Books › The Violin: How to Master It, 1880 › scan 19
Scan 19
The Violin: How to Master It, 1880
10 lines. Read by computer on 18 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1of instrument is chosen, provided it is not loud and harsh in tone, or high in price. But from the first the student ought to know something of the nature of the instrument, so that he may not expend $15.00 on one worth $3.00. I may therefore state that a German violin costing from $3.00 to $25.00 is quite good enough for a first instrument. The cheapest house I know of for these instruments is that of Elias Howe, 88 Court St., Boston. This firm imports direct in large quantities, and may be relied upon to give genuine value, and to faithfully select an instrument according to order.
3Testing a Violin.
5The student should early accustom himself to note the appearances of all kinds of instruments, the curving of the ff holes, the varnish with which they are covered, and, above all, the tone they produce on every string and in every position. A good violin should be equal on every string, and free and responsive on the shift. A common fault is that the violin has a dreadfully loud and noisy fourth string, and a feeble and thin-toned third; or they may be good on the first and second, and thin and shallow-toned on the third and fourth. If the note G on the third string is good and full, the violin will generally be equal on all the strings. Bb on the second string and A# on the third are generally poor notes, no matter how good or valuable the violin. Only an experienced player can test and select a good instrument; he alone can play on every string and position; he alone knows how to search for and unerringly detect faults on the various strings; and he alone has an ear so trained to varieties and qualities of tone as to be an authority upon which the novice may rely more safely and implicitly than upon the dealer, who is generally more ignorant in this respect than the merest tyro of a buyer.
7Amber Varnish.
9Matthew Hardie, one of the Scotch makers, used a kind of amber varnish, but it had neither the deep rich color, transparency, beauty, nor tone of the Cremona varnish. Thomas Hardie, son of this maker, used the same varnish, but made instruments very much inferior; indeed, these two makers contrasted are a clear and convincing proof that the tone of a
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