Scan 160
Researches into the early history of the violin family, 1883
10 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. Printed page 150. See the scan on archive.org.
1fantastical light way, better suited to a tavern or playhouse than a church."
3Christopher Simpson ("The Division-Violist," London, 1659) mentions the "quick and sprightly sound of the violin;" and Thomas Mace ("Musick's Monument," p. 246, London, 1676) recommends the use of the violin "on any extraordinary jolly and jocund consort-occasion." John Playford ("A Brief Introduction to the Art of Descart," p. 103, London, 1683) calls it "a cheerful and spritely instrument, much practised of late, some by book and some without." English musical authors of the seventeenth century call the ordinary violin the treble violin, and the violoncello the bass violin. They recommend the employment of frets for beginners in practising the violin. Thus, John Playford teaches: "For the more plain and easie understanding thereof, and stopping all notes in their right places and tune, it will be necessary that on the neck or fingerboard of your violin there be placed six frets, as is on the viol. This, though it be not usual, yet it is the best and easiest way for a beginner who has a bad ear; for by those frets he has a certain rule to direct and guide him to stop all the notes in exact tune, whereas those that learn without seldom have at first so good an ear to stop all notes in perfect tune."
5J. Playford gives the accordatura of the treble violin in fifths, as the violin is still tuned; and that of the tenor violin five tones lower, as the viola-di-braccio is still tuned. The notation for the bass violin, or violoncello, he gives likewise in fifths, but in a pitch which is a whole tone lower than the usual one, the highest string being, according to his notation, tuned in—
7instead of
9The accordatura in fifths, which is now the prevailing one on our stringed instruments played with a bow (excepting the double-bass), appears to have been first adopted on a three-stringed viol mentioned in some German musical works published in the beginning of the sixteenth century.
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