Books › The violin and its music, 1881 › scan 37
Scan 37
The violin and its music, 1881
4 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. Printed page 17. See the scan on archive.org.
1The fretted Geige serving well for the rendering of acute sounds, and giving them in quick succession, the extreme of these qualities would be next sought for rather than attempting to discover a contrivance fitted to produce intermediate sounds. To attain this object, it would appear only necessary to apply frets and extra strings to the monochord, and render its form suitable for carrying additional strings. Judging from the earlier drawings of the Chelys, it seems to have had a flat bridge, thus causing the bow to strike all the strings together. As the knowledge of bowed instruments increased, the disadvantage of this arrangement would naturally present itself, and the curvature of the bridge be introduced to correct it. The arching of the bridge brought about a radical change in the shape of the body of the instrument, which was the introduction of the centre curves or middle bouts, without which the bow could not have command of the outer strings. These centre curves which were introduced from necessity, gave rise to others in the earlier stages of re-formation, for the sake of ornament, and by these successive steps, the box-like bowed instruments of early days became the curved and graceful Viols of the sixteenth century.
3Though the primitive German Geige is here represented as having formed the basis of Viol development, it is not intended to convey the idea that its independence was sacrificed to the Viol. On the contrary, the Geige undoubtedly held its course
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