Musical string

“ Nobility, warmth, and equality of tone from one end of the scale to the other are qualities common to all stringed instruments, and render them essentially superior to instruments of other groups. Further, each string has a distinctive character of its own, difficult to define in words. ”

“ The tuning of the lyre, and various other instruments, which are coeval with remotest antiquity, necessarily implies an acquaintance with the fact that, as we diminish the length of musical strings, or increase their tension, we render their tone more acute. ”

“ The String Quartet holds a position of peculiar significance in the art of music, and a composer, by selecting this form for the exercise of his powers, exposes them to the most unfailing test to which his calibre as a musician can possibly be submitted. He [Pg 123] must possess not only fertility in the production of purely musical concentrated ideas, and ideas capable of development; the power to develop them, which means many things, and the capacity for shaping them into clear structure; but he must be able to express them with the most bare and simple musical means, with four strings. ”

“ The strings are twanged with the fingers or with a piece of wood, horn, metal, or any other suitable substance serving as a plectrum; or are made to vibrate by being beaten with a hammer, as our dulcimer. Stringed instruments provided with a finger-board on which different tones are producible on one string by the performer shortening it more or less,—as on the guitar and violin,—are met with almost exclusively among nations in a somewhat advanced stage of musical progress. Such as are played with a bow are the least common ”

“ The higher notes produced by these latter vibrations are called the harmonics of the string. And so it is with other sounding bodies; we have in all cases a coexistence of vibrations. Higher tones mingle with the fundamental one, and it is their intermixture which determines what, for want of a better term, we call the quality of the sound. The French call it timbre, and the Germans call it Klangfarbe.38 It is this union of high and low tones that enables us to distinguish one musical instrument from another. ”

“ We cannot conjecture when it was discovered that more tones than one could be got from a single string by taking advantage of the expedient of a long neck or finger-board, or from a single pipe by boring lateral holes in it, and closing those holes to produce different notes with the fingers. ”

“ Stringed instruments possess more ways of producing sound than any other orchestral group. They can pass, better than other instruments from one shade of expression to another, the varieties being of an infinite number. Species of bowing such as legato, detached, staccato, spiccato, portamento, martellato, light staccato, saltando, attack at the nut and at the point, and (down bow and up bow) , in every degree of tone, fortissimo, pianissimo, crescendo, diminuendo, sforzando, morendo—all this belongs to the natural realm of the string quartet. ”

“ Each. 51. Twenty-three strings, three bars, producing three chords $2 70 52. Twenty three strings, four bars, producing four chords 3 00 523⁄4. Twenty-three strings, five bars, producing five chords 3 20 523⁄4A. Twenty three strings, six bars, producing six chords 3 60 523⁄4B. Twenty five strings, five bars, producing five chords. Extra large size 4 50 523⁄4C. Twenty-five strings, six bars, producing six chords. Extra large size 5 00 Each. 5101⁄2. As cut, 10 new style covered bars. Fine finish $6 50 [Pg 207] MUSICAL STRINGS. Violin Strings, Gut. ”

“ As rhythm is the heart pulsation of music, [69] it naturally took hold of the first singers of in any measure formulated melody, leading to swaying of the body, clapping of the hands, stamping of the feet, and quickly suggested the employment of other resonant means for marking its progress. Our drums were at first only hollow pieces of wood, our cymbals, triangle, and gong may have had double duties,—musical and culinary,—and our harp and piano were anticipated by single strings stretched to yield a sonorous tone regardless of pitch. ”

“ In the long evolution from the simple to the complex which music shares with everything else we know we may observe two different methods of tone-combination which, working together, have given us the elaborate texture of the modern art. That especially suited to melodic instruments, like those used in the orchestra or the chorus, puts melodies together as an engraver puts together lines, each remaining distinct, standing off clearly from the others, representing a different musical thought, and yet all agreeing, or, as we say, harmonizing. ”

“ It has been shown that a piano string when struck by a hammer, or a violin string when bowed, or a mandolin string when plucked, vibrates not only as a whole, but also in segments, and as a result gives forth not a simple tone, as we are accustomed to think, but a very complex tone consisting of the fundamental and one or more overtones. ”

“ That the short strings vibrate more rapidly than the long ones, and at the same time produce tones of a higher pitch? Imagine that having become familiar with the harp you should successively come upon scores of other musical instruments of very differing types. ”

“ An artist is at this moment engaged at the instrument, but you hear no sound. I place this violin upon the end of the rod; the violin becomes instantly musical—not, however, with the vibrations of its own strings, but with those of the piano. I remove the violin: the sound ceases. I put in its place a guitar, and the music revives. For the violin and guitar I substitute this plain wooden tray: it is also rendered musical. Here, finally, is a harp, against the sound-board of which I cause the end of the deal rod to press: every note of the piano is reproduced before you. ”

“ Whether the English peal of an octave, with the bells attuned to the intervals of the diatonic scale, and swung by hand, a man to each rope, in accordance with the most intricate mathematical formulas and without recognised melodies, is better or worse art than the carillon of thirty-five to fifty-two bells, covering sometimes four octaves and a half, in accord with the chromatic scale, fixed in their head-stocks and struck by hammers manipulated by one man sitting before a keyboard, and reproducing the most elaborate musical compositions, is no part of the argument. ”

“ In examining an orchestral score, it will be noted at once that the string parts are always together at the bottom of the page, while the wood-wind material is at the top. Since the strings furnish the most important parts of the harmonic structure for so much of the time, our amateur will at first play only the string parts, with the possible addition of the flute, oboe, and certain other non-transposed voices a little later on. But as he gains facility he will gradually be able to take in all the parts and to include at least a sort of summary of them all in his playing. ”

“ Open strings are clearer and more powerful but less expressive than stopped strings.
Comparing the range of each stringed instrument with that of the human voice, we may assign: to the violin, the soprano and-10- contralto voice plus a much higher range; to the viola, the contralto and tenor voice plus a much higher register; to the 'cello, the tenor and bass voices plus a higher register; to the double bass, the bass voice plus a lower range.
The use of harmonics, the mute, and some special devices in bowing produce great difference in the resonance and tone quality of all these instruments. ”

“ It is astonishing that in so complex and rapid a movement of the fingers, the musical proportions can be preserved, and that throughout the difficult modulations on their various instruments, the harmony is completed with such a sweet velocity, so unequal an equality, so discordant a concord, as if the chords sounded together fourths or fifths. ”

“ The first instrument dealt with is the harp, the essential feature of which is that each string gives but one sound. [72] It is not clear to me why the psaltery and dulcimer are separated from the harp, since they also have unstopped strings and therefore unalterable notes. Whereas the interpolated chapter ii. is concerned with instruments—the gittern and citole—whose tones are alterable in pitch by “stopping,” i.e., altering the length of the vibrating part of the string. ”

“ When science comes and the nature of sound itself is understood as a property, instruments are invented and improved by the husbandry of mind until a great variety of musical instruments are developed; thus symphony grows from the soil of time. What, then, is symphony? It is a succession of melodies, every one of which is produced by a group of instruments, one of which may be that of the human voice. Now, as these instruments play in unison, one or another is selected to play the leading melody, and the other instruments are made to play subsidiary melodies in harmony with the leading melody. ”

“ Recourse to discord will always be demanded in music; but it is a question as to what extent aperiodic sounds or noises are necessary. We have learned to accept the hisses, scratches, rattles, thuds, and bangs of countless varieties in musical tone. Some such accretions are present in the tone production of every instrument now in use. They have arisen as impediments in construction, but have come to be accepted as characteristics of the instrument and therefore have added greatly to the individuality of each instrument. ”

“ Something, it is true, depends upon the string and upon the bowing, but we are here supposing the same string and the same player, our object being to show how the resonator, which, in this case, is the body of the violin, intensifies the tone of the string, and affects its quality. ”

“ As the pressure is increased, the air, passing through the holes, assumes a rhythmical beat, which soon becomes metamorphosed into musical notes. It is evident, therefore, that, by means of this instrument, the number of vibrations which produce a definite tone can be measured with absolute accuracy by any one who has an ear capable of appreciating a musical note. ”

“ Manufacturers have done much toward eliminating the thump of the hammers against the strings, and familiarity with the tone of the instrument has closed our ears against it to a great extent as something intrusive, but the blow which excites the string to vibration, and thus generates sound, is yet a vital factor in determining the character of pianoforte music. ”

“ You will find that the string tuned to the pitch of your voice will start vibrating while all the others remain quiet. You can even go farther and try the experiment of uttering several different pitches, if you want to, and the corresponding strings will give back your notes, each one singling out its own particular vibration from the air. Now the results reached in these experiments with the piano strings meant a great deal more to Alexander Graham Bell than they would have meant to you or to me. ”

“ Every violinist knows how much the tone is affected by the point at which the bow is placed across the string, and the reason is that the point where the bow touches the string must always be a ventral point, or anti-node, and it therefore determines the harmonics which shall occur. ”

“ Although a good artist can produce various shades of tone on his instrument, yet every instrument has a well-defined characteristic timbre, which justifies us in speaking, for instance, of the majestic, solemn trombone, the serene flute, the amorous violoncello, the lugubrious bassoon, and so on. The human voice, on the other hand, is much less limited in its powers of tonal and emotional coloring. ”

“ When three strings are used, the third does not add half as much again, a fourth string adds still less in proportion, and, judging from the quality of the tone produced, seems to require an entirely new design.
In the final adjustments of the piano-forte by men of extremely keen sensibilities, certain defects, limitations, and peculiarities of the human ear, have been discovered that are noteworthy. ”

“ In such symphonies, in order to sharpen our ears, which have become dulled in this respect, we have arrived at the strange necessity of doubling the parts of the stringed instruments in a simple wind instrument ensemble, so as to attain the same effect which old masters attained with a simple distribution of the string parts. ”

“ Gather together in one heap of useless rubbish (for they will never more be needed) , harp, lyre, flute, flageolet, violin and guitar, piano and organ. Even that harp of three thousand strings, which the divine hand has placed in the human ear, shall not again vibrate to the delicate touch of nature’s hand. ”

“ If a violinist wants to produce a note of higher pitch, he presses his finger on the string, thereby shortening it, and by so doing increases the rapidity of vibration, and raises the pitch of the note. ”

“ For as in harps and other musical instruments the musical sound does not come from all parts of the instrument, but from the strings, and the rest is only for fastening and stretching the strings so as to tune them, that when they are struck by the musician they may give a pleasant sound ”

“ The group of strings is the most transparent medium and the one least likely to overpower the voice. Then come the wood-wind and the brass, the latter in the following order: horns, trombones, trumpets. A combination of strings, pizz., and the harp forms a setting eminently favourable for the voice. As a general rule a singer is more easily overpowered by long sustained notes than by short detached ones. Strings doubled in the wood-wind-121- and brass, and brass doubled by wood-wind are combinations liable to drown the singer. ”