Books › The heart of music; the story of the violin, 1921 › scan 149
Scan 149
The heart of music; the story of the violin, 1921
6 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1The Troubadour's Fiddle
3crwth and fastened to the back. It was soon discovered that this simple device for mechanical precaution had increased the musical qualities of the crwth doubly and trebly. Sound-holes had existed for a long time in all stringed instruments, but their primitive form had been round cavities just under the strings, instead of curved slits to admit air and let out sound. Even this seems to have started not so much with a scientific desire to improve the instrument as a fantastic imagery involving the change from the hole shaped like the full moon to two shaped as crescents.
5The jongleurs and troubadours had forced the crwth, rebeck, viol, marine trumpet, and other bow instruments into such popularity that improvements upon the violin form were inevitable. There grew a greater and greater demand for resonance, and in order to please the public, the fiddle makers made larger, stronger instruments, until they were nearer violas and violoncellos than violins. With the increasing size of the instrument it became more and more difficult to reach the strings with the bow without lifting the bridge to an absurd distance. Therefore some clever fiddle maker made a waist for the instrument, curving the body in on either side, that the bow might be operated with ease upon each or all of
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