This is “L’Eredità”,
the television quiz that airs on Rai 1
almost every night.
I think we all know more or less,
and this gentleman really knows all Italians: it is Fabrizio Frizzi.
One evening in mid-December last, 2016
this question is asked to a competitor:
“An Italian student was awarded in London for having conceived
a spider silk violin or a battery of recycled cans? “
Obviously the competitor goes for the recycled cans.
This is unfortunately wrong.
It is the answer, or rather the comment, that one would have expected
from any insider, from the violin maker who was assisting
to my design work about a year ago.
On these words, on this word, I would like to share my story with you.
But let’s start in total contrast to this comment.
This is the award ceremony of the International Student Innovation Awards
in London, 2016, the innovation award
given to the most innovative international student in London,
organized by Mayor Sadiq Khan.
In short, there is a cash prize and this is the award ceremony.
There were members from 50 countries, there were more than 400 members.
It went well, here!
Continuing on this line, here we are always in London,
this is the Royal Academy of Music,
the fifth conservatory in the world for prestige,
and this is Peter Sheppard Skærved, this gentleman is a violinist,
the “Viotti lecturer”, therefore the maximum charge
for a violinist inside an academy,
a Grammy-nominated violinist,
the only violinist invited to Washington to play Paganini’s “Cannone”,
the immortal Paganini.
He invited me to give a talk, a bit like today, on one of my projects.
But let’s go even more interestingly, particularly.
Here, just a few meters from us, there were these two violins.
The one on the right is one of the prototypes made,
the N. 2 to be precise,
and the one on the left is a violin that has a name,
it’s called Viotti ex-Bruce,
is part of the Royal Academy of Music collection,
and has a particular story being the Stradivarius
best preserved in the world, practically.
Even more absurd is that during the lesson
a comparison is made, a comparison.
Obviously I did not agree.
It seems clear to me, no one would even like to think
to deal with the master of Cremonese masters.
And the important thing is that we are talking
of completely different planets
and above all of completely different intentions.
Then when at the end of the talk someone asks:
“How come his violin did not have the same sound projection,
and had more volume, this volume in the lower register,
compared to that of others? “
There I had the opportunity to show that the strength of this project
it was precisely in the ability to create diversity,
And so, I replied in this way:
“Silk, this is the material of which this violin is made,
it is a more elastic material than wood, so it is more elastic
it vibrates with greater amplitudes, so it has to go further.
And to make more road takes more time, then vibrates with a lower frequency.
It means that it vibrates better on the low frequencies “.
After an answer like this there was a moment of silence,
it meant that these people heard about materials
applied to violin making in a completely new way.
For the first time a concept called is introduced
“acoustic customization”.
I think I spoke about it for the first time about a year ago
in the first articles and in the first interviews.
It means practically going from this
– this is a fir tree under an electron microscope,
to this
– are natural fibers:
there is silk, linen, bamboo, jute,
which can be woven, woven into fabrics.
Nowadays, thanks to the numerical control weaving,
the structure of these fabrics can be controlled up to the single fiber.
This means that we have the possibility to check
the internal structure of a material that, once impregnated in resins
as it happens here, or in bio-resin in my case,
it becomes a solid material that can constitute
the body of a musical instrument and many other things.
So we can talk about controlling the acute properties of a material,
in this way.
But why?
Because after various work experiences between design and export management
between China and the Middle East,
after having founded my first start up
which still produces solar energy,
I reach a little bit of economic independence.
I decide to leave, to enroll in a double master’s degree in London
between engineering and design, between the Imperial Royal College of Art,
which is the best top-world master in design and art,
and Imperial College, this here, which plays it every year with MIT,
they compete for the best college for engineering.
I am in this class of 38 students from all the countries, highly selected,
from 12 countries precisely, and let alone …
Believe me, that was really maybe one of the environments
more exciting in the world, I’m not kidding.
Cutting short, during these two years without weekends,
so very demanding,
the last six months of the course ask you to do a project by yourself
on a theme to taste.
I decided to work, the title of my theme was called
“Biomaterials and acoustics”.
I chose to work with biomaterials because they are a field of materials
that has no real applications in the design world,
it has it mainly in medicine and in healthcare.
And then, apply these materials
in a field that equally concerned me
thanks to personal interest
and for the fact that I’ve been playing all my life,
but mainly because the field of acoustics
has not been receiving innovations for decades.
We are talking about materials used in this field
which are mainly wood and wood derivatives,
and plastics like ABS
which are only generically performing
acoustically performing.
It means that there is really no manufacturing technique
able to control the acoustic performance
of these materials.
Consider that basically in the field of materials acoustics
the latest innovations were mainly for soundproofing,
so materials able to stop the sound,
but there is absolutely nothing regarding resonant materials.
The last impact was carbon fiber in the 70s,
this is ridiculous.
Evidently I was interested in some way to fill this “gap”
in the world of acoustics and above all create a material
that it was controllable, therefore acoustically customizable.
To get here I went through all this.
All these agglomerations of things are biomaterials
that I was doing alone.
So I worked with bioplastics, biopolymers, bio-compatible resins,
in order to create these materials
that they had physical characteristics
that were acoustically performing.
During these months of work I made about fifty
of documented experiments.
But the question everyone is asking is: (Laughter)
“Why a violin?”
There are two reasons mainly.
The first is that I wanted to have a strong “proof of concept”,
that is a strong demonstration of this technology.
The violin is a difficult instrument to play properly,
to be enriched with harmonics.
And then surely the second reason was to be as provocative as possible.
Capiamoci …
Nowadays, in the XXI century, violinmakers create violins
as the masters did in 1400.
It is an extremely conservative world,
an extremely interesting world, full of a huge culture.
In conclusion…
Surely then also put together materials such as silk and violin …
If the silk is acoustically extremely, how to say, promising,
it has certainly been from a media point of view
put it together with a violin.
They are two archetypes, objects that refer us to finesse,
to quality, to classicism and then as mentioned
it has gone through many attempts.
This is one of those.
As you can see, it did not really work well.
But after all this comes out the first silk violin in the world,
and I must tell you that it did not sound that bad either.
So I went through Cremona,
these are some of the violin makers I met,
about twenty, looking for advice, opinions,
and I was carrying this instrument made with this strange material,
this object that everyone looked at a little with attention and suspicion.
And instead…
I expected a lot of traditionalism and instead I found interest, enthusiasm
and also a bit of encouragement that does not hurt, I must say.
That’s all? (Laughs)
Obviously not.
It happens that, working with these materials,
having above all still a little bit of time
during these 6 months,
I decided to be even more provocative.
I decided to work with it
which is considered today a sort of Holy Grail of materials
which is spider silk.
It is 5 times stronger than steel, at the same time it is extremely elastic,
rare, priceless, still artificially irreproducible.
So I immediately said: in short, if I put it together with silk
something good must come out of it.
These are three spider silk filaments,
they are 35 cm long,
as it happens, like the harmonic piano of a violin,
and are produced by a female “golden orb-weaver”,
that is this spider.
Once I decided to do this thing I started calling half the world,
and when I say half the world I say the whole world,
in the sense that I called from America to Japan,
companies, universities.
In the end, I got the answer from the nearest point, which was Oxford,
the University of Oxford where this gentleman
which is called Fritz Vollrath, the prof. Fritz Vollrath,
he breeds these guys in the zoology department.
This is a golden orb-weaver, an Australian spider.
It’s not even that big, it’s in the palm of your hand,
it’s not even that poisonous, but it produces this web
which is one of the strongest materials in the world.
Just two quick examples.
There are…
It also does it through the trees …
There are these birds that fly through the trees and get entangled.
Local populations in the past used spiderweb as a fishing net.
It’s incredible, in short.
Then however I had only three filaments
and asking advice to the right and left, to Cremonese violin makers and more,
we decided to put them under the bridge,
where the vibration of the strings is discharged directly on the harmonic level.
So I went around asking for opinions on the improvements between the prototypes.
This is David Hume,
the luthier resident at the Royal College of Music.
According to him among the different prototypes adding this thing
there was certainly something positive, an enrichment.
This is Peter Sheppard, you’ve already seen it.
According to him they even functioned as a kind of sympathetic cords,
giving this very powerful bass register,
enriching it with harmonics, a lot.
And then there were the Cremonese violin makers to whom I submitted the prototypes
and there were positive opinions from this point of view.
But now?
Now this project has become my start up.
It’s called “Fibreacustics”: we work and advise at the moment
for companies that need materials that need to perform
from the acoustic point of view.
And practically we use it nowadays, for example
we also work in jewelers, in watchmaking.
We produce materials for musical instruments, speakers, speakers,
headphones, panels for environmental acoustics exactly like these here,
and cones also, for speaker.
Let’s move from the study of acoustic tests like this,
a laser vibrometer test that tells us the areas in which and how the material vibrates,
to this:
these are the harmonic planes of some acoustic guitars
that we should launch very early in the fall.
Basically the process is a bit like this:
here we are deciding which structure will have the fabric,
then this must be passed into the numerically controlled weavers
that bring these different materials together
in these different colored areas you have seen.
This lady is ironing this beautiful sweater that will become
a harmonic piano of an acoustic guitar.
We are producing hybrid fabrics
like silk and carbon.
This was done with a Como weaver
which is called Taroni, and its CEO who is Max Canepa,
in order to have completely different acoustic performances.
In conclusion…
I feel like leaving you with a small statement
that does not necessarily have to be linked to this project,
but it is related to my personal experience.
I would like to say that innovation is certainly a great opportunity.
Besides being an opportunity to improve the present,
this is definitely it,
it should perhaps also be to understand it
that all this strength, this need to go further,
it comes basically from a great need
that is a bit ‘inherent in the human being, perhaps a kind of hunger, a hole.
And address all this innovative force
not only outside but also within us
maybe it could be a strong countertrend,
both in the way of being human and in the way of doing innovation.
(Applause)
(Music)
(End of music)
(Applause)
”
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