Books › Violin making, 1902 › scan 23
Scan 23
Violin making, 1902
8 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. Printed page 11. See the scan on archive.org.
1use, and that is, as I do now, I make the plate rigid, but free to vibrate, so as to allow those mysterious motions play, and I place my ear at one extremity whilst I scratch or scrape, or move the rosined bow over the other.
3With a similar result—the tone is not what I want, nor what it ought to be from a piece of really old, well grown wood. But mind, it does not follow that, given these conditions, the genuine thing would be what I want; but there would be more likelihood of its being so, and less annoyance in laying it aside as worthless, as I do this, selecting, for a second trial, a piece of what I call crabbed wood, known by a peculiar curl, and its very handsome and uncommon appearance.
5But before I test this, I must tell you that none but a workman of great skill would undertake to put it to use, as it is so "crabbed," so twisted in its fibre, that on the least carelessness of the artist, out flies a chip from where it should not, and a very delicate operation is resorted to in consequence to amend the blunder—insertion of a slip which must match the grain of the original every way, not only in flame, but even just as the flash of that fire falls in its movement when it becomes part of a violin.
7I have said earlier "I do not select handsome wood for its beauty, etc.," and the loveliness of this piece must not tempt me to sacrifice what I hold of more consequence, tone. But I should do so did I now choose it; for it is weak where it should be strong, and poor, flabby and wretched from the view of acoustics.
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