Bow & Bridge Violin and bow makers, as the old books printed them

Books › The varnishes of the Italian violin-makers of the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and their influence on tone;, 1904 › scan 50

Scan 50

The varnishes of the Italian violin-makers of the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and their influence on tone;, 1904

8 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.

1will now respond to the most delicate vibration; no impulse will be strong enough to cause individual motion among its fibres. The brilliancy of the tone produced will, of necessity, depend on the resistance which this elastic diaphragm offers to the vibrations which are communicated to it; for action and reaction are equal and opposite. This resistance will mainly depend on the physical attributes of the varnish with which the fibrous diaphragm is impregnated.
3Again, instead of saturating the paper so thoroughly as to cause perfect homogeneity, let it be supposed that the varnish is diluted, in order that the impregnation may be partial, not complete, so far as the ultimate constituents of the varnish (minus the vehicle) are concerned; the diaphragm will now vibrate, as when completely saturated, under the influence of a gentle impulse, but if the amplitude or repetition of the vibrations be carried beyond a certain point, the fibres now being only lightly agglutinated, an individual motion will be caused, as well as the combined one. This is, apparently, the effect intended to be described when an instrument is said to be overplayed.
5This latter supposed condition of the imaginary diaphragm represents roughly the finished, unvarnished violin. It will be easily conceived that, if the fibres of the wood be only lightly agglutinated, any long-continued vibration will have a tendency to cause increasing dislocation (a slipping of one fibre on the other)—individual motion instead of combined movement. This dislocation may be permanent or temporary.
7If the old instruments be carefully examined, it

The computer misreads some letters and numbers. Where a name matters to you, read the scan.