>2.7</td><td>3.2</td><td>2.8</td><td></td></tr></tbody></table>
Respondents generally agreed that the most important parameter for playing-in is the total amount of time that the instrument is played. Loudness, or amplitude, of playing was also judged to be important, while the style of music played during playing-in was considered relatively unimportant.

The final three questions in section 2 of the survey asked about direct experiences using mechanical devices to accelerate or enhance the playing-in process. Of the 113 respondents who answered these questions, 65 reported that they had never used such a device, 37 reported having used a commercial product, while 25 reported using a custom built device (some reported using both a commercial and a custom device). Among the 48 respondents who had used a device, 22 used it for less than one week, 16 used it for 1-2 weeks, and 10 who applied it for longer than 2 weeks. With regards to the results of using mechanical devices, 13 reported being completely satisfied, 10 reported positive results but expectations were not fully met, 13 reported little to no effect, and 2 reported a negative effect. Thirteen respondents also reported that the effect on some instruments was greater than on others.

## 4. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS

We performed an experiment to quantify the change in frequency response of two previously unplayed violins that were "played in" by different mechanical means. Over the course of twelve weeks of nearly uninterrupted applied vibration, periodic measurements of bridge admittance and acoustic radiativity showed no change in either violin that exceeded experimental uncertainty and that could not be accounted for by changes in relative humidity.

With the caveat that impulse response measurements of a musical instrument are a proxy for its perceived tonal characteristics, our results do not support the idea that the sound of a new violin can be improved, or noticeably changed, by mechanical methods of playing-in, including the use of commercial products such as the Tone-Rite. We hypothesize that similar results would be obtained if the violins were played by humans, rather than vibrated mechanically at the bridge, since both methods transmit comparable vibrational energy to the instrument body via the bridge. Additional experiments are planned with human players to confirm this.

Ultimately, an investigation of the playing-in effect (or any modification to an instrument) must address whether, and to what extent, changes in an instrument's sound can be perceived. This might be accomplished with carefully designed listening tests, but these are challenging to administer when comparisons need to be made over a long time period. A step in this direction, suggested by the results of this study, would be an assessment of how acutely players and listeners perceive the effects of humidity on violin tone. If, for example, listeners cannot reliably discern the effect of adding five grams of water content (the maximum difference in violin weight due to humidity variation during our experiment), it is very unlikely that changes due to playing-in will be noticeable.

## ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We wish to thank ....

## REFERENCES

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<footnote n="2">² F. A. Saunders, "The Mechanical Action of Violins," J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 9 (2), 81-98 (1937).</footnote>

<footnote n="3">³ C. M. Hutchins and O. E. Rodgers, "Methods of changing the frequency spacing between the A1 and B1 modes of the violin," Catgut Acoust. Soc. J. 2 (1) (series II), 13-19 (1992).</footnote>

<footnote n="4">⁴ G. Bissinger, "Modal analysis comparison of new violin before and after ~250 hours of playing," Proc. Int. Modal Analysis Conf. (1995).</footnote>
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<footnote n="6">⁶ J. Grogan and A. Piacsek, “An experimental study of changes in the impulse response of a wood plate that is subject to vibrational stimulus,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am. **113**, 2315(A) (2003).</footnote>

<footnote n="7">⁷ R. Inta, J. Smith, and J. Wolfe. “Measurement of the Effect on Violins of Ageing and Playing,” Acoustics Australia **33** (1), 25-29 (2005).</footnote>

<footnote n="8">⁸ A. Piacsek and S. Lowery. “Experimental Uncertainty in Measurements of Violin Impulse Response,” Proc. Euro. Acoust. Assoc., 3423 (2023). DOI:10.61782/fa.2023.0926</footnote>

<footnote n="9">⁹ J. Woodhouse, “The acoustics of the violin: a review,” Rep. Prog. Phys. **77**, 1-42 (2014). DOI:10.1088/0034-4885/77/11/115901</footnote>

<footnote n="10">¹⁰ A. Buen, “The Humidity Experiment: How wood and the violin are affected by variation in humidity,” available online at www.academia.edu/attachments/65923533/download_file?sfolder=portfolio (2013)</footnote>

<footnote>Pimentel, J. L. (2010). A note on the usage of Likert Scaling for research data analysis. USM R&D Journal, 18(2), 109-112.</footnote>