To all you string players, if there was a choce to be made between two mandolins- neither can be listened to in advance- both made by same quality maker, both oval holes, both Spruce tops, one with Rosewood back and sides, the other with Maple. Which sounds better for trad? I know it's " how long is a piece of string" but just looking for opinions. The Rosewood I know will give a deep sound but does trad need less depth and more clarity?Does Maple give a harsher tone or is it a nicer clearer tone than Rosewood? Would Rosewood be better perhaps for accompanying a singer? And yes I do understand that timbers differ even among batches. As I say, just looking for opinions.
In the world of guitars I believe maple is considered louder than rosewood. Since mandolins often have trouble being heard in sessions, perhaps maple would result in more volume.
FWIW, maple is pretty standard these days for carved top and back bluegrass mandolins. From discussions I've followed over at mandolincafe.com, I would agree that maple might be a better choice for a session instrument. I've heard Dennis Cshill perform on a Crump flat top and back mandolin that was maple - looked and sounded great. I prfered it to his usual which is a Collings, which is a carved instrument, also maple. You can read a put this endlessly over on the 'cafe. In the end, it's a matter of personal preference.
Look, it is a mandolin, small, there is absolutely no limit to the woods available, unlike larger instruments. Forget maple, unless you can really get some of the choice figured stuff. So, for white, consider Lacewood, brilliant stuff. But, I'm a dark beer person, and I like my rum with some colour in it too, so I'd go with either stout, like African Blackwood, which is being sustainably farmed in South Africa now, or another lovely tonewood ~ Honduran Mahogany (swietenia macrophylla), which can give you tones like the richest Brazilian Rosewood but without all that figure or added expense...
The old Gibsons he's on about above ~ Red Spruce! ~ Which is also known as Adirondack, and for a mandolin you can easily find some decent tops. It also is being cut in the Carpathians and some lovely blanks are available, if you can find a dealer...
That's if you were going for having one made. But, seeing as you have two to choose from ~ maple if it's Sitka, rosewood if it's European... If that is your two choices ~ no question ~ rosewood & European spruce... It will mature with your playing...
Maple is very available in North America, so much so that some places treated it, sadly, like a weed, to be removed. Good quality maple soundwood is more available, more affordable, and consequently most mass produced instruments, from string things to recorders ~ are maple. It is also loved because it is quick to season and very, very stable, easy to use. So for the standard off the shelp instrument it isn't any wonder that maple predominates. There are also different types, grades and figure. The argument about volume seems a bit weak to me. There doesn't seem a good reason that maple would be louder than rosewood. However, the one about overtones, and span, a good balance between lows and highs ~ rosewoods, of which there are many, tend to manage that better, with more depth, while maple tends to be not louder, but brighter... That can easily be mistaken for volume...
There are lots of good resouces, in print, but also on the Internet, just do a search using 'tonewoods', or something similar. Those folks, the makers, will often answer your questions in this regards, ask the folks at Avalon Guitars...
And like with serious medical conditions, which musical instrument acquisition might fall under ~ get at least a second opinion ~ from a pro, another maker. Here's one on this side of the Irish bog ~
Give them a call, they are as passionate about making as you are about getting a new best mate... They can be cantacerous but I've not made an instrument maker yet I didn't like. But, I'm fond of characters... Maybe it's something in the sawdust they breath?
They will often give you an unbiased and clear account of the differences they are familiar with. I don't know one who doesn't work both of these timbers...and several different top woods too.
My 2c - absolutely do NOT get maple. Loud mandolins belong in bluegrass and bluegrass only. Leave them the hell out of irish music. If you don't want to be annoying to others, go with a medium volume, sweet toned instrument; rosewood can give you that, as can several other nice tonewoods
A mandolin is so small that individual notes and chords don't have much sustain... hence the rapid melody picking of fiddle music or the tremolo picking for notes of more sustained duration. For that reason, I'd personally prefer maple, and hope for a piece with a nice figure. It's a very bright tonewood, and projects much better than rosewood. The nicest mandolins that I have played are solid maple.
Oft-overlooked honorable mentions for hardness and brightness: black walnut, sycamore, and hickory.
At the risk of straying mildly off-topic, and speaking of woods in great abundance throughout my part of North America, I wonder how long it will be before North Carolinians try experimenting with locus.. a sure departure from the traditional "fencepost and firewood" dictum.
CP, once you've gotten some ideas, including just going and strumming some instruments, choose what feels right for you. Maybe that will include considerations of a session environment, but it's you that will be having the personal relationship. Tonewoods can be a bit like choosing a date, and this should be, ideally, about a long term relationship. If you actually have these two instruments you can choose from, give them some time. Maple and sitka is pretty much play off the shelf, good kick around instruments. Rosewood and European spruce mature, improve with age and being played in, but any new instrument, or one that has been unplayed for a time, needs playing in too.
My wife likes and prefers maple, and similar tonewoods. I love maple too, but my preferences are elsewhere. She's brighter ~ and I'm dark and mysterious...
The author of thread, I'm not sure where he gets his information from, but he claims that flame patterns exist in the grain of less than 5% of maple trees.
On the subject of rosewood, which is as rich and dark sounding as it is hard - a rare treat - which type of rosewood would be being used? Some "rosewoods" aren't actually rosewood at all, a little like "Chilean Sea Bass" -- a plain and ugly fish, with a new name dressed up to sell for a fancy price.
I like your summation of the issue, ceolachan - it's like finding a date! The last time I had this dilemma come up, I spent two months making the rounds, flirting with every model in town. If you're not familiar with the characteristics of the woods, then definitely go try a few out at the store.
I love 'mahogany', then as I looked deeper into the subject I stumbled across a collection of mahoganies, or things that could be called by that name, there were over 300 woods, every possible density from something like balsawood that you could dent with a gentle push, to wood as heavy and dense as iron wood ~ you could hammer nails with it and out whack anyone with a mere blackthorn shelalegh...
My Weber A-style mandolin is maple, but with a cedar top. I love its warm, dark tone, and it still has enough bark to easily be heard in a session with three fiddles, flute, whistle, concertina, and guitar.
On any mandolin, your choice of pick will tremendously shape the tone and volume you get. I prefer a 1.0 mm or 1.2 Wegen "bluegrass" stule pick, with holes (which helps it stick to your fingers). Big phat tone, good control, and volume when you want it.
Cedar is a lovely warm tone...and the colour is nice too... Yeah, that makes sense, you and cedar, but maple? Hmmmm? You never struck me as a blonde... And picks with holes in them? Are they also streamlined and titanium?
One of the sweetest instruments I have ever known was tightly grained, unbelievably even European spruce to highly figured maple back and sides. Damn it was sweet, until an airline company bashed the hell out of it.
Scroll down to see the so-called "bluegrass" picks. I love 'em--great tone and playability for any style of music. I also own a couple of Wegen's mandolin picks and they're great, too, but I like the holes in the bluegrass model for grip and feel.
It's an Absaroka. About 2 years old. I've played *a lot* of Webers (I live just 70 miles from the shop), along with a lot of other makes of mandolin over the years. This one is hard to beat for phat tone and projection. I've found a few top-of-the-line Webers that about match it, but at twice the price. I've also compared it mano a mano to several Collings, a few old Gibson A styles, and some new Gibson Fs. I like my little Absaroka the best so far. It's a rare specimen. (But then I wasn't looking for the best bluegrass mandolin--I play Irish music on it.)
Which reminds me. Weber got ahold of some great old wood a few years ago and started cranking out a bunch of amazing mandolins. Incredible tone woods. Not sure if they've run through that batch by now. A few of us got lucky.
Went to the site. Didn't see yours Will but they sure are nice looking. But more interesting was the price they become by the time they get to a dealer in Ireland !
Thanks everyone for contributions. So many lovely woods but there can only be one winner...drum roll. It will be the European Spruce and Indian Rosewood. But there might be a part 2. I am now ruined. I know about Webers and Crumps just to name two. Thanks again.
You'll just have to book a holiday to Willmania. I promise you, it will be better than Florida or California or New York or any of the usual directions folks tend to be drawn to across the Atlantic bog. And, you'd have the pleasure of that lot to welcome you and wind you up. God have mercy on you... It is some amazingly beautiful country and people, on the whole. Then you could all go over and twang away on some Webers to your hearts content...and chat with the makers about woods...
I wonder about those tonewoods Will. Red (Adirondack and from elsewhere) Spruce is increasingly more available. There are also some lovely tonewoods coming out of the Maritimes...
This makes me want to sell everything and take up fingerpickin'... Actually, maybe Hawaiian guitar would better suit my mood this morning?
It's all subjective and down to personnal preference in sound, Gibson used birch quite often for backs and sides in the teens and twenties, my 1917 A model is such and it sounds beautiful, by contrast I have a 2001 Paul Shippey in rosewood and spruce and this has a very warm very bassy tone.
I just wondered what tree produces "rosewood" (nothing to do with roses, I supposed), so I Googled it . It turns out that rosewood come from an endangered species of the pea family, which by my book would make maple the more ecologically sound choice for a new intrument. The scientific info for rosewood is here:
"Rosewood" comprises a huge family, and yes, some are endangered, what is highly figured, and only as the tree dies, is usually called Brazilian Roswood. Sadly the young trees are also butchered in that disgusting logging industry that is destroying the Amazon. But measures are being tried to pull back that species from the brink of extinction. Where bow wood, the most favoured of the past, a particular species of pernambuco, that was also used for shipping crates, is by all accounts extinct. The pernambuco species now used are not the same... Not all rosewoods are endangered and some are being grown and harvested sistainably. These are in countries where trade is important. Maple comes from contries that have it in abundance ~ especially North America... If you had read further you'd find there are a lot of different things called rosewood and not all are Dalbergia or from Brazil...
Leguminosae ~ that pea tree family ~ is also huge and not just made up of 'rosewoods', some are grown as ornamentals here in these isles, in Britain and Ireland... All are dense heavy woods and many are also used in instrument making. Even the use of maples will often include rosewoods in the roses and in the bindings. Other woods popularly used in construction include the use of ebonies and rosewoods in the fingerboard and pegs, ebonies include species considered endangered, threatened... Their very value sometimes raises an interest to preserve, rather than just downing all the forests to raise commercial crops or cattle... Things are rarely just one or two dimensional...
Most loss of species and habitat is from indescriminate logging and cutting and land clearing ~ rather than descriminate logging with the purpose of producing quality timbers for musical instrument making...
While I value the beauty of trees as they are, roots, trunk, branches and leaves, it is sadly the greater influence of a commercial value that determines their worth and survival. In Maritime Canada for a spell maple was valued and farmers would work around a tree and allow it to mature, removing the likes of spruce which were considered scrub, tree weeds. Then the change came and the value was moved to fast growing pulp wood, spruce, and suddenly maple and other hardwoods were the weeds and spruce was being planted everywhere. Then along came the crop intense problems ~ such as spruce bud worm.
The same stupidity reached these isles and acid producing trees were suddenly popping up everywhere in tight packed rows, intensive farming, crops, quick growing spruces being a favourite ~ in Ireland, in Wales, in Scotland, in England. They are great, they don't mind acid rain, they thrive in it, they add more acid to the waters percolating down and filling rivulet, stream and lake... I have never felt more like a pyromaniac than when on a lovely stroll I come across these dark foreign invaders, here, there and everywhere...
Yes, I also love spruce, where it occurs naturally and out in the open. I don't appreciate these genetic monstrosities being packed in everywhere that someone sees the possibility of a quick turn around and profit.
So, to value highly rosewood, to the point that it is no longer treated as a weed to be removed in place of grass for cattle. Please ~ let us value it highly and talk about it openly and strive to preserve both content and natural habitat... In some places it is already too late, there is literally no turning back...
So, I feel no guilt in feeling the occassional urge to hug a tree...or any spite toward anyone who is moved to turn a piece of timber toward music...whatever the species... Bless them...
Yes, actually, but easily distracted... I'm soon away, so there will be peace, or at least a little... It is working at the computer, doing work for someone else, gratis, that has me sometimes wandering away from that. But not usually to this extent. This is a point of passion, and admitted guilt.
I actually plant some of the local tree species and try to find a place to move them once they have a start... The sad thing is the jerk of a neighbour who recently seems to have dumped poison on all of that ~ just about everything in the strip this side of his fence ~ DEAD!!! That includes trees, all native species, oaks included... So, I'm a bit primed and your little comment set me off... What pleasure did that jerk get from killing off all our plants? He has done it at least once before.
So, I'm in an overly sensitive state, and I was getting some pleasure out of CP's passion for a new strum... Then I read your bit ~ and the trees got the better of me...
Better that than me wreaking revenge on the miserable old git nextdoor, eh?
Sorry to hear about your garden, C. And I admit that I should have checked my facts a bit more fully before posting on redwood. It does seem however that some of the Dalbergia species used for instrument making are in serious decline, so it would probably be a good thing if makers could provide information on their wood sources, if indeed they know. It seems to me that this is a dodgy area, where tropical hardwoods are concerned, and we shouldn't turn a blind eye to it just because it's for instruments. It's sure, in the meantime, that maple is not a threatened species!
The Dalbergia species have mostly been destroyed by slash and burn, converting rainforests, or trying to, into cattle farms... Yes, some are processed and do make it into the timber trade, some become few become woodwinds, some few become strums, some even become floors. Most of the instrument makers I've known do care and will gladly tell you about their sources. Brazilian rosewoods are mostly what survives in stock, rather than recently cut. Other Dalbergias, like Nigre, are now being sustainably grown by some and those folks are among the suppliers of timber for the instrument trade. Without a value they would continue to be just tossed on to the scrub fire and burned with everything else. It's dense timber and damned hard to move from jungle to a major road and on to being processed, though there are tons of mini-mills doing that on site. Some of the largest selling portable mills are produced in North America.
One wood, snakewood, has actually been known to kill the people working it. Many of the Dalbergias have their own defense to being worked, causing skin and lung reactions... Many of those in the music trade are actively concerned about wood stocks and are actively working, politically and otherwise, to see these resources maintained sustainably. It isn't the instrument makers and musicians you should be worried about... I can only promise you that, for proof chase up your local instrument makers, ask them...
There is something quite unfair about suggesting that we all turn to maple for our needs, it being plentiful in 'THE WEST'. Ignoring the depletion and abuse of hardwoods elsewhere is not the answer. Cutting off all trade and confining it to our own supplies and suppliers is not the answer. Turning our backs on it and neglecting it will not reduce the loss of resources and natural habitat... If it has no value doesn't mean it will be left standing, more likely it will escalate the destruction of forests and jungles to replace them with something that might promise an income... In some areas crops are mixed, timber woods with coffee and/or pepper, for an example...
Red (Adirondack) spruce was almost completely wiped out. It is only now coming back into useful grades and sizes for instrument making. The pernambuco most favoured for bows was completely wiped out being used for pallets shipping things from South America to "The West", Europe and elsewhere... IT was strong and had some spring in it, like any prized fiddle bow... The Pernambucos now used for bows are other species...
Here is some advice from Friends of The Earth on buying tropical hardwood products. I don't see why UK and Ireland instrument makers using such woods can't do what is suggested in this document. They would then be in a position to prove to their clients, as far as possible, that there sources were clean.
* Before purchasing or specifying the use of tropical hardwood products, ask the retailer or supplying company for written evidence that the timber was harvested from areas managed according to an agreed plan. Then send a copy of that evidence to the Tropical Rainforest Campaign at Friends of the Earth. We will check it out for you, and expose any companies making false claims."
"Please ~ let us value it highly and talk about it openly and strive to preserve both content and natural habitat... In some places it is already too late, there is literally no turning back..."
All this hand-wringing and breast-beating and anguish over the extinction of tree species is just self-indulgent sentimentalism.
I mean, what are you actually going to *do*, what practical action, to save trees and forests ?
It's not that it's already too late in some places. It's too late *everywhere*.
Tree species are adapted to very specific conditions. They need the right fungi in the soil, they need suitable rain fall, the right seasonal changes, the right insects for pollination, etc, etc.
Because of man-made global warming and climate change, trees and forests worldwide are having their environments altered, and it is happening much too fast for them to adapt.
So, huge losses of species and ecosystems are already inevitable, because of the excessive CO2 we have already put into the atmosphere, and the failure to take effective action to reduce emissions over the last several decades.
My point is, that everyone who uses fossil fuels is making matters worse. If someone wants to 'save the forests', then the first priority is to try and mitigate climate change by understanding the causes, and changing ASAP from dependence upon fossil fuels.
The problem is, that America, with a tiny percentage of the world population, use most of the resources and produce most of the emissions. And most of the other folks aspire to living as extravagantly as Americans.
And, as peak oil production seems to have been reached, oil becomes scarcer, more valuable, more profitable, and so capitalists and governments want to pump it faster and use it faster and bring on climate change faster...let alone turning to even dirtier energy sources, like coal and tar sands...
So, what chance of saving trees, if people aren't even bothered about avoiding the deaths of hundreds of millions of humans, including their own children and grand-children, as a result of desertification and sea-level rise and all the other catastrophes that climate change is causing, acidification of the oceans, loss of coral reefs, disappearance of glaciers that feed rivers, loss of the arctic ice, melting of the permafrost releasing methane, etc, etc, ?
All that most people seem to understand or care about is the cost, in money, of driving and flying.
Ceolachan wrote, "The Pernambucos now used for bows are other species..."
Do you know what those other species are, and how do they differ from "traditional" pernambuco as far as fiddle bows are concerned?
The reason I ask is that one of my bows is at least 80 years old and not only very light and well-balanced but appears to have a high signal:noise ratio. To the player it doesn't sound particularly loud until you realise that the bow hiss level is quite low - which means there is more real sound for projection to the listener. I believe the bow must be genuine pernambuco.
Another wood bow, also "pernambuco" (I bought it from a very reputable dealer) is German and about 7 years old. This has a higher hiss level, but is otherwise fine to play.
Bows 3 and 4 are middle-range carbon-fibre (not big names) and are the ones I use for sessions - for obvious reasons. They're reasonably powerful, but compared with the wood bows they don't seem to project the high frequencies quite so well - which I suppose can be an advantage if you want to moderate an over-brilliant tone.
I think in the years to come, with the lack of suitable natural wood, and bearing in mind the wastage (up to 80%) in the making of the best wood bows, there will be a lot of technical development of carbon-fibre for bows - Arcus seem to be one of the leaders here - to bring them up to the same level, or even higher, than the best wood bows. I'm sure we're still only just a small distance into this development.
And then there is the development under way of carbon-fibre violins and cellos - see http://www.luisandclark.com/.
Wolfbird,
The fight to protect our environment is not to be given up so easily, and has to be fought on several levels. Greenhouse gas emissions is one huge problem. There is actually no technical way to put global warming into reverse (unless we could find a way to reforest the world's deserts, thereby creating a huge new carbon sink that could actually reduce atmospheric CO2 concentration, which has grown at an ever-increasing pace since the industrial revolution). However, just because we're up against the very big problem of climate change, doesn't mean we can turn a blind eye to the hit-and-run deforestation that is taking place in the humid tropics (hilch will only accelerate climate change, by the way). Logging companies are destoying hectares of virgin forest just for a few tree- including some of the ones that will be turned into instruments. That is my point here on this thread. I think the Friends of the Earth document I referred to earlier makes a lt of sense (unlike some of their stuff!). All the best,
I don't turn a blind eye to anything, de Selby. I just want people to understand the situation clearly.
Some twenty years ago, I got the first forest on the planet certified by the Forestry Stewardship Council/WWF/Soil Association, so I am acutely aware of the ongoing pillaging of the world's forests.
My point is, that anybody who thinks that using certified timber is going to 'save forests' is deluded. Climate change threatens all the worlds forests, tropical, temperate, and everything else that lives in them.
Some of the predictions expect that two thirds of all species on the planet will become extinct over the next half century or so, ( in the main because of climate change, but also because of many other human activities, for example the oceans being stripped of biomass). Compared with that holocaust, tree species suitable for musical instruments is a very minor detail.
I have spoken with hundreds of good people who want to do the right thing, love trees, want to protect and conserve woodlands, and so on. They generally believe that it's possible to help woodlands to survive. I wish it was true. For example, in the UK, or Europe more generally, the trees being effected by increased temperatures will want to migrate northward or to higher altitude, to follow the thermocline that they are adapted to. But that's impossible. Forests cannot extend their boundaries by dispersing seedlings on the north side, because of agricultural land, roads, cities, etc. And in any case, such natural migration is relatively slow, perhaps ten miles over twenty years maximum, not fast enough to cope with climate change.
What this means is that trees get increasingly stressed, subject to diseases and insect attack, and some species die. Some new invasive species may thrive in the changed climate, but, generally, the ecosystem gets radically changed. A natural forest isn't just a bunch of trees gathered together. It's a community which takes thousand of years to reach a complex balance of many thousands of different species. Nobody has anything near sufficient knowledge to recreate ancient woodland once it is gone.
My point was that, lamenting and despairing about the destruction of the world's forests is just a waste of time and nervous energy. If you actually care, do something ! Join the relevant organisations, write letters, send emails, busk in the street to raise funds, change your lifestyle to reduce emissions...
the Greenpeace campaigners and other NGOs trying to stop destruction of the Amazon forests are under constant death threat. Some people are willing to put their lives on the line because they care. Those brave people deserve support.
Your attitude, worlfbird, is a further negative effect of climate change... you think the fight is totally lost, so you don't think that realistic, feasible actions to prevent the loss of habitat and biodiversity are worthwhile. If you're right, then the planet is fecked. I prefer to remain optimistic, and not complacent.
I do everything within my power to prevent loss of habitat and biodiversity. It's something I have been involved with for most of my life.
That's why I want as many people as possible to understand the situation as it is. I want people to *act*. Whining and complaining is pointless. Whether you are optimistic or complacent or happy or depressed is irrelevant. It's a practical matter.
It's getting your priorities right. There's no point in fixing a broken wrist if the injured person is dieing of thirst. You give them water first, don't you ? What's the point in trying to stop illegal logging and clearance of rainforest to plant palm oil for biofuel, or GM soya, or cattle for MacDonalds, and then to watch forests die anyway, because of climate change ?
Understand, de Selby, that buying certified wood, whilst a good thing, will not save the forests. They will vanish because of climate change.
If you want to save forests (and other ecosystems, and give humans a future), then it is necessary to understand global warming, why it is happening, and what the results will be.
Rosewood v Maple
Rosewood v Maple
To all you string players, if there was a choce to be made between two mandolins- neither can be listened to in advance- both made by same quality maker, both oval holes, both Spruce tops, one with Rosewood back and sides, the other with Maple. Which sounds better for trad? I know it's " how long is a piece of string" but just looking for opinions. The Rosewood I know will give a deep sound but does trad need less depth and more clarity?Does Maple give a harsher tone or is it a nicer clearer tone than Rosewood? Would Rosewood be better perhaps for accompanying a singer? And yes I do understand that timbers differ even among batches. As I say, just looking for opinions.
# Posted on July 18th 2008 by concertinaplayer
Re: Rosewood v Maple
Just a personal opinion but I'ld go for the maple.
# Posted on July 18th 2008 by session savage
Re: Rosewood v Maple
I'd say mahogany
but in this one I'll agree with Session Savage
# Posted on July 18th 2008 by padre
Re: Rosewood v Maple
I'm afraid I have to differ and say rosewood. More sustain and overtones...Two things I look for in a mandolin.
# Posted on July 18th 2008 by North Light
Re: Rosewood v Maple
Rosewood all the way....Though Maple is very nice...Rosewood will get alot better with age...
What make are they?
All the best.
# Posted on July 18th 2008 by seaniemcg
Re: Rosewood v Maple
In the world of guitars I believe maple is considered louder than rosewood. Since mandolins often have trouble being heard in sessions, perhaps maple would result in more volume.
# Posted on July 18th 2008 by dfost
Re: Rosewood v Maple
FWIW, maple is pretty standard these days for carved top and back bluegrass mandolins. From discussions I've followed over at mandolincafe.com, I would agree that maple might be a better choice for a session instrument. I've heard Dennis Cshill perform on a Crump flat top and back mandolin that was maple - looked and sounded great. I prfered it to his usual which is a Collings, which is a carved instrument, also maple. You can read a put this endlessly over on the 'cafe. In the end, it's a matter of personal preference.
# Posted on July 18th 2008 by Keith Dubinsky
Re: Rosewood v Maple
who are the top mando builers in the us?
Gibsons F-5 master model ($17,000 maple back), Collings ( maple back), weber ( maple back). These guys tend to know a thing or two.
MAPLE all the way.
# Posted on July 18th 2008 by tradmanpicks
Re: Rosewood v Maple
also the gibson 1920's oval hole snake heads use maple as well.
I was told by an old luthier that they were the best gibsons for celtic music. ( that is saying alot)
# Posted on July 18th 2008 by tradmanpicks
Re: Rosewood v Maple
Look, it is a mandolin, small, there is absolutely no limit to the woods available, unlike larger instruments. Forget maple, unless you can really get some of the choice figured stuff. So, for white, consider Lacewood, brilliant stuff. But, I'm a dark beer person, and I like my rum with some colour in it too, so I'd go with either stout, like African Blackwood, which is being sustainably farmed in South Africa now, or another lovely tonewood ~ Honduran Mahogany (swietenia macrophylla), which can give you tones like the richest Brazilian Rosewood but without all that figure or added expense...
The old Gibsons he's on about above ~ Red Spruce! ~ Which is also known as Adirondack, and for a mandolin you can easily find some decent tops. It also is being cut in the Carpathians and some lovely blanks are available, if you can find a dealer...
# Posted on July 18th 2008 by ceolachan
Re: Rosewood v Maple
That's if you were going for having one made. But, seeing as you have two to choose from ~ maple if it's Sitka, rosewood if it's European... If that is your two choices ~ no question ~ rosewood & European spruce... It will mature with your playing...
# Posted on July 18th 2008 by ceolachan
Re: Rosewood v Maple
Maple is very available in North America, so much so that some places treated it, sadly, like a weed, to be removed. Good quality maple soundwood is more available, more affordable, and consequently most mass produced instruments, from string things to recorders ~ are maple. It is also loved because it is quick to season and very, very stable, easy to use. So for the standard off the shelp instrument it isn't any wonder that maple predominates. There are also different types, grades and figure. The argument about volume seems a bit weak to me. There doesn't seem a good reason that maple would be louder than rosewood. However, the one about overtones, and span, a good balance between lows and highs ~ rosewoods, of which there are many, tend to manage that better, with more depth, while maple tends to be not louder, but brighter... That can easily be mistaken for volume...
That's my opinion...
# Posted on July 18th 2008 by ceolachan
Re: Rosewood v Maple
There are lots of good resouces, in print, but also on the Internet, just do a search using 'tonewoods', or something similar. Those folks, the makers, will often answer your questions in this regards, ask the folks at Avalon Guitars...
http://www.avalonguitars.com/
And like with serious medical conditions, which musical instrument acquisition might fall under ~ get at least a second opinion ~ from a pro, another maker. Here's one on this side of the Irish bog ~
http://www.fyldeguitars.com/index1.html
Give them a call, they are as passionate about making as you are about getting a new best mate... They can be cantacerous but I've not made an instrument maker yet I didn't like. But, I'm fond of characters... Maybe it's something in the sawdust they breath?
# Posted on July 18th 2008 by ceolachan
Re: Rosewood v Maple
They will often give you an unbiased and clear account of the differences they are familiar with. I don't know one who doesn't work both of these timbers...and several different top woods too.
# Posted on July 18th 2008 by ceolachan
Re: Rosewood v Maple
To get a fuller response from this group ~ tell us what spruce...
# Posted on July 18th 2008 by ceolachan
Re: Rosewood v Maple
My 2c - absolutely do NOT get maple. Loud mandolins belong in bluegrass and bluegrass only. Leave them the hell out of irish music. If you don't want to be annoying to others, go with a medium volume, sweet toned instrument; rosewood can give you that, as can several other nice tonewoods
# Posted on July 18th 2008 by Seosamh Ui Sinan
Re: Rosewood v Maple
A mandolin is so small that individual notes and chords don't have much sustain... hence the rapid melody picking of fiddle music or the tremolo picking for notes of more sustained duration. For that reason, I'd personally prefer maple, and hope for a piece with a nice figure. It's a very bright tonewood, and projects much better than rosewood. The nicest mandolins that I have played are solid maple.
Oft-overlooked honorable mentions for hardness and brightness: black walnut, sycamore, and hickory.
At the risk of straying mildly off-topic, and speaking of woods in great abundance throughout my part of North America, I wonder how long it will be before North Carolinians try experimenting with locus.. a sure departure from the traditional "fencepost and firewood" dictum.
# Posted on July 18th 2008 by gravelwalks
Correction ~ "I've not met an instrument maker yet I didn't like." Instrument maker aren't 'made'...
# Posted on July 18th 2008 by ceolachan
Re: Rosewood v Maple
There are others being experimented with gravel ~ including Osage Orange, but the possibilities are huge...
Figured maple, such as birdseye, is not just valued for the figure, as a tonewood it is superior to the straight stuff... IMHO
# Posted on July 18th 2008 by ceolachan
Re: Rosewood v Maple
CP, once you've gotten some ideas, including just going and strumming some instruments, choose what feels right for you. Maybe that will include considerations of a session environment, but it's you that will be having the personal relationship. Tonewoods can be a bit like choosing a date, and this should be, ideally, about a long term relationship. If you actually have these two instruments you can choose from, give them some time. Maple and sitka is pretty much play off the shelf, good kick around instruments. Rosewood and European spruce mature, improve with age and being played in, but any new instrument, or one that has been unplayed for a time, needs playing in too.
My wife likes and prefers maple, and similar tonewoods. I love maple too, but my preferences are elsewhere. She's brighter
~ and I'm dark and mysterious... 
# Posted on July 18th 2008 by ceolachan
Re: Rosewood v Maple - now I'm really salivating.
A discussion of tonewoods gets my imagination moving like a schoolboy's.. all those possibilities!
http://www.luthierforum.com/index.php?showtopic=3927&mode=linearplus
The author of thread, I'm not sure where he gets his information from, but he claims that flame patterns exist in the grain of less than 5% of maple trees.
On the subject of rosewood, which is as rich and dark sounding as it is hard - a rare treat - which type of rosewood would be being used? Some "rosewoods" aren't actually rosewood at all, a little like "Chilean Sea Bass" -- a plain and ugly fish, with a new name dressed up to sell for a fancy price.
I like your summation of the issue, ceolachan - it's like finding a date! The last time I had this dilemma come up, I spent two months making the rounds, flirting with every model in town. If you're not familiar with the characteristics of the woods, then definitely go try a few out at the store.
# Posted on July 18th 2008 by gravelwalks
Re: Rosewood v Maple
I love 'mahogany', then as I looked deeper into the subject I stumbled across a collection of mahoganies, or things that could be called by that name, there were over 300 woods, every possible density from something like balsawood that you could dent with a gentle push, to wood as heavy and dense as iron wood ~ you could hammer nails with it and out whack anyone with a mere blackthorn shelalegh...
Time for an intermission ~
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dSGu9803LA
# Posted on July 18th 2008 by ceolachan
There's two distinct woody tones for you...
# Posted on July 18th 2008 by ceolachan
Re: Rosewood v Maple
My Weber A-style mandolin is maple, but with a cedar top. I love its warm, dark tone, and it still has enough bark to easily be heard in a session with three fiddles, flute, whistle, concertina, and guitar.
On any mandolin, your choice of pick will tremendously shape the tone and volume you get. I prefer a 1.0 mm or 1.2 Wegen "bluegrass" stule pick, with holes (which helps it stick to your fingers). Big phat tone, good control, and volume when you want it.
# Posted on July 18th 2008 by Will CPT
Re: Rosewood v Maple
Cedar is a lovely warm tone...and the colour is nice too... Yeah, that makes sense, you and cedar, but maple? Hmmmm? You never struck me as a blonde... And picks with holes in them? Are they also streamlined and titanium?
One of the sweetest instruments I have ever known was tightly grained, unbelievably even European spruce to highly figured maple back and sides. Damn it was sweet, until an airline company bashed the hell out of it.
# Posted on July 18th 2008 by ceolachan
Re: Rosewood v Maple
Heh, the maple is stained a deep reddish brown, like the old Gibsons. Nothing blonde about this mando.
# Posted on July 18th 2008 by Will CPT
Re: Rosewood v Maple
And here are the Wegen picks: http://www.wegenpicks.com/
Scroll down to see the so-called "bluegrass" picks. I love 'em--great tone and playability for any style of music. I also own a couple of Wegen's mandolin picks and they're great, too, but I like the holes in the bluegrass model for grip and feel.
# Posted on July 19th 2008 by Will CPT
Re: Rosewood v Maple
(Oh, and the usual disclaimer that I have no affiliation with Wegen picks and get no remuneration--I'm just a happy customer.)
# Posted on July 19th 2008 by Will CPT
Re: Rosewood v Maple
Which Weber are you playing Will?
# Posted on July 19th 2008 by concertinaplayer
Re: Rosewood v Maple
It's an Absaroka. About 2 years old. I've played *a lot* of Webers (I live just 70 miles from the shop), along with a lot of other makes of mandolin over the years. This one is hard to beat for phat tone and projection. I've found a few top-of-the-line Webers that about match it, but at twice the price. I've also compared it mano a mano to several Collings, a few old Gibson A styles, and some new Gibson Fs. I like my little Absaroka the best so far. It's a rare specimen. (But then I wasn't looking for the best bluegrass mandolin--I play Irish music on it.)
# Posted on July 19th 2008 by Will CPT
Re: Rosewood v Maple
Which reminds me. Weber got ahold of some great old wood a few years ago and started cranking out a bunch of amazing mandolins. Incredible tone woods. Not sure if they've run through that batch by now. A few of us got lucky.
# Posted on July 19th 2008 by Will CPT
Re: Rosewood v Maple
Went to the site. Didn't see yours Will but they sure are nice looking. But more interesting was the price they become by the time they get to a dealer in Ireland !
# Posted on July 19th 2008 by concertinaplayer
Re: Rosewood v Maple
LOL, no doubt I save a bit on shipping when I can just drive an hour down to the shop and ask to play through their inventory.....
# Posted on July 19th 2008 by Will CPT
Re: Rosewood v Maple
Thanks everyone for contributions. So many lovely woods but there can only be one winner...drum roll. It will be the European Spruce and Indian Rosewood. But there might be a part 2. I am now ruined. I know about Webers and Crumps just to name two. Thanks again.
# Posted on July 19th 2008 by concertinaplayer
Re: Rosewood v Maple
You'll just have to book a holiday to Willmania. I promise you, it will be better than Florida or California or New York or any of the usual directions folks tend to be drawn to across the Atlantic bog. And, you'd have the pleasure of that lot to welcome you and wind you up. God have mercy on you... It is some amazingly beautiful country and people, on the whole. Then you could all go over and twang away on some Webers to your hearts content...and chat with the makers about woods...
I wonder about those tonewoods Will. Red (Adirondack and from elsewhere) Spruce is increasingly more available. There are also some lovely tonewoods coming out of the Maritimes...
This makes me want to sell everything and take up fingerpickin'... Actually, maybe Hawaiian guitar would better suit my mood this morning?
# Posted on July 19th 2008 by ceolachan
Re: Rosewood v Maple
It's all subjective and down to personnal preference in sound, Gibson used birch quite often for backs and sides in the teens and twenties, my 1917 A model is such and it sounds beautiful, by contrast I have a 2001 Paul Shippey in rosewood and spruce and this has a very warm very bassy tone.
Dave H
# Posted on July 19th 2008 by Dave Hanson
Re: Rosewood v Maple
I just wondered what tree produces "rosewood" (nothing to do with roses, I supposed), so I Googled it . It turns out that rosewood come from an endangered species of the pea family, which by my book would make maple the more ecologically sound choice for a new intrument. The scientific info for rosewood is here:
http://www.ars-grin.gov/cgi-bin/npgs/html/taxon.pl?401485
# Posted on July 19th 2008 by de Selby
Re: Rosewood v Maple
"Rosewood" comprises a huge family, and yes, some are endangered, what is highly figured, and only as the tree dies, is usually called Brazilian Roswood. Sadly the young trees are also butchered in that disgusting logging industry that is destroying the Amazon. But measures are being tried to pull back that species from the brink of extinction. Where bow wood, the most favoured of the past, a particular species of pernambuco, that was also used for shipping crates, is by all accounts extinct. The pernambuco species now used are not the same... Not all rosewoods are endangered and some are being grown and harvested sistainably. These are in countries where trade is important. Maple comes from contries that have it in abundance ~ especially North America... If you had read further you'd find there are a lot of different things called rosewood and not all are Dalbergia or from Brazil...
# Posted on July 19th 2008 by ceolachan
Re: Rosewood v Maple
Leguminosae ~ that pea tree family ~ is also huge and not just made up of 'rosewoods', some are grown as ornamentals here in these isles, in Britain and Ireland... All are dense heavy woods and many are also used in instrument making. Even the use of maples will often include rosewoods in the roses and in the bindings. Other woods popularly used in construction include the use of ebonies and rosewoods in the fingerboard and pegs, ebonies include species considered endangered, threatened... Their very value sometimes raises an interest to preserve, rather than just downing all the forests to raise commercial crops or cattle... Things are rarely just one or two dimensional...
# Posted on July 19th 2008 by ceolachan
Re: Rosewood v Maple
Most loss of species and habitat is from indescriminate logging and cutting and land clearing ~ rather than descriminate logging with the purpose of producing quality timbers for musical instrument making...
# Posted on July 19th 2008 by ceolachan
Too much of it is just burned...
Yeah, I'm a tree lover, forest or jungle...
# Posted on July 19th 2008 by ceolachan
Re: Rosewood v Maple
Just some of the Dalbergias ~
cearensis
cochinchinensis
frutescens
latifolia (the 'rosewood' most used nowadays for back & sides)
melanoxylon
nigra
retusa
stevensonii
Some others that take the name 'rosewood'
Buibourtia demensei
Disoxylum fraseranum
Pterocarpus indicus
But there are tons more Leguminosae used to this end ~ to make music...
# Posted on July 19th 2008 by ceolachan
Re: Rosewood v Maple
While I value the beauty of trees as they are, roots, trunk, branches and leaves, it is sadly the greater influence of a commercial value that determines their worth and survival. In Maritime Canada for a spell maple was valued and farmers would work around a tree and allow it to mature, removing the likes of spruce which were considered scrub, tree weeds. Then the change came and the value was moved to fast growing pulp wood, spruce, and suddenly maple and other hardwoods were the weeds and spruce was being planted everywhere. Then along came the crop intense problems ~ such as spruce bud worm.
The same stupidity reached these isles and acid producing trees were suddenly popping up everywhere in tight packed rows, intensive farming, crops, quick growing spruces being a favourite ~ in Ireland, in Wales, in Scotland, in England. They are great, they don't mind acid rain, they thrive in it, they add more acid to the waters percolating down and filling rivulet, stream and lake... I have never felt more like a pyromaniac than when on a lovely stroll I come across these dark foreign invaders, here, there and everywhere...
Yes, I also love spruce, where it occurs naturally and out in the open. I don't appreciate these genetic monstrosities being packed in everywhere that someone sees the possibility of a quick turn around and profit.
So, to value highly rosewood, to the point that it is no longer treated as a weed to be removed in place of grass for cattle. Please ~ let us value it highly and talk about it openly and strive to preserve both content and natural habitat... In some places it is already too late, there is literally no turning back...
So, I feel no guilt in feeling the occassional urge to hug a tree...or any spite toward anyone who is moved to turn a piece of timber toward music...whatever the species... Bless them...
# Posted on July 19th 2008 by ceolachan
Re: Rosewood v Maple
Busy today, Ceolachan?
# Posted on July 19th 2008 by de Selby
Re: Rosewood v Maple
Yes, actually, but easily distracted... I'm soon away, so there will be peace, or at least a little... It is working at the computer, doing work for someone else, gratis, that has me sometimes wandering away from that. But not usually to this extent. This is a point of passion, and admitted guilt.
I actually plant some of the local tree species and try to find a place to move them once they have a start... The sad thing is the jerk of a neighbour who recently seems to have dumped poison on all of that ~ just about everything in the strip this side of his fence ~ DEAD!!! That includes trees, all native species, oaks included... So, I'm a bit primed and your little comment set me off... What pleasure did that jerk get from killing off all our plants? He has done it at least once before.
So, I'm in an overly sensitive state, and I was getting some pleasure out of CP's passion for a new strum... Then I read your bit ~ and the trees got the better of me...
Better that than me wreaking revenge on the miserable old git nextdoor, eh?
# Posted on July 19th 2008 by ceolachan
Re: Rosewood v Maple
Sorry to hear about your garden, C. And I admit that I should have checked my facts a bit more fully before posting on redwood. It does seem however that some of the Dalbergia species used for instrument making are in serious decline, so it would probably be a good thing if makers could provide information on their wood sources, if indeed they know. It seems to me that this is a dodgy area, where tropical hardwoods are concerned, and we shouldn't turn a blind eye to it just because it's for instruments. It's sure, in the meantime, that maple is not a threatened species!
# Posted on July 20th 2008 by de Selby
Re: Rosewood v Maple
Even some maples de Selby, even some maples...
The Dalbergia species have mostly been destroyed by slash and burn, converting rainforests, or trying to, into cattle farms... Yes, some are processed and do make it into the timber trade, some become few become woodwinds, some few become strums, some even become floors. Most of the instrument makers I've known do care and will gladly tell you about their sources. Brazilian rosewoods are mostly what survives in stock, rather than recently cut. Other Dalbergias, like Nigre, are now being sustainably grown by some and those folks are among the suppliers of timber for the instrument trade. Without a value they would continue to be just tossed on to the scrub fire and burned with everything else. It's dense timber and damned hard to move from jungle to a major road and on to being processed, though there are tons of mini-mills doing that on site. Some of the largest selling portable mills are produced in North America.
One wood, snakewood, has actually been known to kill the people working it. Many of the Dalbergias have their own defense to being worked, causing skin and lung reactions... Many of those in the music trade are actively concerned about wood stocks and are actively working, politically and otherwise, to see these resources maintained sustainably. It isn't the instrument makers and musicians you should be worried about... I can only promise you that, for proof chase up your local instrument makers, ask them...
There is something quite unfair about suggesting that we all turn to maple for our needs, it being plentiful in 'THE WEST'. Ignoring the depletion and abuse of hardwoods elsewhere is not the answer. Cutting off all trade and confining it to our own supplies and suppliers is not the answer. Turning our backs on it and neglecting it will not reduce the loss of resources and natural habitat... If it has no value doesn't mean it will be left standing, more likely it will escalate the destruction of forests and jungles to replace them with something that might promise an income... In some areas crops are mixed, timber woods with coffee and/or pepper, for an example...
# Posted on July 20th 2008 by ceolachan
Re: Rosewood v Maple
Red (Adirondack) spruce was almost completely wiped out. It is only now coming back into useful grades and sizes for instrument making. The pernambuco most favoured for bows was completely wiped out being used for pallets shipping things from South America to "The West", Europe and elsewhere... IT was strong and had some spring in it, like any prized fiddle bow... The Pernambucos now used for bows are other species...
# Posted on July 20th 2008 by ceolachan
Re: Rosewood v Maple
Here is some advice from Friends of The Earth on buying tropical hardwood products. I don't see why UK and Ireland instrument makers using such woods can't do what is suggested in this document. They would then be in a position to prove to their clients, as far as possible, that there sources were clean.
http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/briefings/sust_trade_tropical_timber.html
"What you can do:
* Before purchasing or specifying the use of tropical hardwood products, ask the retailer or supplying company for written evidence that the timber was harvested from areas managed according to an agreed plan. Then send a copy of that evidence to the Tropical Rainforest Campaign at Friends of the Earth. We will check it out for you, and expose any companies making false claims."
# Posted on July 20th 2008 by de Selby
Re: Rosewood v Maple
"Please ~ let us value it highly and talk about it openly and strive to preserve both content and natural habitat... In some places it is already too late, there is literally no turning back..."
All this hand-wringing and breast-beating and anguish over the extinction of tree species is just self-indulgent sentimentalism.
I mean, what are you actually going to *do*, what practical action, to save trees and forests ?
It's not that it's already too late in some places. It's too late *everywhere*.
Tree species are adapted to very specific conditions. They need the right fungi in the soil, they need suitable rain fall, the right seasonal changes, the right insects for pollination, etc, etc.
Because of man-made global warming and climate change, trees and forests worldwide are having their environments altered, and it is happening much too fast for them to adapt.
So, huge losses of species and ecosystems are already inevitable, because of the excessive CO2 we have already put into the atmosphere, and the failure to take effective action to reduce emissions over the last several decades.
My point is, that everyone who uses fossil fuels is making matters worse. If someone wants to 'save the forests', then the first priority is to try and mitigate climate change by understanding the causes, and changing ASAP from dependence upon fossil fuels.
The problem is, that America, with a tiny percentage of the world population, use most of the resources and produce most of the emissions. And most of the other folks aspire to living as extravagantly as Americans.
And, as peak oil production seems to have been reached, oil becomes scarcer, more valuable, more profitable, and so capitalists and governments want to pump it faster and use it faster and bring on climate change faster...let alone turning to even dirtier energy sources, like coal and tar sands...
So, what chance of saving trees, if people aren't even bothered about avoiding the deaths of hundreds of millions of humans, including their own children and grand-children, as a result of desertification and sea-level rise and all the other catastrophes that climate change is causing, acidification of the oceans, loss of coral reefs, disappearance of glaciers that feed rivers, loss of the arctic ice, melting of the permafrost releasing methane, etc, etc, ?
All that most people seem to understand or care about is the cost, in money, of driving and flying.
# Posted on July 21st 2008 by wolfbird
Re: Rosewood v Maple
Ceolachan wrote, "The Pernambucos now used for bows are other species..."
Do you know what those other species are, and how do they differ from "traditional" pernambuco as far as fiddle bows are concerned?
The reason I ask is that one of my bows is at least 80 years old and not only very light and well-balanced but appears to have a high signal:noise ratio. To the player it doesn't sound particularly loud until you realise that the bow hiss level is quite low - which means there is more real sound for projection to the listener. I believe the bow must be genuine pernambuco.
Another wood bow, also "pernambuco" (I bought it from a very reputable dealer) is German and about 7 years old. This has a higher hiss level, but is otherwise fine to play.
Bows 3 and 4 are middle-range carbon-fibre (not big names) and are the ones I use for sessions - for obvious reasons. They're reasonably powerful, but compared with the wood bows they don't seem to project the high frequencies quite so well - which I suppose can be an advantage if you want to moderate an over-brilliant tone.
I think in the years to come, with the lack of suitable natural wood, and bearing in mind the wastage (up to 80%) in the making of the best wood bows, there will be a lot of technical development of carbon-fibre for bows - Arcus seem to be one of the leaders here - to bring them up to the same level, or even higher, than the best wood bows. I'm sure we're still only just a small distance into this development.
And then there is the development under way of carbon-fibre violins and cellos - see http://www.luisandclark.com/.
# Posted on July 21st 2008 by lazyhound
Re: Rosewood v Maple
You can replace pernambuco bows with synthetic manmade materials, but you can't replace the penguins or fix the climate once it has been wrecked
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1034590/The-baby-Antarctic-penguins-frozen-death-freak-rain-storms.html
# Posted on July 21st 2008 by wolfbird
Re: Rosewood v Maple
Wolfbird,
The fight to protect our environment is not to be given up so easily, and has to be fought on several levels. Greenhouse gas emissions is one huge problem. There is actually no technical way to put global warming into reverse (unless we could find a way to reforest the world's deserts, thereby creating a huge new carbon sink that could actually reduce atmospheric CO2 concentration, which has grown at an ever-increasing pace since the industrial revolution). However, just because we're up against the very big problem of climate change, doesn't mean we can turn a blind eye to the hit-and-run deforestation that is taking place in the humid tropics (hilch will only accelerate climate change, by the way). Logging companies are destoying hectares of virgin forest just for a few tree- including some of the ones that will be turned into instruments. That is my point here on this thread. I think the Friends of the Earth document I referred to earlier makes a lt of sense (unlike some of their stuff!). All the best,
# Posted on July 21st 2008 by de Selby
Re: Rosewood v Maple
I don't turn a blind eye to anything, de Selby. I just want people to understand the situation clearly.
Some twenty years ago, I got the first forest on the planet certified by the Forestry Stewardship Council/WWF/Soil Association, so I am acutely aware of the ongoing pillaging of the world's forests.
My point is, that anybody who thinks that using certified timber is going to 'save forests' is deluded. Climate change threatens all the worlds forests, tropical, temperate, and everything else that lives in them.
Some of the predictions expect that two thirds of all species on the planet will become extinct over the next half century or so, ( in the main because of climate change, but also because of many other human activities, for example the oceans being stripped of biomass). Compared with that holocaust, tree species suitable for musical instruments is a very minor detail.
I have spoken with hundreds of good people who want to do the right thing, love trees, want to protect and conserve woodlands, and so on. They generally believe that it's possible to help woodlands to survive. I wish it was true. For example, in the UK, or Europe more generally, the trees being effected by increased temperatures will want to migrate northward or to higher altitude, to follow the thermocline that they are adapted to. But that's impossible. Forests cannot extend their boundaries by dispersing seedlings on the north side, because of agricultural land, roads, cities, etc. And in any case, such natural migration is relatively slow, perhaps ten miles over twenty years maximum, not fast enough to cope with climate change.
What this means is that trees get increasingly stressed, subject to diseases and insect attack, and some species die. Some new invasive species may thrive in the changed climate, but, generally, the ecosystem gets radically changed. A natural forest isn't just a bunch of trees gathered together. It's a community which takes thousand of years to reach a complex balance of many thousands of different species. Nobody has anything near sufficient knowledge to recreate ancient woodland once it is gone.
My point was that, lamenting and despairing about the destruction of the world's forests is just a waste of time and nervous energy. If you actually care, do something ! Join the relevant organisations, write letters, send emails, busk in the street to raise funds, change your lifestyle to reduce emissions...
the Greenpeace campaigners and other NGOs trying to stop destruction of the Amazon forests are under constant death threat. Some people are willing to put their lives on the line because they care. Those brave people deserve support.
# Posted on July 22nd 2008 by wolfbird
Re: Rosewood v Maple
Your attitude, worlfbird, is a further negative effect of climate change... you think the fight is totally lost, so you don't think that realistic, feasible actions to prevent the loss of habitat and biodiversity are worthwhile. If you're right, then the planet is fecked. I prefer to remain optimistic, and not complacent.
# Posted on July 22nd 2008 by de Selby
Re: Rosewood v Maple
Not so, de Selby.
I do everything within my power to prevent loss of habitat and biodiversity. It's something I have been involved with for most of my life.
That's why I want as many people as possible to understand the situation as it is. I want people to *act*. Whining and complaining is pointless. Whether you are optimistic or complacent or happy or depressed is irrelevant. It's a practical matter.
It's getting your priorities right. There's no point in fixing a broken wrist if the injured person is dieing of thirst. You give them water first, don't you ? What's the point in trying to stop illegal logging and clearance of rainforest to plant palm oil for biofuel, or GM soya, or cattle for MacDonalds, and then to watch forests die anyway, because of climate change ?
Understand, de Selby, that buying certified wood, whilst a good thing, will not save the forests. They will vanish because of climate change.
If you want to save forests (and other ecosystems, and give humans a future), then it is necessary to understand global warming, why it is happening, and what the results will be.
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/index.html
http://chriscolose.wordpress.com/2007/12/18/the-scientific-basis-for-anthropogenic-climate-change/
# Posted on July 23rd 2008 by wolfbird