Violin Making / 'The Strad' Library, No. IX.

by Walter H. Mayson

Well, but in addition to these two farther tests of smell and colour—making wood, almost green wood, of probably not more than four years old, appear to the ignorant one hundred—there is another which I often use, and that is, as I do now, I make the plate rigid, but free to vibrate, so as to allow those mysterious motions play, and I place my ear at one extremity whilst I scratch or scrape, or move the rosined bow over the other.

With a similar result—the tone is not what I want, nor what it ought to be from a piece of really old, well grown wood. But mind, it does not follow that, given these conditions, the genuine thing would be what I want; but there would be more likelihood of its being so, and less annoyance in laying it aside us worthless, as I do this, selecting, for a second trial, a piece of what I call crabbed wood, known by a peculiar curl, and its very handsome and uncommon appearance.

But before I test this, I must tell you that none but a workman of great skill would undertake to put it to use, as it is so "crabbed," so twisted in its fibre, that on the least carelessness of the artist, out flies a chip from where it should not, and a very delicate operation is resorted to in consequence to amend the blunder—insertion of a slip which must match the grain of the original every way, not only in flame, but even just as the flash of that fire falls in its movement when it becomes part of a violin.

I have said earlier "I do not select handsome wood for its beauty," etc., and the loveliness of this piece must not tempt me to sacrifice what I hold of more consequence—tone. But I should do so did I now choose it; for it is weak where it should be strong, and poor, flabby and wretched from the view of acoustics.

So you see how difficult it is even for the eye of experience and the mind of knowledge to wade through the vile to the pure uncontaminated: how much more so him, the sanguine amateur, at once the plaything and the dupe of those who do not scruple to beguile him by the one to the safe usage of the other!

Still, do not let it be supposed that this slight tinge of the minor key is intended to make you despond; on the contrary, I want to show you better things, and mean to do so. And should the doing of it seem to prolong this part of my address beyond moderate limits, my excuse must be its deep importance.

I have laid aside three pieces of sycamore, all, as I believe, very good for the back I purpose making. One is what is called "on the quarter," the other two "on the slab" (these terms I shall explain later, when I have fully spoken of the selection of wood). The two on the slab are in one piece, of course; the one on the quarter in two pieces, one of which, while I have been speaking, I have glued slightly, but firmly, to an upright support of glass, made very rough at the place where I fix the plate, so that the glue may the better hold, temporarily.

The glass, being a non-conductor (or, if it respond in any way, however infinitesimally, it does not perceptibly affect my plate, and in no way my argument), leaves me the absolute control of this wood, and I proceed to lay an English lever watch on several places of it, keeping my ear near to that nodal point where I know will come the inner bout, or D of the violin, consequently the bridge, which I mark with a X. The tick-tack of the watch varies in strength as I get farther from or nearer to a nodal point, as, of course, it was bound to do; but, from experience, it is a fine-toned piece of wood. I detach it from the glass rod, and I try it by my finger and thumb test, and the vibrations and their quality are all I could desire. The signs of age appear genuine: the small pieces I cut from it do not give out any smell which they should not, and I pronounce the wood honest. I try the two whole backs, on the slab: both are good, one very fine in tone and handsome in appearance, which I finally select for the violin about to be made.

Well, but you may say, in all your experiments, it appears to us the result is a question of degree. Exactly, a question of degree, as purity of air is, but who chooses the foul when he can live in the pure? As with flowers in their unassuming simplicity up to such elegance of form, colour and fragrance, that we stand amazed before them! As with man, from the worse than bestial state to which intemperance and crime have brought him, to the calm majesty of that eminence, attained only by the love of truth, of self-government, and scorn of evil-doing!

This question of degree strikes at the root of the whole subject before you: for, upon how you answer it, or to what person or persons you repair for guidance in the selection of wood (being novices), will depend in a great measure your success or failure in the instrument yet unmade.