Books › The heart of music; the story of the violin, 1921 › scan 162
Scan 162
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.
1violin, instruments that were, perhaps, produced in the same year, with much the same shape, and many other corresponding likenesses, must delight even the cursory student of so elusive and evanescent a subject.
3Of course we are immensely helped by the fact that "violin" is a contraction or corruption of "violino" or "little viol." Yet this is far from being as conclusive as would seem certain on the face of it. Many viols are small and delicate in tone. Nor are the number of strings an unfailing guide. To be sure, most viols have five, six, or seven strings, but some have four; many very primitive instruments, like lyres and developed monochords and tamboura, have three and four strings. Nor does the tuning help much. The majority of viols were tuned in thirds and fourths; but that some of them must have been tuned in fifths, like modern violins, is indicated by the fact that this was true of the crwth and many much more elementary instruments.
5Experts, authorities, and the unescapable connoisseur could doubtless give you a dozen or twenty points of departure. I am personally interested in none of them. The very uncertainty delights me, and the conviction that the difference between a viol and a violin is something psychical,
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