Violins
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Violins
The violin, sometimes referred to as a fiddle, is a wooden chordophone, and is the smallest, and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in regular use in the violin family. Smaller violin-type instruments exist, including the violino piccolo and the pochette, but these are virtually unused. Most violins have a hollow wooden body, and commonly have four strings (sometimes five), usually tuned in perfect fifths with notes G3, D4, A4, E5, and are most commonly played by drawing a bow across the strings. The violin can also be played by plucking the strings with the fingers (pizzicato) and, in specialized cases, by striking the strings with the wooden side of the bow (col legno). Violins are important instruments in a wide variety of musical genres. They are most prominent in the Western classical tradition, both in ensembles (from chamber music to orchestras) and as solo instruments. Violins are also important in many varieties of folk music, including country music, bl ...
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Violin Sounds And Techniques
The violin, sometimes referred to as a fiddle, is a wooden chordophone, and is the smallest, and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in regular use in the violin family. Smaller violin-type instruments exist, including the violino piccolo and the pochette, but these are virtually unused. Most violins have a hollow wooden body, and commonly have four strings (sometimes five), usually tuned in perfect fifths with notes G3, D4, A4, E5, and are most commonly played by drawing a bow across the strings. The violin can also be played by plucking the strings with the fingers (pizzicato) and, in specialized cases, by striking the strings with the wooden side of the bow ( col legno). Violins are important instruments in a wide variety of musical genres. They are most prominent in the Western classical tradition, both in ensembles (from chamber music to orchestras) and as solo instruments. Violins are also important in many varieties of folk music, including country music, ...
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Five-string Violin
A five-string violin is a variant of violin with an extra string tuned below the violin's usual range. In addition to the G, D, A, and E strings of a standard violin, a five-string violin typically includes a lower C string. Violins with 6 or more strings may add a low F, low B♭, low E♭, or a soprano violin high A (sometimes a high B). The five-string violin was created to combine the pitch ranges of the violin and viola. Bobby Hicks, a noted bluegrass fiddler, popularized the five-string violin in 1963, first showcasing his modification during a performance in Las Vegas. José Herrando, wrote 6 Sonatas for the 5 string Violin (or 5 string Viola aka Grand Viola, or Viola Pomposa) and continuo. Due to the size limitations of a five-string violin, the low C string typically resonates with a slightly softer sound than the other strings. Five-string violas (aka Viola pomposa), normally tuned C, G, D, and A, and adding a high E string, have in the same tuning, but on a viola bod ...
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Electric Violin
An electric violin is a violin equipped with an electronic output of its sound. The term most properly refers to an instrument intentionally made to be electrified with built-in pickups, usually with a solid body. It can also refer to a violin fitted with an electric Pick up (music technology), pickup of some type, although "amplified violin" or "electro-acoustic violin" are more accurate then. History Electrically amplified violins have been used in one form or another since the 1920s; jazz and blues artist Stuff Smith is generally credited as being one of the first performers to adapt pickups and amplifiers to violins. The George Beauchamp, Electro Stringed Instrument Corporation, National String Instrument Corporation and Vega Company sold electric violins in the 1930s and 1940s; Fender Musical Instruments Corporation, Fender advertised an electric violin in 1958 (first production model pictured at the head of this page) but withdrew it at the point of production. After Fender ...
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Bow (music)
In music, a bow () is a tensioned stick which has hair (usually horse-tail hair) coated in rosin (to facilitate friction) affixed to it. It is moved across some part (generally some type of strings) of a musical instrument to cause vibration, which the instrument emits as sound. The vast majority of bows are used with string instruments, such as the violin, viola, cello, and bass, although some bows are used with musical saws and other bowed idiophones. Materials and manufacture A bow consists of a specially shaped stick with other material forming a ribbon stretched between its ends, which is used to stroke the string and create sound. Different musical cultures have adopted various designs for the bow. For instance, in some bows a single cord is stretched between the ends of the stick. In the Western tradition of bow making—bows for the instruments of the violin and viol families—a hank of horsehair is normally employed. The manufacture of bows is considered a demandi ...
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Viola
The viola ( , () ) is a string instrument of the violin family, and is usually bowed when played. Violas are slightly larger than violins, and have a lower and deeper sound. Since the 18th century, it has been the middle or alto voice of the violin family, between the violin (which is tuned a perfect fifth higher) and the cello (which is tuned an octave lower). The strings from low to high are typically tuned to C3, G3, D4, and A4. In the past, the viola varied in size and style, as did its names. The word ''viola'' originates from the Italian language. The Italians often used the term '' viola da braccio'', meaning, literally, 'of the arm'. "Brazzo" was another Italian word for the viola, which the Germans adopted as ''Bratsche''. The French had their own names: ''cinquiesme'' was a small viola, ''haute contre'' was a large viola, and ''taile'' was a tenor. Today, the French use the term ''alto'', a reference to its range. The viola was popular in the heyday of five-part ...
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Viol
The viola da gamba (), or viol, or informally gamba, is a bowed and fretted string instrument that is played (i.e. "on the leg"). It is distinct from the later violin family, violin, or ; and it is any one of the earlier viol family of bow (music), bowed, fretted, and stringed instruments , stringed instruments with hollow wooden bodies and Tuning mechanisms for stringed instruments, pegboxes where the tension on the strings can be increased or decreased to adjust the pitch of each of the strings. Although treble, tenor and bass were most commonly used, viols came in different sizes, including (high treble, developed in 18th century), treble, alto, small tenor, tenor, bass and contrabass (called ). These members of the viol family are distinguished from later bowed string instruments, such as the violin family, by both appearance and orientation when played—as typically the neck is oriented upwards and the rounded bottom downwards to settle on the lap or between the knees. ...
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Violino Piccolo
The violino piccolo (also called the ''Diskantgeige'', ''Terzgeige'', ''Quartgeige'' or ''Violino alla francese'' and sometimes in English as the Piccolo Violin) is a small stringed instrument of the baroque period. Most examples are similar to a child's size violin in size, and are tuned a minor third (B3–F4–C5–G5) or a fourth higher (C4–G4–D5–A5). The most famous work featuring violino piccolo is the first Brandenburg Concerto of Johann Sebastian Bach. The best-known violino piccolo is the Brothers Amati example in the National Music Museum in Vermillion, South Dakota. By modern measurements, the body is size, the neck size, and the head corresponds to that of a size instrument. The string length is the equivalent of a violin stopped a minor third from the nut, which corresponds with its normal tuning of a third higher than a violin. It's notated in E flat. This Amati violin also has fingerboard widths similar to that of a board cut a third shorter, which ...
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Jazz Violin
Jazz violin is the use of the violin or electric violin to improvise solo lines. Early jazz violinists included: Eddie South, who played violin with Jimmy Wade's Dixielanders in Chicago; Stuff Smith; and Claude "Fiddler" Williams. Joe Venuti was popular for his work with guitarist Eddie Lang during the 1920s. Improvising violinists include Stéphane Grappelli and Jean-Luc Ponty. In jazz fusion, violinists may use an electric violin plugged into an instrument amplifier with electronic effects. Swing to bebop Jazz violin began in New Orleans in the early 1900s. Arrangements for ragtime orchestras had parts for violins in which they were as important as the other instruments. The violin was a lead instrument in the recordings of A. J. Piron, whose trumpeter Peter Bocage also played violin. Alphonso Trent and Andy Kirk employed violinists in their territory bands. Stuff Smith played violin as a member of Trent's band in the 1920s and tinkered with acoustic and electric mea ...
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Pizzicato
Pizzicato (, ; translated as 'pinched', and sometimes roughly as 'plucked') is a playing technique that involves plucking the strings of a string instrument. The exact technique varies somewhat depending on the type of instrument: * On bowed string instruments it is a method of playing by plucking the strings with the fingers, rather than using the bow. This produces a very different sound from bowing, short and percussive rather than sustained. * On keyboard string instruments, such as the piano, pizzicato may be employed (although rarely seen in traditional repertoire, this technique has been normalized in contemporary music, with ample examples by George Crumb, Tōru Takemitsu, Helmut Lachenmann, and others) as one of the variety of techniques involving direct manipulation of the strings known collectively as " string piano". * On the guitar, it is a muted form of plucking, which bears an audible resemblance to pizzicato on a bowed string instrument with its relatively ...
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Pochette (musical Instrument)
The pochette is a small stringed instrument of the bowed variety. It is a small violin-like instrument designed to fit in a pocket, hence the name "pochette" (French for ''small pocket''). Also known as a pocket fiddle, it was designed to be used by dance masters in royal courts and noble households, and by street musicians, from about the 15th century until around the 19th century, becoming especially popular in the 1800s. Prior, the rebec was used in a similar way, and some modern pochettes descend from the rebec instead of the violin family. A common misconception is that pochettes were intended for children, when in fact they were conceived for adults; their small size allowed them to be used where the larger violins were too cumbersome to carry, or too expensive to own. The instrument's body is very small, but its fingerboard is long relative to the instrument's overall size, to preserve as much of the instrument's melodic range as possible. Pochettes come in many shapes, w ...
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Chordophone
In musical instrument classification, string instruments, or chordophones, are musical instruments that produce sound from vibrating strings when a performer strums, plucks, strikes or sounds the strings in varying manners. Musicians play some string instruments, like Guitar, guitars, by plucking the String (music), strings with their fingers or a plectrum, plectrum (pick), and others by hitting the strings with a light wooden hammer or by rubbing the strings with a bow (music), bow, like Violin, violins. In some keyboard (music), keyboard instruments, such as the harpsichord, the musician presses a key that plucks the string. Other musical instruments generate sound by striking the string. With bowed instruments, the player pulls a rosined horsehair bow across the strings, causing them to vibrate. With a hurdy-gurdy, the musician cranks a wheel whose rosined edge touches the strings. Bowed instruments include the string section instruments of the orchestra in Western classic ...
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Fiddle
A fiddle is a Bow (music), bowed String instrument, string musical instrument, most often a violin or a bass. It is a colloquial term for the violin, used by players in all genres, including European classical music, classical music. Although in many cases violins and fiddles are essentially synonymous, the style of the music played may determine specific construction differences between fiddles and classical violins. For example, fiddles may optionally be set up with a Violin construction and mechanics#Bridge, bridge with a flatter arch to reduce the range of bow-arm motion needed for techniques such as the double shuffle, a form of bariolage involving rapid alternation between pairs of adjacent strings. To produce a Timbre#Brightness, ''brighter'' tone than the deep tones of gut or synthetic core strings, fiddlers often use steel strings. The fiddle is part of many traditional (Folk music, folk) styles, which are typically Music#Oral and aural tradition, aural traditions— ...
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