Books › Modern Violin-playing, 1920 › scan 67
Scan 67
Modern Violin-playing, 1920
15 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026, twice; the two readings disagreed in places. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1In other words, the direction in which the power is applied is always altering. The nearer we get to the nut (in the bow-stroke), the shorter becomes our imaginary line B C: and the further we get from the nut, the longer it becomes. Consequently, when it is at its shortest—that is to say, when we are playing at the nut—we may expect a good deal of roughness; and when it is at its longest—that is to say, when we are playing at the tip—we can not look for much force.¹
3Furthermore, the tone-quality that is produced by the exertion of this pressure is bad. The string has a tendency to hop under the hair. And it is able to do this because the pressure-plane does not coincide with the plane of movement.
5 one of two readings
6 one of two readings
8Fig. 14
10Glance at Fig. 14. The little circle in the middle represents a segment of the string. If you hold the page up in front of you, the string may be supposed to run directly through this circle to your eye. The "plane of movement" gives you the line-of-travel of the horsehair. The "plane of pressure" pivots, as it were, on the string, continually altering its angle of incidence. So that you will have no difficulty in seeing why the string is inclined to respond with a hopping movement, such as may be observed in a loose string.
12There are other reasons why this application of pressure is undesirable. It increases the tension of the string, and actually raises its pitch. It restricts the vibrating wave-length of the string, and therefore lessens the carrying-power of the tone. The material of the violin too must be considered. If the bridge and the sound-post have been fitted to give the instrument its best chances of resonance and easy speech, it stands to reason that all this added pressure must be a hin-
14¹ For the mediæval attempts to construct a mechanically-bowed stringed instrument—that is to say, the organistrum, which was the ancestor of the hurdy-gurdy—see Orchestration (Forsyth) pp. 295–96. The point is of special interest here, because of the method by which the pressure was applied to the strings.
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