Books › Ayars, Contributions to the Art of Music in America by the Music Industries of Boston (1937) — the Squier, Farley, Rettberg, Rockwell and Elias Howe matter, 1937 › scan 227
Scan 227
Ayars, Contributions to the Art of Music in America by the Music Industries of Boston (1937) — the Squier, Farley, Rettberg, Rockwell and Elias Howe matter, 1937
11 lines. Read by computer on 23 September 2026. Printed page 201. See the scan on archive.org.
1In addition to master makers there have also been experimenters in Boston who have tried to improve the violin. Such things as filling a glass-backed violin with smoke or sand and playing on it to see the effect of different notes, boring and filling small drilled holes to try to give the effect of an old worm-eaten violin of good tone, have been done.
3Emile Berliner 28 patented a contrivance in which the bridge, on which the strings rested, came up through an opening. At the end of this device below the bridge were the holes into which the knotted strings fitted. His idea was to magnetize the strings by some contrivance inside the violin. He was not a violin maker, so he had his models made by Maurice White, an expert maker, according to his designs, which did away with the tail piece and produced peculiar vibrations. He had a wonderful inventive genius, nevertheless, for it was he who invented and sold to the Victor Co. the phonograph disk. He also had the original of the familiar picture, "His Master's Voice," painted in Europe. 29
5In the matter of violin string manufacturing Boston has contributed two notable improvements through the genius of Hugo Schindler. 30 He was the "Father" of the aluminum wound "D" string, used for greater power as early as 1900 by Carl Ondrydzeck of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. This has gradually replaced the gut "D" string on 60 per cent of the violins around Boston. [address hidden] of the insistent urging of Charles Martin Loeffler, Mr. Schindler also developed the 14 karat (or better) gold "G" string. This was used first by Mr. Loeffler and later by Fritz Kreisler. Other dealers made cheaper gold strings, using only 10 or even 8 karat gold and the other parts base metal. These did not wind as well because of the stiffer material, nor did they give the quicker vibrations and particularly the purer tone of the 14 karat gold. In fact the tone was not as good as that of the pure silver wound strings generally used now instead. So the idea of the gold "G" string fell into disrepute and was given up generally.
728 E. Berliner, located at [address hidden] in 1879, and at [address hidden] 1880-84.
829 Statements of A. J. Oettinger.
930 For further information about H. Schindler & Co. see pp. 264-5.
1031 Statement of Hugo Schindler.
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