Books › The violin : how to choose one, 1893 › scan 74
Scan 74
The violin : how to choose one, 1893
8 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. Printed page 70. See the scan on archive.org.
1No. 11 is D, thus—
3They are all like pointers for the others. Let the violin maker now start to work with the edges fairly thick; the notes will make him thin them—how much they (the notes) will tell him. The lower notes are governed by the centre; the upper (or bottom end) by the edges, and this is really the only certain way to measure a violin so as to know what sort of tone it is to have when finished. The man who knows the finger-board a little has a great advantage; the man who does not must get a chromatic pitch pipe. With the sides of the pipe in sympathy with the mass of air, here are the notes of a Guarnerius' copy, made by John Lott—G sharp, D, D above B flat (not as a chord), C, B flat, C, F sharp, C sharp, A above D (not as a chord), E, A, and C, thus—
5The sides or ribs, fastened to the back, give these notes—D above D (not as a chord, but produced at the same place by different pressure of the bow), B, D, G, G sharp, thus—
7I do not believe that we have yet heard the best tone which a violin can produce, because the best of the Cremonas are only patched up in a way and re-adjusted to suit our modern pitch and modern music. The enlarging of the bass bar is a clumsy expedient. The real remedy must be applied in a new violin
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