Books › Old violins and violin lore, 1900 › scan 31
Scan 31
Old violins and violin lore, 1900
12 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1OLD VIOLINS
3any other of its appendages. It is so squeezed upon the wood as to be almost pressed into it, far more so than the finger-board or the tailpiece, or even the blocks and linings. It is charged with the primary vibrations from the strings and the secondary vibrations of the belly, ribs, and back; nothing goes on in that wondrous air column enclosed in the violin walls without the bridge taking cognisance of it, and possibly hindering or aiding and abetting its successful exit from the sound-holes.
5I am aware that I have been thought fanciful in this matter, but an experience of many years has convinced me that it is not easy to get a bridge that suits a violin perfectly, and most dangerous to trifle with the close and quasi marital relations which exist between the violin and its bridge. I dislike new bridges. I love old ones; and why, when all the rest happens to be old, is the bridge alone to bring the raw sap of youth to vex the mellow and desiccated repose of melodious age?
7The position of your bridge, like that of your sound-post, the adjusting of your screws, the thickness of your strings, belongs rather to the management than to the constitution of the violin.
9The only further details fit to be noted here seem to be the button supporting the tailpiece, which has a character of its own, in its size, material, and fixture; and the far less important tailpiece, to which we may add the purfling and other occasional inlaying.
11The TAILPIECE, of course, is strictly indispensable,
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