Scan 109
The violin & its story : or the history & construction of the violin, 1905
8 lines. Read by computer on 29 September 2026. Printed page 93. See the scan on archive.org.
1prove this, stretch a string between two pieces of wood, and twang the string, when it will only yield a very thin, faded sort of sound—obviously because there is only the thin surface of the string itself to set the air waves in vibration. To impart power to the tone of the string, a sound-box, or resonance apparatus, is wanted, which is capable of receiving the vibrations from the string and giving them back to the air with much greater force, because coming from a much broader surface than that of the string itself. This sound-box or resonance apparatus (i.e., the body of the violin itself), not only sets in vibration a much larger body of air than the string can possibly do, but also helps to increase the power of tone by the vibrations of the body of air contained within it. Air itself, especially when confined within fixed walls, is so excellent a conductor of sound-producing vibrations, that it materially reinforces the sounding capacity of any body within which it is contained.
3The body of the violin, however, not merely increases the volume of the tone of the strings, but has a peculiar effect also upon the quality of the tone; and this fact calls for further discussion.
5The tone of the resonance body does not arise from the fact that as a whole it vibrates in unison with the string, or merely as an elastic body, for in that case a scale of equal quality throughout would be an impossibility; that tone depends upon the fact that every minute particle of which that resonance body consists is set in vibratory motion, which motion corresponds in vibration number with that of the string which passes on its vibrations to that body.
7The molecules of a sounding body move at every vibratory motion of the string, each in an infinitesimally small space, imparting such motion to each other, and each returning to it former position. The time necessary for these primitive vibrations is quite independent of the vibration of the string, and is conditioned only by the elasticity of the sounding body itself. These two elements—the vibrations of the air and the vibrations of
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