Scan 18
The Violin & Its Story: Or the History & Construction of the Violin, 1905
8 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1and in the second place it is hardly necessary to deal separately with the other bowed instruments—the Viola, the 'Cello, and the Double Bass, which with the violin constitute the foundation of the orchestra, seeing that they only differ from the violin in size, and not necessarily in form, while the principles on which they are built are precisely the same as those which govern the construction of the violin.
3The primordial savage was wont to stretch a piece of dried gut over a big shell or hollowed-out calabash for a "sound-box," or to fasten a piece of similar gut to the end of a bent stick, one end of which he would put in his mouth while he twanged the string with his finger, thus making a sound out of which it must be supposed he got a little "musical" enjoyment. What a vast gulf between these primitive attempts and the perfect violins of the Cremonese artists Stradivarius and Guarnerius! And yet it is with these self-same primitive efforts that the long history of the construction of stringed instruments must begin. Between these attempts, totally lacking in knowledge of science or of art, and the perfect works of the master artificers of the violin, there stretches a wide chasm, and the materials for filling up that chasm are but scant. If we attempt, from such sources as are available, to fill it up to some extent, the reader must be left to decide how far success has rewarded our efforts.
5To arrive at any conclusion on the question of the genesis of bowed instruments, it will be necessary to give some attention to the cultivated peoples of bygone ages. It is the custom nowadays to speak of the Greeks and Romans as having possessed no instruments similar to our own stringed instruments, although a belief in the existence of the Mágadis has long been held.* This Mágadis was fitted with twenty strings tuned in octaves. J. B. Doni says it resembled the "Viola di Bordune," which was also called the "Lirone," which was in use in Italy in the sixteenth century, was fitted with eleven or twelve strings, and on which arpeggi were played with
7* Mágadis, a harp of twenty strings.
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