Books › Old violins, 1905 › scan 177
Scan 177
Old violins, 1905
6 lines. Read by computer on 27 September 2026. Printed page 159. See the scan on archive.org.
1stretched "E" lengths in your case. If you are a soloist this will save you some annoyance and delay should your "E" string go in the middle of a performance.
3So far, then, and no further, need I discuss violin strings; but there are two other violin adjuncts not important enough to call for a separate chapter. I allude to the mute and the chin-rest. The mute is occasionally fixed on the bridge to give the sound that singular faint far-off twang like the whisper of a ghostly violin. The mute has the singular property of making the violin abnormally sensitive for the time. The mute is made of wood, metal, or vulcanite; personally, I much prefer the metal mute—it does the business more thoroughly. It is not a good practice to use the mute habitually while practising to subdue the sound. The violin really resents the use of the mute at all, but will put up with it for a short time (just as a good horse will not resent a spur or a bearing-rein in moderation). For a minute or two after the removal of the mute the violin does not quite recover its tone; some of the particles in its wood have been exposed to a different or eccentric vibration by the dominating mute, and the full tonal vibration is not immediately recoverable. It is as though you had put a man in boots with leaden soles for a time, and then suddenly freed him; he would not at once regain his full suppleness of movement.
5Quite within the last thirty years the cult of chin-rests has become almost universal. When I was a boy people held the violin honestly under their chins, and
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