The mute violin is a

violin 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 picc ...

without or with a very shallow sound box. The instrument has a quiet, lean sound. The mute violin has historically been used by traveling musicians, and as an exercise instrument in situations where the sound of a violin is experienced as annoying by neighbouring people. Mute violins are known to exist since the eighteenth century, but their use never became widespread.

Leopold Mozart Johann Georg Leopold Mozart (November 14, 1719 – May 28, 1787) was a German composer, violinist, and music theorist. He is best known today as the father and teacher of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and for his violin textbook ''Versuch einer grün ...

made mention of the instrument in his ''

Versuch einer gründlichen Violinschule ''Versuch einer gründlichen Violinschule'' (''A Treatise on the Fundamental Principles of Violin Playing'') is a textbook for instruction in the violin, published by Leopold Mozart in 1756. The work was influential in its day, and continues to ...

'' (1756).

Stroh violin

A related instrument is the

Stroh violin The Stroh violin or Stroviol is a type of String instrument, stringed musical instrument that is mechanically amplified by a metal resonator and horn attached to its body. The name Stroviol refers to a violin, but other instruments have been mo ...

, a combination of a mute violin and a metal

horn Horn may refer to: Common uses * Horn (acoustic), a tapered sound guide ** Horn antenna ** Horn loudspeaker ** Vehicle horn ** Train horn *Horn (anatomy), a pointed, bony projection on the head of various animals * Horn (instrument), a family ...

. In contrast to the mute violin, this instrument sounds rather loud. It was used instead of the violin in the early days of

phonograph A phonograph, later called a gramophone, and since the 1940s a record player, or more recently a turntable, is a device for the mechanical and analogue reproduction of sound. The sound vibration Waveform, waveforms are recorded as correspond ...

ic recording. Nowadays, the instrument is still used by a few

pop music Pop music is a genre of popular music that originated in its modern form during the mid-1950s in the United States and the United Kingdom.S. Frith, W. Straw, and J. Street, eds, ''iarchive:cambridgecompani00frit, The Cambridge Companion to Pop ...

ians and in

Romania Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern and Southeast Europe. It borders Ukraine to the north and east, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Bulgaria to the south, Moldova to ...

folk music Folk music is a music genre that includes #Traditional folk music, traditional folk music and the Contemporary folk music, contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be ca ...

Electric versions

In the late twentieth century intermediate forms between the mute violin and the

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 fi ...

, mute violins provided with

electronics Electronics is a scientific and engineering discipline that studies and applies the principles of physics to design, create, and operate devices that manipulate electrons and other Electric charge, electrically charged particles. It is a subfield ...

, were introduced on the market. An example is

Yamaha Corporation is a Japanese multinational musical instrument and audio equipment manufacturer. It is one of the constituents of Nikkei 225 and is the world's largest musical instrument manufacturing company. The former motorcycle division was establishe ...

’s ‘silent violin’, which can be connected to a pair of

headphones Headphones are a pair of small loudspeaker drivers worn on or around the head over a user's ears. They are electroacoustic transducers, which convert an electrical signal to a corresponding sound. Headphones let a single user listen to an ...

, an

amplifier An amplifier, electronic amplifier or (informally) amp is an electronic device that can increase the magnitude of a signal (a time-varying voltage or current). It is a two-port electronic circuit that uses electric power from a power su ...

or recording equipment. The

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, p ...

performance art Performance art is an artwork or art exhibition created through actions executed by the artist or other participants. It may be witnessed live or through documentation, spontaneously developed or written, and is traditionally presented to a pu ...

ist

Laurie Anderson Laura Phillips "Laurie" Anderson (born June 5, 1947) is an American avant-garde artist, musician and filmmaker whose work encompasses performance art, pop music, and multimedia projects. Initially trained in violin and sculpting,Amirkhanian, Cha ...

often plays violins like these.

An application

The

Dutch Dutch or Nederlands commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands ** Dutch people as an ethnic group () ** Dutch nationality law, history and regulations of Dutch citizenship () ** Dutch language () * In specific terms, i ...

composer

Willem Pijper Willem Frederik Johannes Pijper (; 8 September 189418 March 1947) was a Dutch composer, music critic and music teacher. Pijper is considered to be among the most important Dutch composers of the first half of the 20th century. Life Pijper was b ...

wanted the part of the first violin in his first

string quartet The term string quartet refers to either a type of musical composition or a group of four people who play them. Many composers from the mid-18th century onwards wrote string quartets. The associated musical ensemble consists of two Violin, violini ...

of 1914 to be played by a mute violin. In a recording of his five string quartets by the Schönberg Quartet (Olympia OCD 457, 1994) the effect of the mute violin was imitated by an extra heavy

sordino A mute is a device attached to a musical instrument which changes the instrument's tone quality (timbre) or lowers its volume. Mutes are commonly used on string and brass instruments, especially the trumpet and trombone, and are occasionally us ...

on an 'ordinary' violin.

References

{{reflist

Bibliography

* Harrison Ryker, text in the booklet accompanying the cd ''Five String Quartets'', Olympia OCD 457.

External links

Two mute violins in a museum collection

Violins