Scan 41
The Violin & Its Story: Or the History & Construction of the Violin, 1905
23 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1the "little fiddle" shows a decided advance in the scroll-like form of the peg-box, in the absence of frets from the finger-board, in the embryonic tail-piece, and in the bridge.
3The use of frets was in the early days regarded as a practical and very useful invention, and it was long before people were willing to dispense with it. The fact that by the use of frets perfectly tempered intervals could be produced, does not seem to have had so much weight as the other fact that frets enabled an unskilful player to get some near approach to tunefulness. Virdung's "little fiddle" certainly made some progress by dispensing with frets; though the absence of these very frets, which we regard as a good feature, was by this old writer looked on as a defect.
5Agricola's "Musica Instrumentalis," of which the first edition appeared in 1528; and the second, with scarcely any change, in 1542, shows no real advance on Virdung, and produces the same pictures. Agricola describes what he calls "three classes" of bowed instruments, which are, however, quite alike in the method of construction, and only differs as regards compass, number of strings, and tuning, as will be seen from the following list:—
7"The Great Fiddle.
8Diskant: F, a, d, g, c'.
9Ten. Alt: C, F, a, d, g.
10Bassus: G, C, F, a, d, g.
12"The other method with great or little fiddle, which only have four strings, which are thus tuned:—
13Diskant: G, c, f, a.
14Alt. Tenor: C, F, a, d.
15Bass: G, C, F, a.
17"Here follows the third way with the little fiddle, which has only three strings, tuned a fifth from each other:—
18Diskant: G, d, a.
19Alt. Tenor: C, G, d.
20Bass: F, C, G."
22* We give the list intact from Virdung.—Translator.
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