VIOLIN, a stringed musical instrument played with a bow. It is illustrated in Fig. 7 of Plate XI, Musical instrument making, Second Section. [1] This instrument, like all others of its kind, is made of two arched plates, as can be seen in Fig. 7 . The lower plate is usually made of beech, and consists of two pieces glued together corresponding to the width of the instrument. The upper plate, on which stands the bridge that supports the strings, is made of spruce or cedar, like the soundboards of harpsichords. The two plates are joined together by the wooden strips a b , b c d , d e f , known as ribs , the width of which determine the thickness of the instrument-body. These ribs are made of beech. When cutting the upper plate, a block a  [2] is fitted to the inside of its upper part. This block is sometimes a piece of wood glued and pinned at this location. It acts as a shoulder and support for the heel a of the neck a A , which is made of three parts. The first part is the neck proper, which runs from a to L . The second part is the pegbox L A , which is an integral part of the neck and which is hollowed out to allow the insertion of the strings, which are then wound around the pegs 1, 2, 3, 4. This pegbox, in which the pegs are held in place by friction, is furnished in its upper part A with a carved scroll, sometimes taking the form of a human- or animal-head, though this is entirely dependent upon the whim of the instrument maker, as features of this kind do not improve the sound-quality of the instrument. The third part of the neck is the fingerboard B k , which is glued onto the neck and is usually made of ebony or ebonised wood. It is on the fingerboard that the performer presses the strings to change their length. This is done between the bridge D and the ivory nut B when the performer plays on open strings, and only from this same bridge as far as the place on the fingerboard where the strings are held in position by the finger when the performer is playing on stopped strings. Violins are also pierced by two holes i I , the shape of which can also be seen in Fig. 7 of Plate XI . These apertures are made to allow the passage not only of the sounds created by the vibrations of the strings but also by those caused by the vibrations of the top plate. They are called f-holes because they take the form of the letter f , unlike those of the viola da gamba, the bass, etc., which are shaped like the letter C .

To make a violin , after gluing together the two pieces that will serve to form the top plate and then cutting them with a turning-saw according to one or other of the patterns A B in Figs. 11-15 of Plate XII, the top plate is laid onto the device shown in Fig. 34 of Plate XIII , [3] which is a hollowing-jig known as a creusoir , [4] onto which it is secured by means of the two screws and their nuts a m . After the plate has been thus secured and the hollowing-jig is seated firmly on the workbench, the plate is then hollowed out at the maker’s discretion, sparing however the part that will be supporting the heel of the neck. The other side of the same plate is then dealt with after laying it on the board shown in the illustration Fig. 34 . The procedure is then repeated for the plate made of spruce, which is to serve as the instrument’s soundboard, taking care to hollow it out more in the middle and to reduce it to about three-quarters of a ligne  [5] in thickness depending on the size of the instrument and the quality of the wood, for some grades of wood have better sound-production qualities than others.

To hollow out the plates use is made of iron or copper planes A B C as shown in Figs. 18, 19 and 20 of Plate XII , some of which, such as B , are toothed-planes.  [6] These planes, which are used to hollow out curved surfaces, have convex soles, with the plane-iron being stopped by a wedge D [Fig. 19] located between the plane-iron and a cross-pin. The toothed-plane is used first and then the thumb-plane. The finish is then applied using steel scrapers, which are steel strips sharpened to a beveled edge on an oilstone. Calipers, as shown in Fig. 36 of Plate XIII , are used to check the thickness of the plate. The calipers are so constructed that when the two points d encompass the thickness of the plate the two other points e leave between them a space equal to the thickness that the calipers are encompassing with the other points.

After the plates have been finished, a mold of a suitable size is selected. The mold is a piece of wood cut to the same shape as the instrument, or a carcass, like that in Fig. 13 . When the mold is made from a single piece of wood it is lightened by cutting large mortises into it. This operation removes any superfluous bulk, and is a procedure that can be dispensed with when the mold is in separate pieces for assembly, irrespective of which of the two molds depicted in Figs. 11 and 12 is selected. The molds must be so constructed that there are six cutouts a a, b b, c d [Fig. 12] on their circumference. These cutouts accommodate the blocks to which the ribs are glued. The four cutouts a a b b accommodate the blocks of the rib-corners, while cutout c serves the same purpose for the tailpin to which the tailpiece is attached. Cutout d accommodates the block that supports the heel of the neck. After the blocks have been put into position the ribs are glued on top of them. The ribs must follow the contours of the mold and must have the same width. Violin ribs are in four pieces, namely two for the concave parts x x [Fig. 13] , which allow the bow to pass; another piece x d x , which surrounds the top of the body; and finally the piece x c b , which surrounds the bottom of that body. The ribs are hammered to make them pliable and are then joined onto the mold. After the ribs have been glued onto the blocks and the glue has dried the mold is removed, and the ribs, now fully assembled, are glued to the lower plate, on which they are held in position by bench-screws or cramp-irons, as shown in Figs. 37 to 41 inclusive , which are tightened with the nuts or screws. If bench-screws as shown in Fig. 41 are being used then, after the workpiece has been placed between the jaws, the screw-shoulder A should be seated beneath the lower plate while the bolt-edge B is placed against the relevant area of the ribs. By this means the latter is pressed against the plate and then left in this position until the glue has dried. The upper plate is then prepared. Its f-holes must be pierced before it is glued. To pierce the f-holes the punches shown in Fig. 45 and 46 of Plate XIII are used. The punch is a cutting-iron, round in shape to produce a circular impression. It is applied to the instrument through the round hole 1 2,  [7] which is located at the extremities of the f-hole of the patterns for violins and of the C-hole of the patterns for the viola da gamba ( see Figs. 2 and 1 respectively of Plate XI ). It is applied to the soundboard of the instrument in such a way that the opening on the pattern is located directly opposite the place where these f-holes (or C-holes) should be. The punch is inserted into this hole on the soundboard and then turned with the wrist C D [Fig. 44] until the hole has been pierced and the piece removed. After the circular holes have been pierced and the f-hole (or C-hole) has been traced out on the soundboard, a small saw such as a keyhole-saw is used to make a slit running from one of the holes to the other, following the outline of the f (or C). This slit is then enlarged with the small knives F until the outline of the f-hole (or C-hole) has been finished.

On some instruments, once the f-holes have been pierced and trimmed, a double fillet is traced all around them consisting of two lines approximately half a ligne apart to form a border for these apertures. The tool used to draw these fillets, which are subsequently ebonised, is called a purfling-cutter . It is illustrated in Fig. 42 of Plate XIII .

In Figure 42 , a is the two-pronged iron for tracing out the two lines, b is the guide which follows the interior contour of the f-holes while the two points trace out the fillets, and c and d are two screws, the first of which c holds the guide b and the second of which d holds the two-pronged burin a in the housing e. This housing e is connected by the ferrule G to the handle F by which the instrument is held.

Instrument-makers also use another kind of purfling-cutter, shown in Fig. 44 , to trace out the fillets which run around the whole instrument and which follow the direction of the ribs. A and B is the shank of this tool and is made of iron. The shank is pierced with a square hole though which passes the burin D E , which has one or more points depending on the number of fillets with which the instrument is to be surrounded. The burin is held fast in its hole by the screws C. The rectangular piece g F G serves as the guide, its arm G being set at the desired distance from the point E of the burin by turning the screws g F . This tool is used like a marking-gauge, and is indeed a member of that family of instruments. After the plate has been prepared as explained above and before the fillets are traced around it, it is glued onto the ribs directly opposite the countermold, with which, thanks to the glue, it should form a single body; this explains why the ribs must be fitted precisely to the interior face of this countermold, which must also be glued onto the blocks. Until the glue has dried this plate is held in place on the ribs with cramp-irons and screw-clamps, as with the first plate. Both the plates and ribs of the instrument-body are then polished with the scrapers or rakers we have already mentioned and with dogfish [shark] skin. [8] When the entire body has been finished in this way the neck is glued by its heel onto the upper block d [Figures 12 and 13] to which it must be firmly attached. To the lower block c an ivory or ebony tailpin is glued after making a hole there to receive the tailgut of this tailpin which serves to attach it to the tailpiece h [Fig. 7 of Plate XI] to which the strings are attached. Onto the neck is glued the fingerboard B k [Fig. 7] which is made of ebony or some other dark hardwood, and which must be slightly longer than the interval B D between the nut B and the bridge D . This fingerboard must not under any circumstances touch the body of the instrument in the section a k , but must be approximately one-third of an inch distant from it, and must be slightly convex on the upper surface and slightly concave on the lower one, but only in the part located directly opposite the body and the plate underneath it in the section a B where it it fitted and glued onto the neck. The part A B of the neck, which has a slight backward slope, is called the pegbox . It is crossed by four pegs 1 2 3 4 . These pegs have a hole in the part that crosses the pegbox into which the string is inserted so that it can be held firmly when winding around the peg when the latter is turned to tighten the string. The string is attached at the other end to the tailpiece h by means of a ring or loop which passes through one of the holes of this piece and is tightened on the bridge D and at the nut B . The two latter parts have small grooves to accommodate the strings to stop them slipping off. The bridge is a flat piece of wood forming a portion of a circle, with two feet underneath it which rest on the soundboard. The middle of the bridge is open-worked to suit the maker’s taste. The violin is fitted with four gut strings, the thinnest of which, tightened by the peg 1 , is called the chanterelle or E-string ; [9] the second, tightened by peg 2 , is the A-string ; the third is the D-string ; and the fourth, which is the thickest of all, is the G-string , otherwise known as the bass due to the weightiness of its tones. These last two strings, which are tightened by the pegs 3 4 , are wound with silver or copper and are therefore known as wound strings . They are gut strings surrounded throughout their entire length by very thin silver wire or silvered copper wire which is coiled around the string along its entire length in such a way that the string is completely covered. To cover strings with silver or copper wire in this way instrument-makers use a spooling-wheel L K (Fig. 33 of Plate XIII) to turn upon itself the string A B , which is attached at one end to swivel C , see Swivel, which is itself attached to a piece of packthread which passes over the pulley B attached to the wall, at the end of which is attached the weight D . The other end of the string is attached to a beamhook A , the beam of which crosses a pulley on which the endless cord A P L Q passes. The endless cord also passes onto the wheel P L K , which is turned with the crank L , by means of which the pulley A is turned, which then transfers its motion to the string A C . If some silver wire is now attached to the string at swivel C it will be wound around this string as the latter turns upon itself, just as one might imagine it being wound around a cylinder. The wire is guided over the whole length of the string with a damp sponge held in the left hand E so that it does not repeatedly redouble upon itself. The right hand F is used to guide the wire, which is passed through the circle formed by the index finger and the thumb. G is the bobbin around which the silver wire is wound. The bobbin can turn freely around the peg fixed in the upright A of the spooling-machine which is at right-angles to it. H is a tray containing the various assortments of silver wire, copper wire or gut strings to be used in the work. The rest of the machine is easy to understand. It consists of a bench with wooden edges to stop whatever is put onto it from falling off, in which stand the side-posts N which keep the wheel of the spooling-machine in position and the upright A which supports the pulley, to the beam of which the string is attached. These three pieces, namely the two side-posts N and the upright A , are held secure underneath the bench by three chocks set at right-angles to them.

The bow with which the strings of this instrument are sounded consists of a stick A C (Fig. 8 of Plate II) which is slightly curved at point A to maintain a distance between the bow-hairs and the bow-stick, which latter is made of some hard wood, usually China wood [10] (although any other kind of wood with the necessary resilience is also suitable) and a ribbon of hairs A B consisting of 80 or 100 horsehairs, all under equal tension, and all inserted into the mortise of the tip A by means of a small wedge which prevents any protrusion of the ends of the hairs, which are wrapped together with silk. These hairs are inserted into a similar mortise at the lower end of the bow-stick. The piece of wood B , which is called the frog [ hausse ] because it lifts [ hausse ] the horsehairs away from the stick or shaft of the bow, communicates by means of a screw-threaded tenon which passes through a screw-mortise of which the piece of ivory D is the head, which mortise enters the bow-stick to a depth of 4 or 5 inches. This screw is used to move the frog B towards A or D to either reduce or increase the tension of the bow-hairs.

To play the violin , which is held in the left hand with the bow in the right, it is grasped by the neck a L [Figure 7 of Plate XI] in such a way that the back of the bow is turned to face the hollow of the performer’s hand, the thumb of the left hand is turned to face B , and the other four fingers of the same hand to face L . The index finger should lie alongside the nut, and the other fingers alongside one another poised to touch the chanterelle. The lower part of the instrument is then tucked under the performer’s chin by turning the wrist in such a way that the bottom end-block to which the tailpin f is attached rests on the left collar-bone towards which one turns the head, inclining it a little to press with the chin at the location marked E , thus holding the instrument securely. See the illustration . [11]

Violin [12]

The bow is then grasped with the right hand at a point about two inches from the frog B . It is held by the first four fingers in such a way that the thumb and the first two fingers rest on the bow-stick and the fourth or ring-finger on the hairs. The hairs should be applied to the strings about two inches from the bridge as if one was sawing at this particular place. The bow-hairs are rubbed against a lump of colophony or rosin (a kind of resin) to soften them. The bow is rubbed across the rosin as if one was sawing it in two. Some players grind the rosin into a powder and then pass the edge of the bow through the paper in which the powder lies. These two methods produce more or less the same effect.

It is then necessary to familiarize oneself with the neck of the instrument which, to facilitate explanation, should be imagined as being divided into frets with, in addition, lines to mark the places where the fingers must be placed.

First one needs to know that the strings of the violin and of all instruments based upon it are tuned in fifths, and that the second string marked 2 is tuned to A and is played unstopped to enable other musicians to tune up at concerts. This A string is tuned at the unison to the A that immediately follows the G-clef of the harpsichords. [13] The chanterelle is tuned to the fifth ( E ) above that and the third string to the fifth (D) below it. The fourth string is tuned to the fifth below this third string or the unison of G an octave below that of the G-clef , that is, the G that immediately follows the F-clef of the harpsichords,  [14] to which the range of all other instruments is related. See the table below, which shows the relationship of the ranges of all the instruments, and the tablature which follows it, where the musical notes indicate the range of the violin and the four lines below that the strings, which are numbered, as above, 1 2 3 4, starting with the chanterelle. [15] The numbers on the lines indicate which finger must be placed on the string, while the letter in the tablature (which follows the usual procedure for the viola da gamba even though it is not generally used for the violin ) shows where the finger must be placed on the fingerboard, as if the latter was divided up in the same way as that of the viola da gamba. See Viola da gamba, where rules will be found for manipulating the bow. When consulting these rules, take care to read up-bow for down-bow and vice versa for the reasons explained in that article.

The violin d’amore (or, more correctly, the viola d’amore ) is larger than the biggest kinds of treble viol. It has the same shape as that instrument and, like it, has six strings. In addition to these six strings there are six other strings made of brass which pass inside the fingerboard which is supported by the middle of the bridge and which are attached below the tailpiece by six hooks. Its tuning and tablature are different to other instruments of its type, for it is tuned according to the key or mode of the pieces the performer wishes to play. For example, if the piece is in D then its tuning will be D A D F A D or D F A D F , [16] in other words its tuning will be derived from those notes that are in perfect accord with the tonic of the piece one wishes to perform. [17] If a string is sometimes tuned in a different mode then, due to the way the music is copied, in performance it achieves the same result, for this or that note differs in performance from the way it appears, since often there are sharps and flats simultaneously in the manuscript. Certain violin and cello sonatas fall into this category. Tablature of this kind is accordingly used for the purpose both of tuning and of copying the music in order to preserve the finger-action for the position concerned. [18]

The brass strings underneath the main strings are tuned either at the octave or at the unison to those strings.  [19]

Whether tuned at an interval of a third, fourth or fifth or at the octave or unison the brass strings produce a sort of ‘echo effect’ which makes this a very melodious instrument and one especially suited to tender and expressive pieces of music.

1. Throughout this article the author has referred simply to plate and figure from the series on musical-instrument making without specifying which section of the series (first or second) or the number of the plate or the figure. In fact, all the references are to plates in the second section of the series. I have added the relevant plate and figure numbers to the text so that the reader can more easily follow the description with reference to the illustrations.

2. Original text has A by mistake.

3. Misnumbered 84 on the Plate.

4. Literally, a ‘hollower.’ Creusoir does not seem to have a precise English equivalent. For a discussion of this and other tools shown in the Plates from the point of view of viola da gamba making, see Thomas Fitz-Hugh Mace, “Twin Viols: Evidence for Serial Production in the Workshop of Nicolas Bertrand,” Journal of the Viola da Gamba Society of America 45 (2009-2010), 100 ff.

5. One-twelfth of an inch.

6. Mislettered C, no letter, B on the plate.

7. This reference does not seem to correspond to anything in the Plates.

8. See http://www.charronerie.com/galuchat.php or Shagreen: Sandpaper of the Past.

9. Or, according to the French gamut names used in the original article, e si mi, a mi la, d la re, and g re sol respectively, where the first part of the note-name represents the constant character of the note, the second part the note when the scale of B-flat is used, and the third part the note when the scale of B-natural is used.

10. Sometimes called tung wood.

11. I assume an illustration of a violinist holding the instrument was planned for the Plates but never got done. Alternatively the Plates may have been taken from another publication.

12. In the diagram, sillet would be translated as nut . See n. 9 above for an explanation of the note names.

13. That is, the treble clef.

14. i. e. the bass clef.

15. In the second line of the diagram, doigter is the fingering. In the third line, the cordes are the strings.

16. One note seems to have been omitted from this tuning in the original text, presumably A .

17. That is, the strings are tuned to the tonic, the mediant and the dominant.

18. This poorly expressed passage presumably refers to the copying of music from standard notation to the so-called scordatura tablature in which, given an irregular tuning of the strings, the performer is shown where to place their fingers on the fingerboard. As for the violin and cello sonatas with a mixture of sharps and flats, the likeliest candidate is the well-known opponent of equal temperament Giuseppe Tartini.

19. That is, sympathetic strings which vibrate with the bowed strings but are not touched by the bow.