Books › Old violins, 1905 › scan 233
Scan 233
Old violins, 1905
8 lines. Read by computer on 27 September 2026. Printed page 211. See the scan on archive.org.
1may be quite as much responsible for your imperfect fifths as an old channelled finger-board. Use plenty of rosin, and let the string be seasoned with it right up to the bridge, but not much, if at all, below the top of the finger-board. The rosin must be well rubbed in before you attempt solo work, as any excess of what I may call raw undigested powder will produce a most vile screeching.
3The tone of a fine violinist never reminds you of the cat-gut and rosin. In the pure disembodied tone of Piatti, Joachim, or Sarasate we entirely lose the sense of all beggarly elements; they have suffered a change into "something rare and strange."
5The rough-and-ready way of testing false strings by setting them in vibration, holding by each end, and twitching till the double line is seen, and if a third line appears condemning the string as false, is a method often, not always, reliable. You can never be quite sure till you have put the string on. If false, you may get a true length out of it by trying another part; but, as a rule, if one length of a string is false, it is bad all through. A player, especially a soloist, should always have a length or two of stretched and tested firsts in his case, or, better still, in his waistcoat pocket, before he goes on the platform, unless he can ensure the presence of a second reliable instrument at hand in case of a sudden breakage.
7Strings have every kind of vice short of downright falseness. You need not put up with wheezy or dull, or any sort of impure vibration, and beware of
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