The wood used is of three kinds: maple, or sycamore, for the back, neck, ribs and bridge; pine, or soft deal, for the belly, blocks, linings, bass-bar and sound-post; and ebony for the tail-piece, fingerboard, nuts, pegs and button. The purfling, that narrow edging that outlines the shape of the instrument on both belly and back, is made of thin strips of ebony and maple (sometimes, but not often, whalebone is used).
The parts are put together with the finest glue and invisible joinings. Finally, comes the varnish, which is of the utmost importance.
The violin is, indeed, as a lover of this instrument[1] has said, “a miracle of construction; and as it can be taken to pieces, put together, patched and indefinitely repaired, it is almost indestructible. It is, as one might say, as light as a feather and as strong as a horse. The belly of soft deal and the back of hard sycamore are united by six sycamore ribs supported by twelve blocks with linings. It appears that the quick vibrations of the hard wood married to the slower sound-waves of the soft wood, produce the mellow but reedy timbre of the good violin. If all the wood were hard, you would get the tone light and metallic; if all soft, it would be muffled, or tubby. There is every conceivable variety of fibre both in hard and soft wood. The thickness of back and belly is not uniform. Each should be thicker towards the middle. But how thick and shaved thin in what proportion to the sides? The cunning workman alone knows.”
And now let us consider carefully the three important and highly mysterious organs of the violin. Yes, I am calling them organs. Perhaps I had even better say organs and nerves. These are the bridge, the sound-post and the bass-bar. The two latter are invisible. The bridge, a delicately cut little arch of maple, or sycamore, higher on one side than on the other, perforated curiously but according to a form learned through the experiments of centuries, has been called the “tongue of the violin.” The treble foot of the bridge stands firm and rigid on that part of the belly made rigid by the sound-post. The bass foot of the bridge rests on that part of the body, or belly, which vibrates freely, these vibrations being increased and regulated by the bass-bar. Through this bass foot of the bridge the vibration of the strings is communicated to the belly and thence to the mass of air in the violin. The treble foot of the bridge is the centre of vibration. The action of the bridge, however, really depends upon the sound-post.
A LITTLE SAVOYARD IN PARIS WITH VIELLE, OR HURDY-GURDY
The sound-post has been called “the soul of the violin.” It is a little pine stick, a few inches long, about the size of a large cedar pencil. It is placed upright about an eighth of an inch to the back of the right foot of the bridge.
“Through it pass all the heart throbs, or vibrations, generated between the back and the belly. There the short waves and the long waves meet and mingle. It is the material throbbing centre of that pulsating air-column defined by the walls of the violin, but propagating those mystic sound-waves that ripple forth in sweetness upon ten thousand ears.”[2]
The bass-bar (or sound-bar) has been called “the nervous system of the violin.” It is an oblong piece of wood glued lengthwise to the belly. It runs in the same direction as the strings and acts as a beam, or girder, to strengthen the belly against the pressure of the left foot of the bridge. The bass-bar has to be cut and adjusted to meet the requirements of every violin; and only long experience can determine how long, how thick and exactly where the bass-bar should be made and placed. The fraction of a line makes all the difference in the world.