Ask Augustin 28 - Dances With Wolftones

The other title I was considering for this episode was "who is afraid of the big bad wolftone?" As I'm uploading, I suddenly realize how many people probably don't know the 1990 movie "Dances with Wolves".
I play on an incredible violin and am crazy about its sound, but it has a wolf on the B natural on the G string - all violins have a "wolf" on one note (at least to a small degree), and Guarneri del Gesù violins and del Gesù copies usually have very prominent wolves. Every object has a pitch at which it rings. The wolf effect occurs when you play the pitch at which the violin itself rings - this causes a distortion and interference that can prevent the note from speaking or suddenly making the sound "howl" - which is why it's called a wolf ("nota del lupo" in Italian).
A luthier can make adjustments to reduce the wolftone, but cannot remove it - and in my experience you can either reduce the wolftone, or have the best-sounding adjustment, but not both at the same time, because when the violin is ringing with the fullest sound, the wolftone will be pretty strong also.
The "wolf effect" happens most often if you play with fast bowspeed, if you make a swell, or if you vibrate widely on the note. It should happen only on the G string, if it happens on the D and A string as well, then it is probably an adjustment or maintenance issue. In this video I discuss two ways to reliably get a wolftone to speak:
1 - by establishing a full violin sound on the previous notes, then switching to the wolftone without stopping the vibrations of the violin, and backing off a bit (so the wolftone is played with less bow, less pressure than the previous notes).
2 - If you want to play the wolf-tone loudly, you can force it to speak - by using little bow, a lot of weight, playing close to the bridge, and using narrow vibrato, you can control the sound and play the note strongly as well.
I try to show this in two examples from Sarasate Introduction and Tarantella. As you get to know a violin, you gain a feeling for how likely the sound is to turn wolfy and will need to practice the passages when you need to play the wolfy note.

Видео Ask Augustin 28 - Dances With Wolftones канала Augustin Hadelich