String

“ The shorter the string, or the tighter it is drawn, the faster will it vibrate, and the higher will be the pitch of the sound. The more violent the blow, the farther will the string vibrate, and the louder will be the sound. ”

“ If we take a string, for instance, and fasten it between two points, and set the part of it thus stretched in vibration, the points of initial importance to discover are the thickness of the string, and the degree of tension. ”

“ Many of our readers probably are not aware, that however short and light a string may be, no amount of tension applied horizontally will stretch it into a line perfectly and mathematically straight. Practically the deviation is imperceptible where the power applied is very large in proportion to the weight and length of the string. ”

“ A piece of string is to be wound round the groove, a hole being made in the centre of the wood, through which the end of the string has first to be secured. In playing with the toy, the loose end of the string is to be held between the forefinger and thumb, and the grooved piece of wood is to be let fall. ”

“ Some of the strings are naturally higher than others; the highest is a smaller, finer string than the lowest. When the violinist plays, he shortens the strings by holding them down with his fingers, and the shorter he makes them the higher the note. ”

“ In these different respects, or from their consideration, soul and body may not unaptly be compared with two stringed instruments tuned by the same hand, and placed alongside of one another. When a string of one of them is touched and a certain tone goes forth, the corresponding string of the other will sound of itself and give the same tone, only somewhat weaker. ”

“ The strings do not conform to their primary limit; some wise philosopher increased their number to seven.
The instrument which I possess has seven strings, and I have had it many years, as also had its former possessor; and the nacre studs are arranged, not in the formal relation here depicted, but at distances corresponding to the half of the string, to two thirds, to three fourths, to four fifths, and so on. Any division of the string can, however, be made at the pleasure of the performer, these studs serving only as guides ”

“ Fold the string or strip of leaf, and cut it in half. Take one of the halves, fold it, and measure from the point upwards as far as it will go. Mark the spot, and measure off the string in breadths of the k’ris at that spot: there must be ten breadths, and at the measuring of the tenth the end of the string must be in the centre of the blade, if it is to be of any use. ”

“ When she has her string she makes the big bag that serves for the cradle, dyeing portions of the string as she goes along so as to work out her pattern. All the work is done without shuttle, mesh, or needle of any kind, and in the most used pattern there is only one length of string and only two knots—one at the beginning and one at the end of the work. ”

“ Having got a sufficient supply of string, the next thing is to make string bags—which is done by making a row of loops for the bottom of the bag, and working round and round, putting the end of the string through each loop to make a fresh row. Usually the end is fastened to a hen’s feather to make it go through easily. ”

“ A strong doubled string must be tied at the two ends of the bone, and a piece of wood about three inches long put between the strings, as shown in the marginal illustration, and twisted round until the string acquires the force of a spring. ”

“ String is a wonderful adjunct to garments generally, often acting as a substitute for buttons or braces; in fact, for a man wrecked on a desert island, there would not be the slightest cause for despair so long as he had string; but even it falls powerless before boots; glue is useless from the damp ”

“ While the balls are examining, you double each string, and each appears to have two even ends; you twist the double end of each together, and putting on one of the balls which has a hole smaller than the others over the place that is joined, the strings remain firm, and can bear to be pulled. ”

“ I give you the end of a golden string;
Only wind it into a ball,
It will lead you in at Heaven’s gate,
Built in Jerusalem’s wall. ”

“ When a string is plucked in the middle without being held, it vibrates simply as a whole (Fig. 184) , and gives forth but one note; this is called the fundamental. If the string is made to vibrate in two parts, it gives forth two notes, the fundamental, and a note one octave higher than the fundamental; this is called the first overtone. When the string is made to move as in Figure 183, three distinct motions are called forth, the [290] motion of the entire string, the motion of the portion plucked, and the motion of the remaining unplucked portion of the string. ”

“ The cords, which are attached to the cartilages, are to the human speech organs what the two vibrating reeds are to a clarinet or the strings to a violin. They are capable of at least three distinct types of movement, each of which is of the greatest importance for speech. ”

“ Strings hale and strings broken, strings slack or tight, there are all kinds of them; the best we can do's to be taut and trembling for the gladness of God who loves fine music, and set the stars themselves to singing from the very day He put them birling in the void. ”

“ 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. ”

“ From within he produced a crumpled piece of paper, an old-fashioned brass key, a peg of wood with a ball of string attached to it, and three rusty old disks of metal. ”

“ Beasts of prey, when springing, are blazoned as salient. Stringed.—Applied in specifying the tincture of the string wherewith a bugle-horn is suspended, or of the strings of a harp. The arms of Ireland are, Az. ”

“ It is an exciting moment when you begin to cut the strings, for the strings bring the puppet to life. The first to be cut are the head strings. They should be at least forty-two inches long and should be tied securely to the head staples. ”

“ they are like beads on a string—when one slips off, all the rest follow. ”

“ 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 above references to strings, met with in the writers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, indicate a full knowledge of the most important facts concerning them on the part of the musicians and makers of those days; and notwithstanding our superior mechanical contrivances in the manufacture, it is doubtful whether modern strings are generally equal to those made in times when leisure waited on quality, in lieu of speed on quantity. ”

“ Are there stringed instruments with sympathetic strings (i.e., strings placed under those strings which are played upon. The sympathetic strings merely serve to increase the sonorousness) ?
"40. What are the musical intervals in which the stringed instruments are tuned?
"41. Do the people possess any musical instrument of a very peculiar construction? ”

“ Some of the strings run over a finger-board provided with iron frets. These strings are used for playing the melody. The others are at the [Pg 13] side of the finger-board, and serve for the accompaniment. ”

“ I have spent my days in stringing and in unstringing my instrument. ”

“ Better have two strings to one’s bow than none at all!” ”

“ This vowel indicates that the interior of a given loop, whorl, circle, or containing pattern of any kind, is empty or vacant. Dealing here only with the simpler conditions in which combinations of vowels and consonants are found, such a figure will be indexed as Ra, La, Ta, Da, as the dominant consonant may require. Such combinations as ar, al, at, ad, etc., may occur, but this would lead us into too many intricate ramifications for a work like the present.
If a pattern is very simple—consisting, for example, of almost parallel lines—it may be denoted by the letter A alone. ”

“ Dr. Adam says: 1. "A letter is the mark of a sound, or of an articulation of sound." 2. "A vowel is properly called a simple sound; and the sounds formed by the concourse of vowels and consonants, articulate sounds."--Latin and English Gram., pp. 1 and 2.
[87] Of this sort of blunder, the following false definition is an instance: "A Vowel is a letter, the name of which makes a full open sound."--Lennie's Gram., p. 5; Brace's, 7; Hazen's, 10. All this is just as true of a consonant as of a vowel. The comma too, used in this sentence, defeats even the sense which the writers intended. ”

“ A perhaps commoner fault is in not allowing sufficient space for the signature, and therefore cramping it. Each sharp or flat should be well to the right-hand of the preceding one, never over or under it.
(3) Sharps, flats, and naturals, like clefs, cover much more of the stave than the single line or space which they govern. Not nearly enough care is usually exercised to make the center of the sharp, or the loop of the flat, exactly correspond with this, as it should. ”

“ When o forms a part of other letters, as a, d, g and q, it is a thickness less than a breadth.
b Is four lengths, and the same breadth as a and d at the bottom.
c Is made in the same manner as an o, only carry up the hair stroke, and make a square cut inclining to the body of the letter.
d Is three lengths, and similar to a and b at the bottom.
e Is the same as a c, except the loop at the top, which is half a length, and half a breadth.
f Is three lengths above the upper line, and three lengths below the under one. The loop at the top is two and a half lengths, and two-thirds of a breadth ”

“ Letter, Syllable, Connecting Word, Noun, Verb, Inflection or Case, Sentence or Phrase.
A Letter is an indivisible sound, yet not every such sound, but only one which can form part of a group of sounds. For even brutes utter indivisible sounds, none of which I call a letter. The sound I mean may be either a vowel, a semivowel, or a mute. A vowel is that which without impact of tongue or lip has an audible sound. ”

“ All vowels in combination with consonants are naturally short unless the long sound is given by combination with other vowels, by accent, or by position in the syllable with reference to consonants.
2. Law: Words derived from other words by the addition of prefixes or suffixes always retain the original form as far as possible.
1. We are likely to suppose that the natural or original sound of a vowel is the long sound, because that is the sound we give it when naming it in the alphabet. ”

“ If any vowel sound is to be called the open sound because the letter ends a syllable, or is not shut by a consonant, it is, undoubtedly, the primal and most usual sound, as found in the letter when accented, and not some other of rare occurrence. ”

“ The value of each symbol is collective; that is to say, the sign of a vowel represents a group of related vowel-sounds, and it stands for either a short or a long quantity, and the sign of a consonant may include more than one variation of a certain place of articulation. ”

“ The first sound of a vowel [,] as [that of a in] fate [,] may be called open, because it is the sound which the vowel generally has when it ends a syllable; the second sound as [that of a in] fat, may be called close, because it is the sound which the vowel generally has when it is joined with a consonant following in the same syllable, as fat-ten; when there are more than two sounds of any vowel [,] they may be numbered onward; as 3 far, 4 fall."--Perley's Gram., p. 73.
OBS. 5.--Walker thought a long or short vowel sound essential to a long or short quantity in any syllable. ”

“ Whenever, in a word of two or more syllables an unaccented vowel or digraph occurs in the last syllable between a liquid (l, m, n, r) and any other consonant, or between two liquids, the unaccented vowel or digraph is elided whenever the word is lengthened by a grammatical inflection beginning with a vowel. ”

“ In the old vowel letters the principal rule was to use each one to represent that sound which it most frequently represented in the common spelling. Then each letter must always represent one and the same sound, and each sound he invariably represented by the same letter. ”

“ The vowels i and y have, in general, exactly the same sound under similar circumstances, and, in forming derivatives, we often change one for the other: as in city, cities; tie, tying; easy, easily.
Y, before a vowel heard in the same syllable, is reckoned a consonant; we have, therefore, no diphthongs or triphthongs commencing with this letter. ”