Violin: Comoros musical instrument

The violin is a string musical instrument, often with four strings that are tuned in perfect fifths. The violin is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string musical instruments that also include the viola, the cello and the double bass.

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The violin sometimes is called fiddle informally, regardless of the type of music that is being performed on it. The word violin comes from the Medieval Latin word ‘vitula’, meaning stringed musical instrument, this word is as well believed to be the source of the Germanic fiddle. The violin, while it has its own ancient origin, took most of its modern feature in the 16^th century Italy, with some few further modifications being done on the musical instrument in the 18^th century and 19^th century. Violinists and collectors exceptionally prize the musical instrument made by the Gasparo da Salo, Giovanno Paolo Maggini, Stradivari, Guarneri and Amati families from the 16^th century up till the 18^th century in the Brescia and Cremona and by Jacob Steiner in Austria. Huge numbers of the musical instruments have come from the hands of the lesser producers and still bigger numbers of the mass-produced commercial trade violins have come from cottage industries in places like Saxony, Bohemia and Mire court.

A person manufactures of repairs the musical instrument is known as luthier. The parts of the violin are often carved from various types of wood, and it is often strung with the use of a gut, nylon 6 or other synthetic or steel strings. The player of this musical instrument is called violinist of fiddler. The player of the musical instrument produces sound from the instrument by drawing a bow across one or more strings of the instrument, by plucking the strings of the instrument or by different other techniques. The violin is performed by musicians in a wide variety of musical genres like the jazz, folk music, rock and roll, classical music, baroque music and soft rock. The musical instrument has come to be performed in many non-western music cultures throughout the whole world.

The earliest stringed musical instruments were mostly plucked. Bowed musical instruments may have originated in the equestrian cultures of the central Asia. It is believed that these musical instruments suddenly spread to china, India and the Byzantine Empire and also the Middle East, where they developed into musical instrument like the erhu in china, the rebab in the Middle East, the lyra in the Byzantine Empire and the esraj in India. The violin came to be in its present form in the 16^th century Northern Italy, where the port towns of Venice and genoa professed extensive ties to central Asia via the trade routes of the Silk Road.

The modern European version of this musical instrument came out from different stringed musical instruments from the Middle East and the Byzantine Empire. It is most likely that the first producers of this instrument borrowed from three types of the current musical instrument; the rebec that was used in the 10^th century, the renaissance fiddle and the lyra da braccio. One of the earliest explicit descriptions of the musical instrument, including the tuning of the instrument, was in the Epitome musical by Jambe de Fer, which was published by Lyon in the year 1556.

The oldest recorded violin to have four strings on it, like the present day violin, is supposed to have been constructed in the 1555 by Andrea Amati, but the date is unknown.  Venice gave a crucial contribution to the birth of the musical instrument that was known locally to be ‘lira’, probably taken from the Byzantine upright bowed musical instrument’s name. This was probably derived from the name of the ancient Greek musical instrument, but that was plucked instead of bowed. In the 1510s in Venice seven producers of the bowed musical instruments including proto-violins were present. The musical instrument immediately became well-known, both among the street players and the noble men of the society, illustrated by the fact that the French King Charles IX commanded Amati to carve 24 pairs of violin for him in the year 1560.

Meaningful changes occurred in the construction of the musical instrument in the 18^th century, especially in the length and angle of the instrument’s neck and also a heavier bass bar was given to the instrument. The majority of old musical instrument have pass through these modifications, as such, are in significantly different dignity than when they left the hands of the producers, doubtless with variances in response and sound. But these musical instruments in their present condition set the standard for perfection in the violin production and sound, and violin producers all through the world try to come close to this ideal in every possible means. To this present day, the musical instruments from the so-called Golden age of violin production, specifically those manufactured by Stradivari, Guarneri and Montagnana are the most desirable musical instrument by both performers and collectors.

Generally, a violin is made up of a spruce top, maple ribs and back, two end blocks, a neck, a bridge, a sound post, four strings and different fittings, optionally including chinrest that may fix directly over the tailpiece or the left of the tailpiece. A distinguishing feature of a violin body is its hourglass-like shape and the arching of the top and the back. The hourglass is made up of two upper bouts, two lower bouts and two concave C-bouts at the instrument’s waist, giving clearance for the bow.

The voice of the violin depends on the shape of the musical instrument, the wood with which the instrument is produced, the graduation of both the back and the top and the varnish that glazes its outside surface. The varnish and the specifically the wood continue to improve with age, making the fixed supply of the ancient versions of the musical instrument much desirable.

The very greatly majority of the gummed joints in the musical instrument make use of the animal hide gum for a number of reasons; it is capable of making a thinner joint than so many other glues, it is reversible when the act of disassembly is required and since the fresh hide glue sticks to old hide glue, more original wood can be conserved when amending a joint. Weak or diluted glue often used to fasten the top of the ribs and the nut to the fingerboard of the instrument, since common repair of the instrument will require the removal of these parts.

The purfling running around the edge of the spruce top gives some protections against the crack coming up at the edge of the instrument. It also permits the top of flex more independently of the structure of the rib. Painted-on faux purfling on the top of is often a sign of mediocre instrument. The back and the rib of the instrument are generally produced of maple, most usually with a matching striped figure that is known as a flame or tiger stripe.

The neck of the musical instrument is often maple with a flamed figure that is compatible with that of the ribs and the back of the musical instrument. It carries the fingerboard, normally produced of ebony, but usually some other wood painted or stained black. Because of the hardness, the beauty and the superior resistance to wear, the ebony is the preferred material for the instrument. Fingerboards are dressed to a particular transverse curve and have a small lengthwise scoop or concavity, a little bit more pronounced on the lower strings of the musical instrument, specifically when meant for synthetic strings or gut.

Some older versions of the musical instrument have a grafted scroll, evidence by a glue joint between the peg box of the instrument and the neck of the instrument. Many older versions of the musical instrument have had their necks reset to a little bit increased angle, lengthened by about 1 cm. the neck grafted permits the original scroll to be kept with a Baroque violin when bringing the neck into agreement with the modern versions of the musical instrument.

The bridge of the musical instrument is a precisely cut piece of maple that forms the lower anchor point of the vibrating length of the musical instrument’s strings and transmits the vibration of the strings to the body of the instrument. The top curve of the instrument holds the strings at the right height from the fingerboard in an arc, permitting each of the strings to be sounded separately by the bow. The sound post of the musical instrument fits particularly inside the instrument; between the top and the back, below the treble foot of the instrument’s bridge that it helps to supporting. The sound post of the instrument also transmits some vibrations between the top of the instrument and the back of the instrument.

The tailpiece fastens the string of the instrument to the lower bout of the violin via the tail gut that loops around an ebony button known as the ‘tailpin’ that fits into a tapered hole in the beneath block. Usually, the E-string of the instrument will have a fine tuning lever worked by a small screw tuned by the fingers of the hand. Fine tuner could also be applied to the other strings of the musical instrument, especially on the instruments of students and are sometimes constructed into the tailpiece of the musical instrument.

At the scroll end of the violin, the strings wind around the tuning pegs in the peg box. Strings of the instrument always have a colored silk that is wrapping at both extremes, for the purpose of identification and to provide friction against the pegs of the instrument. The tapered pegs permit friction to be increased or decreased by the player of the instrument applying the required pressure together with the axis of peg while tuning the instrument.

Strings were traditionally produced of sheep gut or simply gut that was stretched, dried and twisted. The early parts of the 20^th century, strings of instruments were manufacture of gut, silk aluminum or steel. Modern day strings may be gut, solid steel, standard steel or different synthetic materials, wound with various metals and sometimes coated with silver. Strings of musical instrument have limited lifetime. Apart from the obvious things like the winding of a string coming undone from wears, players commonly change the strings of their instrument when the strings are no longer playing true, losing the desired tone. The longevity of strings depends more on the quality of the string quality and the intensity of playing.

The lowest note of a violin that is normally tuned is G3 or G below middle C. the highest note of the instrument is less well defined: E7, the E7 two octaves above the open string of the instrument may be taken as a practical limit for orchestral violin parts, although it is usually possible to perform higher, depending on the length of the fingerboard and the skills of the player.

A violin is often played with use of a bow that is made up of a stick with a ribbon of horsehair strung between the tip and frog at the opposite extremes. The bow of a typical violin may be about 75 cm and the weight could be about 60 g. the bow of a viola may be about 5 mm shorter and 10 g heavier that the violin.

At the frog extreme, a screw adjuster loosens or tightens the hair. Just forward of the frog, a leather thumb cushion and winding protects the stick and provides a strong grip for the hand of the player. The winding of the instrument may be wire, silk or whalebone. Some student bows replace a plastic sleeve for grip and winding. The hair of the bow originally comes from the tail of a grey male horse, but some cheaper bows make use of synthetic fiber. Occasional rubbing with the rosin will make the hair grasp the strings of the instrument irregularly, and this will cause them to vibrate. Originally the stick was produced out of snake wood, although the present day bows are produced traditionally out of Brazil wood, but a stick produced from a more select quality Brazil wood is known as ‘pernambuco’. Some student bows are manufactured from the fiberglass or different inexpensive woods.

The violin is performed either seated or standing. Solo performers of the instrument play mostly standing up, while in the orchestra music and in the chamber music, the instrument is played seated. The standard way of holding the musical instrument is with the left side of the jaw resting on the chinrest of the violin and assisted by the left shoulder of the player, often helped by a shoulder rest. The jaw and the shoulder of the player must hold the musical instrument firmly enough to permit it to remain stable when the left hand of the player goes from a high position to a low position. While all authorities maintain on the necessary importance of good positioning both for the sake of the quality of the performing and also to reduce the chance of repetitive strain injury, advice as to what better position is and how to gain it varies in details. Meanwhile, all maintain on the essence of a natural relaxed posture without any form of rigidity or tension. Things that are almost universally prescribed is keeping the left wrist straight to permit the finger of the left hand to be able to move freely and to minimize the chance of injury and keeping either shoulder in a natural relaxed posture and disallowing raising either of them in any form of exaggerated manner. 

The electric versions of this musical instrument have a magnetic or piezoelectric pickup that converts the vibration of the strings to an electric signal. A cable transmits the signal to an amplifier. Electric violins are often constructed like that, but a pickup can be added to a conventional acoustic version of the violin. An electric version of the musical instrument that has a resonating body, which produces listening level sound independently of the electric element is also known as an ‘electro-acoustic violin’. To be effective as an acoustic violin, the musical instrument retains much of the resonating body of the violin, usually looking very much like the fiddle or the violin. They may be finished in bright colors and produced from alternative materials to the woods. These versions of the violin may be hooked up to an amplifier. Some versions come with a silent option that permits the player of the instrument to make use of headphones that are hooked up to the musical instrument. These versions of the violin may be performed via many effects just like the guitar. Since the electric versions of the musical instrument do not depend on the string tension and resonance to amplify their sound, they can have more strings attached to them.