Violins
ViolinsViolins are bowed stringed instruments. They are the highest pitched member of the violin family. Other members of the violin family include the viola, cello, and double bass. The bow is a narrow, slightly incurved stick of Pernambuco about 75 cm (about 30 in) long, with a band of horsehair stretched from end to end of the bowstick. The violin has four strings tuned a fifth apart, to the notes g, d�, a�, e�.
The main parts of the violin are the front, also called the belly, top, or soundboard, usually made of spruce; the back, usually made maple. The front, back, and ribs are joined together to form a hollow sound box. The sound box contains the sound post, a thin, dowel-like stick of wood wedged inside underneath the right side of the bridge and connecting the front and back of the violin; and the bass-bar, a long strip of wood glued to the inside of the front under the left side of the bridge. The sound post and bass-bar are important for the transmission of sound, and they also give additional support to the construction. The strings are fastened to the tailpiece, rest on the bridge, are suspended over the fingerboard, and run to the pegbox, where they are attached to tuning pegs that can be turned to change the pitch of the string. The player makes different pitches by placing the left-hand fingers on the string and pressing against the fingerboard. The strings are set in vibration and produce sound when the player draws the bow across them at a right angle near the bridge.
Among the prized characteristics of the violin are its singing tone and its potential to play rapid, brilliant figurations as well as lyrical melodies. Violinists can also create special effects by means of the following techniques: pizzicato, plucking the strings; tremolo, moving the bow rapidly back and forth on a string; sul ponticello, playing with the bow extremely close to the bridge to produce a thin, glassy sound; col legno, playing with the wooden part of the bow instead of with the hair; harmonics, placing the fingers of the left hand lightly on certain points of the string to obtain a light, flutelike sound; and glissando, steadily gliding the left-hand fingers up and down along the string to produce an upward- or downward-sliding pitch.
The violin emerged in Italy in the early 1500s and seems to have evolved from two medieval bowed instruments�the fiddle, also called viele or fiedel, and the rebec�and from the Renaissance lira da braccio (a violinlike instrument with off-the-fingerboard drone strings). Also related, but not a direct ancestor, is the viol, a fretted, six-string instrument that appeared in Europe before the violin and existed side by side with it for about 200 years.
The earliest important violin makers were the northern Italians Gasparo da Sal� (1540-1609) and Giovanni Maggini (1579-c. 1630) from Brescia and Andrea Amati from Cremona. The craft of violin making...
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