Earlier this year I needed to update the appraisal for my violin for insurance purposes. My violin was made by a maker from a family of well-known luthiers, and its value depends on proving its provenance back to that maker.    Fortunately, I have a certificate of authenticity from renowned Philadelphia violin dealer William Moennig & Sons, from whom I purchased the violin many years ago. Not only is a Moennig certificate respected in the violin community, but I understood that Moennig had obtained my instrument directly from the luthier who made it. That makes the certificate all that more valuable…

In 1967, violinist David Margetts lost the Duke of Alcantra Stradivari violin, a valuable instrument which was made late in Stradivari’s life for the Duke himself. Margetts did not own the violin. Rather, it was on loan from UCLA. Margetts didn’t recall whether he left the violin on the roof of his car and drove off or whether it was stolen from his vehicle while he was buying groceries. Nevertheless, he joined a surprisingly large group of musicians who have misplaced instruments worth hundreds of thousands of dollars or more. …

When writing How Holdbacks Affect Music and Real Estate Transactions, I shared my idea to use the musical terms describing holding back of tempo with a musician friend. In response, she told me she would have used a fermata as the musical example.  The typical fermata is a symbol that looks much like an upside down letter U with a dot in the middle of it (musicians also call fermatas “birds’ eyes”). b A fermata above a note  indicates that the note is to…

One noticeable distinction between an orchestra musician and a soloist is that the orchestra musicians have their music in front of them on a music stand. Soloists playing with an orchestra usually perform from memory.  There are many explanations why soloists are expected to perform from memory. Some view it as a sign of mastery to have memorized the music. Or, they believe the soloist has more opportunity to practice and master the piece and…

Recently, I attended a concert given by a major symphony orchestra. We had excellent seats in a concert hall that held 3,000 people. We were in a box in the first promenade level with a direct view of the entire stage. We also could see most of what was going on in the concert hall, both above and below our seating level.   Disrupting an Orchestra Concert  During a quiet section in the music I heard an unusual sound–like air being blown through…