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

Books › The Violin: A concise exposition of the general principles of construction.., 1871 › scan 81

Scan 81

The Violin: A concise exposition of the general principles of construction.., 1871

4 lines. Read by computer on 28 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.

1such as may be in perfect unison with one of its sounds. Thus, if we have an organ pipe giving the sound C, and a tuning-fork exactly in unison with it, the pipe can be made to sound by simply holding the vibrating fork near its mouth, but no such effect is observed if the fork gives any other sound than that of the pipe itself. This phenomenon is called resonance. Now, Savart states in the article referred to above, that if the vibrating column of air is gradually reduced in length and increased in diameter, this power of resonance is no longer confined to sounds exactly in unison with the mass of air itself; but if the diameter be considerable in comparison with the length of the column, almost any sound within certain limits will be reinforced to a greater or lesser extent.
3This power of reinforcing a number of sounds, increases as the diameter increases in proportion to the length, and the mass of air in a Violin may be regarded as such a column whose diameter greatly exceeds its length. There appears, therefore, to be good reason for obtaining the requisite mass of air in an instrument by lateral expansion rather than by increasing the height of sides or the arching of the back and belly, and a scientific explanation is at once given of the causes that led Stradivarius to extend his model at the same time that he reduced the arching of his instruments. Savart's explanation why there should be a tone of difference between the two tables appears somewhat doubtful. He alleges that a nearer approach to unison would cause beats, but this accords very imperfectly with his previous statement, that within certain limits, whatever be the sound of the

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