Books › The Violin: A concise exposition of the general principles of construction.., 1871 › scan 60
Scan 60
The Violin: A concise exposition of the general principles of construction.., 1871
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1was to have recourse to direct experiment. It was necessary to study the best violins, to dissect them, and examine all their parts. We have dissected several Stradivarius and Guarnerius violins of great value, and we have determined directly the sounds of the two tables. To obtain these sounds, we clamp the tables at a point where two nodal lines cross one another, the one transversal and the other longitudinal, so that the elasticity of the wood in both directions, is called into play. The nodal system being the same on each plate, we find a tone difference; nearer to the unison we shall have beats, more than a tone difference, the difficulty the plates have in vibrating in unison increases.
3Thus we must consider as positive that a good violin must satisfy these two conditions, to have the tables such that they give sounds a tone apart, and a mass of air giving, by blowing in at one of the f holes the do b, or the do of the fourth string, 512 vibrations per second, in round and exact numbers, the other dimensions being the same as those of Stradivarius. For the nodal division indicated, we find that in the good violins the sound varied between do ♯3 and re ♯3, for the belly and for the back between re ♯3 and re ♯3, so that there is always a semitone, or a tone difference between the two.*
5* A strange but very vital error appears to have crept into the work of Fetis upon Stradivarius, translated by Mr. Bishop, where speaking of the experiments made conjointly by Savart and Vuillaume upon the instruments of Stradivarius and Guarnerius, he states that the back was a tone lower than the belly, whereas we find, from his own lectures, that the contrary is the case.—See Anthony Stradivari. By F. J. Fetis. P. 83.—(Author.)
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