Guitars and fiddles have a lot of similarities and some major differences. Comparing the two is an interesting exercise which sheds some light on how each instrument works. Stringed instrument building is essentially concerned with two things: modifying vibrational energy to produce sound, and resisting the destructive forces of that energy. Making a string vibrate requires that the string be held under tension. The universe being what it is, that tension is gradually released into the structure which holds the string, distorting it until the tension is gone.
I’m going to compare and contrast the the essential features of guitars and violins, starting with a list of their similarities. For this discussion I’m mainly considering flat-topped guitars, with bridge-anchored strings. There are also guitars with arched tops and with end-mounted strings. Also, what I say about “violins” applies equally to violas, cellos and basses.
I’ll take each of these in turn and consider the differences, but first, to understand where those differences come from, it is essential to consider:
What Are The Differences And Similarities Between A Violin And A Guitar?
Guitars – the string is plucked, the sound box amplifies the vibrations, The energy imparted to the string is at its greatest the moment that the string is plucked and that energy dissipated in moving parts of the guitar.
Violins – the string is bowed. Bowing is effectively a very rapid succession of plucks where the sticky rosin on the passing bow hairs grabs the string and holds it until the pull of the string overcomes the adhesion and the string returns towards its starting position. As the string relaxes, the rosin again sticks to the string, grabs it and releases it, in a continuing cycle. Unlike the guitar, the moving bow is constantly imparting energy to the string so that instead of producing a strike-and-fade note, a violin can hold a note indefinitely, increasing and decreasing the volume at will. In fact the pitch and tone can also be varied in a single note
As will be seen, these different methods of imparting energy to the string greatly affect the design and construction of the two instruments.
Romantic Guitar And Violin
Strings are, obviously, the heart of stringed instruments. Development of string technology has contributed more to the evolution of acoustic instruments than anything else in the last 150 years.
Length, tension and mass are the factors that determine the frequency that a string vibrates at. Think of the strings on a harp or piano, the long heavy ones play the low notes, the short skinny ones play the high notes. Originally strings were all gut. It was later found instead of just making the low strings thicker and thicker (and less and less playable) their mass could instead be increased by wrapping them in wire. Gut strings were not very durable and were sensitive to moisture, tending to go out of tune quickly. As various filament producing technologies were developed gut began to be replaced, starting with steel wire. Steel strings were stronger and could be tuned to higher tensions which drove the instruments harder and produced more power. The tone tended to be harsher and less colorful. The advent of plastics allowed strings to be made that were more durable and moisture stable than gut but warmer and more colorful than steel. By now people were hooked on the power of steel strings and attempts were made to take and blend the best qualities of the materials available.
For guitars the advent of steel strings meant a sharp branching in the evolutionary tree. Guitars were developed to take advantage of the tonal power of steel. Steel strings could produce much more volume and a more cutting sound that could be heard in ensembles with louder instruments. But this came at a price, if you put steel strings on a classical guitar you have a tiger by the tail*. Its very exciting for a while but they will destroy your guitar. So steel stringed guitars were build with heavier tops and heavier bracing. Steel strings could also drive a larger body for a boomier sound. The necks could be narrower because the strings don’t vibrate as widely. Steel strings were also magnetic which allowed the development of the electric guitar.
Learn The Difference Between Violin And Fiddle
The violin didn’t evolve in the same way in response to the invention of steel strings. It has been largely unchanged since the nineteenth century. While classical guitarists switched to nylon strings the steel E string became an almost universal fixture on violins. Because it is so thin and under such high tension, no other material could match its durability. The higher tension available with steel created a powerful penetrating sound, able to rise above an orchestra. Many players lament its loss of warmth and the tonal inconsistency with the other, synthetic strings on the instrument.
Strings for the violin family instruments have evolved to a much greater extent than guitar strings (with the exception of the steel E-string). Bowing the string leads to problems that guitar strings don’t face such as a tendency to twist and untwist as they are bowed, leading to an unwanted “whistling” sound. Violin strings and cello strings come in a huge array of combinations of solid, twisted, plaited cores of a variety of metals or plastics. These are wrapped in one or more layers of windings of exotic metals and insulating materials. All of this comes with a cost. The most expensive set of guitar strings will costs about $40, that will buy you less than two thirds of a good cello C-string. The whole set costs about $400
The top of the instrument is where most of the sound amplification takes place. The job of the top is to take the tiny vibrations of the strings and spread them over a larger area so that they can set up vibrations in the air around us which we can hear. Violinmakers and guitar makers share a common problem: how to make the top light enough to vibrate easily while still being strong enough to resist the destructive pressures of the strings. Violin makers and guitar makers agree on one part of the solution to this problem: use a material that is both stiff and light. The best known natural material with a high stiffness to weight ratio is spruce, or similar species of wood. Consequently the tops or sound boards of most stringed instruments, including pianos and concert harps, are built with spruce tops. The major exceptions to this are banjo type instruments. Their drum type construction can lead to very powerful sound production but with perhaps less tonal nuance than is possible with wooden sound boards.
Should You Get An Electric Or Acoustic Violin
Other than a shared choice of material, the two instruments have taken different routes in trying to solve this problem of responsiveness versus structural integrity:
In the violin the strings are anchored at the top of the neck and at the very end of the body. The strings rise up and bend over the bridge, more or less at the center of the body. The bridge is not glued to the top, but held in place by the downward pressure of the strings. This downward pressure is fairly considerable and the arched shape of the top resists the deforming pressure of the strings by distributing that pressure more evenly across the span of the arch, in much the same way that an arch in a building spreads its load. In addition to the arched shape of the violin top, it also gains some strength from a supporting column, the “soundpost”, standing under the treble bridge foot, while a longitudinal strut, the “bass bar”, supports the other foot. Supporting the bridge area with extra wooden struts like the bass bar is an obvious solution to preventing the top from sinking while leaving other areas of the top light so as to still be responsive to low energy impulses from the string. The use of the soundpost is a radical departure from this and has profound consequences. The anchoring of one foot causes the oscillations of the other foot to almost double in amplitude, resulting in a more powerful instrument. Furthermore, by making the soundpost movable, the tonal color and other playing attributes can be adjusted relatively easily, without making invasive structural changes to the instrument.
In the guitar, on the other hand, the strings are anchored at the bridge which is glued to the top, not in the center of the body, but in the center of the widest part of the body. Whereas the violin bridge presses directly down, perpendicular to the top, the guitar bridge twists, pulling up on the top behind it and pushing down on the top on the string side of the bridge. To resist these destructive pressures, instead of just making the top thicker, which would make the top vibrate less easily, reinforcing struts of wood are placed strategically at stress points, again with the aim of distributing the load more evenly throughout the structure. On more sophisticated guitars, there is also some slight arch into the tops in a manner to resist the bending effects of the bridge.
Hofner Hi 459 Pe Sb Ignition Violin Guitar Sunburst — Andy Babiuk's Fab Gear
Jazz
The violin didn’t evolve in the same way in response to the invention of steel strings. It has been largely unchanged since the nineteenth century. While classical guitarists switched to nylon strings the steel E string became an almost universal fixture on violins. Because it is so thin and under such high tension, no other material could match its durability. The higher tension available with steel created a powerful penetrating sound, able to rise above an orchestra. Many players lament its loss of warmth and the tonal inconsistency with the other, synthetic strings on the instrument.
Strings for the violin family instruments have evolved to a much greater extent than guitar strings (with the exception of the steel E-string). Bowing the string leads to problems that guitar strings don’t face such as a tendency to twist and untwist as they are bowed, leading to an unwanted “whistling” sound. Violin strings and cello strings come in a huge array of combinations of solid, twisted, plaited cores of a variety of metals or plastics. These are wrapped in one or more layers of windings of exotic metals and insulating materials. All of this comes with a cost. The most expensive set of guitar strings will costs about $40, that will buy you less than two thirds of a good cello C-string. The whole set costs about $400
The top of the instrument is where most of the sound amplification takes place. The job of the top is to take the tiny vibrations of the strings and spread them over a larger area so that they can set up vibrations in the air around us which we can hear. Violinmakers and guitar makers share a common problem: how to make the top light enough to vibrate easily while still being strong enough to resist the destructive pressures of the strings. Violin makers and guitar makers agree on one part of the solution to this problem: use a material that is both stiff and light. The best known natural material with a high stiffness to weight ratio is spruce, or similar species of wood. Consequently the tops or sound boards of most stringed instruments, including pianos and concert harps, are built with spruce tops. The major exceptions to this are banjo type instruments. Their drum type construction can lead to very powerful sound production but with perhaps less tonal nuance than is possible with wooden sound boards.
Should You Get An Electric Or Acoustic Violin
Other than a shared choice of material, the two instruments have taken different routes in trying to solve this problem of responsiveness versus structural integrity:
In the violin the strings are anchored at the top of the neck and at the very end of the body. The strings rise up and bend over the bridge, more or less at the center of the body. The bridge is not glued to the top, but held in place by the downward pressure of the strings. This downward pressure is fairly considerable and the arched shape of the top resists the deforming pressure of the strings by distributing that pressure more evenly across the span of the arch, in much the same way that an arch in a building spreads its load. In addition to the arched shape of the violin top, it also gains some strength from a supporting column, the “soundpost”, standing under the treble bridge foot, while a longitudinal strut, the “bass bar”, supports the other foot. Supporting the bridge area with extra wooden struts like the bass bar is an obvious solution to preventing the top from sinking while leaving other areas of the top light so as to still be responsive to low energy impulses from the string. The use of the soundpost is a radical departure from this and has profound consequences. The anchoring of one foot causes the oscillations of the other foot to almost double in amplitude, resulting in a more powerful instrument. Furthermore, by making the soundpost movable, the tonal color and other playing attributes can be adjusted relatively easily, without making invasive structural changes to the instrument.
In the guitar, on the other hand, the strings are anchored at the bridge which is glued to the top, not in the center of the body, but in the center of the widest part of the body. Whereas the violin bridge presses directly down, perpendicular to the top, the guitar bridge twists, pulling up on the top behind it and pushing down on the top on the string side of the bridge. To resist these destructive pressures, instead of just making the top thicker, which would make the top vibrate less easily, reinforcing struts of wood are placed strategically at stress points, again with the aim of distributing the load more evenly throughout the structure. On more sophisticated guitars, there is also some slight arch into the tops in a manner to resist the bending effects of the bridge.
Hofner Hi 459 Pe Sb Ignition Violin Guitar Sunburst — Andy Babiuk's Fab Gear
Jazz
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