Books › On the Function of the Sound-Post and on the Proportional Thickness of the Strings of the Violin, 1883 › scan 2
Scan 2
On the Function of the Sound-Post and on the Proportional Thickness of the Strings of the Violin, 1883
14 lines. Read by computer on 18 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1powerfully felt where the sound-post rests, which is at nearly the thickest part of the back. These effects were very satisfactorily observed on a violoncello, where the phenomena are on a larger scale.
3When the sound-post was removed from the violin, the large difference of the amount of vibration on the two sides of the belly was no longer present, the belly was about equally strongly agitated on both sides, making allowance for the string which was bowed. The tone became very poor and thin, as is well known to be the case when the sound-post is removed. The vibration of the back was now very feeble, as compared with its vibration when the sound-post was present, a circumstance in favour of the view that the sound-post conveys vibrations to the back.
5A clamp of wood was prepared which could be so placed on the violin, as to connect by an arch of wood outside the violin the place of the belly behind the bridge where the top of the sound-post presses, with the place of the back where it rests. It was expected that the wooden arch would restore to some extent the connexion of belly and back which was broken by the removal of the post, and carry, though imperfectly, vibrations from the upper plate to the back.
7When this clamp was put on, the poor and thin sound was altered to the fuller character of tone which belongs to the violin when the sound-post is in its place. On testing the condition of the back its normal state of vibration was found to be in a large degree restored. If, while the strings were being bowed, the clamp was suddenly removed, the tone at the same moment fell to its poor character, and the vibration of the back as instantly diminished.
9It was further observed that if the upper part of the clamp pressed upon the belly without the lower part coming into contact with the back, the tone was altered in the same direction as when the sound-post was present, but it was not until the lower part of the clamp was in contact with the back that the normal character of the tone was fully restored. A similar effect to that resulting from the pressing of one end of the clamp only was produced by firmly placing one end of a wooden rod at this part of the belly. This effect may be due to the setting-up in the belly, by pressure at this part, of the peculiar nodal arrangement which the post produces when in its place.*
11* According to Daguin some similar experiments were made by Savart, but I have failed to find them in those of his papers to which I have had access.
13"On peut la (l'âme) mettre en dehors, en l'appuyant à une espèce d'arcade dont on colle les pieds de chaque côté du violin. . . . . On peut la remplacer par la pression d'un poids convenable appuyé sur la table supérieure." "Savart a conclu de là que l'âme a pour effet de rendre normales les vibrations de la table. . . . ." "Traité de Physique," tome I, p. 575.
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