squirrelslinger wrote on Apr 5^th, 2013 at 10:41pm:

    Actually, for making musical instruments the more dense and hard to carve the better.  The more dense the wood the better the resonance.  I read an article a few years ago in either National Geographic or Smithsonian.  It was about people making a fortune going out on the Great Lakes and pulling up old original growth logs that were cut by the first loggers.  A certain percentage of the logs in any operation end up at the bottom.  Because the Great Lakes are so deep and cold the logs that sunk four hundred years ago are still in great shape.  What makes these logs unique is that the original growth trees were many hundreds of feet tall.  Not much sunlight got through the canopy in ancient times so those huge trees grew very, very slowly.  That means very small growth rings and a very tight grain.  Musical instrument makers, particularly violin makers, are paying a fortune for this wood.  It makes musical instruments that sound sweeter than anything made with today's wood.  So anyway, yes, hard, dense wood is what you want.  That was Rat Man's fun fact for the day.

I have Russian Olives (Eleagnus angustifolia) on my place. I have no idea if the wood is good for anything or not. They're actually considered a noxious weed here.