Strings
Lute
Stringed instrument widely played in the 14th to 18th centuries and revived in the 20th century; also, generically, any stringed instrument having strings that run in a parallel plane to the soundboard and along a protruding neck.
The lute developed its classical form by about 1500. It has a flat fir belly, or soundboard, and a deep, extremely lightweight, pear-shaped body made by bending narrow strips of wood (ribs) and gluing them side by side. Tied onto the neck and fingerboard are seven to ten gut frets. Six pairs (double courses) of strings run from tuning pegs (set in a pegbox that angles sharply back from the neck) to a bridge glued to the belly. The typical Renaissance tuning of the lute was G/c/f/a/d'/g' (relative pitch); the highest string was sometimes single. Above the bridge is a round sound hole filled with an intricate carving, or rose. The player's right-hand fingers pluck the strings, which are stopped (altered in pitch) by the left-hand fingers. The English lutenist John Dowland was outstanding among Renaissance composers for the lute.
About 1600, with the coming of the baroque era, the lute acquired additional bass strings (usually four). These strings were not stopped with the fingers, but were tuned in descending steps (F/E/D/C). For these lutes, French composers such as Denis Gaultier developed a notable body of music. Larger lutes with more and longer bass strings were also built; they include the theorbo, chitarrone, and archlute. By 1700 the introduction of metal-overspun gut strings allowed bass strings of normal length to be used. Typical lutes of the 18th century have one bent-back pegbox and a broad neck over which are stretched five to seven bass strings and the six double courses, by then usually tuned A/d/f/a/d'/f' (relative pitch).
The lute entered medieval Europe from Arabic culture as an instrument plucked by a plectrum, or pick, with four pairs of strings. It was a version of the Arabic 'ud (spelled oud by its modern Balkan players), which today is an unfretted, plectrum-plucked instrument with four to seven double courses. Relatives of the 'ud and lute include the Romanian cobza, the mandolin, and the medieval mandola. These broadly resemble the short-necked lutes that had appeared in the Middle East by about 700 BC. Moving to the east as well as the west, such lutes evolved into the Chinese pipa and Japanese biwa. Shallow-bodied, long-necked lutes were known in Mesopotamia by 2000 BC. Modern examples include the Greek bouzouki and the Japanese shamisen.
Violin
Bowed stringed instrument, the highest pitched member of the violin family. Other members of the violin family are the viola, cello, and double bass. The bow is a narrow, slightly incurved stick of Pernambuco about 75 cm (about 30 in) long, with a band of horsehair stretched from end to end of the bowstick. The violin has four strings tuned a fifth apart, to the notes g, d', a', e''. On early violins the strings were of pure gut. Today they may be of gut, gut wound with aluminum or silver, steel, or perlon.
Construction and Playing
The main parts of the violin are the front, also called the belly, top, or soundboard, usually made of well-seasoned spruce; the back, usually made of well-seasoned maple; and the ribs, neck, fingerboard, pegbox, scroll, bridge, tailpiece, and f-holes, or soundholes. The front, back, and ribs are joined together to form a hollow sound box. The sound box contains the sound post, a thin, dowel-like stick of wood wedged inside underneath the right side of the bridge and connecting the front and back of the violin; and the bass-bar, a long strip of wood glued to the inside of the front under the left side of the bridge. The sound post and bass-bar are important for the transmission of sound, and they also give additional support to the construction. The strings are fastened to the tailpiece, rest on the bridge, are suspended over the fingerboard, and run to the pegbox, where they are attached to tuning pegs that can be turned to change the pitch of the string. The player makes different pitches by placing the left-hand fingers on the string and pressing against the fingerboard. The strings are set in vibration and produce sound when the player draws the bow across them at a right angle near the bridge.
Among the prized characteristics of the violin are its singing tone and its potential to play rapid, brilliant figurations as well as lyrical melodies. Violinists can also create special effects by means of the following techniques: pizzicato, plucking the strings; tremolo, moving the bow rapidly back and forth on a string; sul ponticello, playing with the bow extremely close to the bridge to produce a thin, glassy sound; col legno, playing with the wooden part of the bow instead of with the hair; harmonics, placing the fingers of the left hand lightly on certain points of the string to obtain a light, flutelike sound; and glissando, steadily gliding the left-hand fingers up and down along the string to produce an upward- or downward-sliding pitch.
History
The violin emerged in Italy in the early 1500s and seems to have evolved from two medieval bowed instruments—the fiddle, also called viele or fiedel, and the rebec—and from the Renaissance lira da braccio (a violinlike instrument with off-the-fingerboard drone strings). Also related, but not a direct ancestor, is the viol, a fretted, six-string instrument that appeared in Europe before the violin and existed side by side with it for about 200 years.
The earliest important violin makers were the northern Italians Gasparo da Salò (1540-1609) and Giovanni Maggini (1579-c. 1630) from Brescia and Andrea Amati from Cremona. The craft of violin making reached unprecedented artistic heights in the 17th and early 18th centuries in the workshops of the Italians Antonio Stradivari and Giuseppe Guarneri, both from Cremona, and the Austrian Jacob Stainer.
Compared with the modern instrument, the early violin had a shorter, thicker neck that was less angled back from the violin's front; a shorter fingerboard; a flatter bridge; and strings made solely of gut. Early bows were somewhat different in design from modern ones. These construction details were all modified in the 18th and 19th centuries to give the violin a louder, more robust, more brilliant tone. A number of 20th-century players have restored their 18th-century instruments to the original specifications, believing them more suited for early music.
Used at first to accompany dancing or to double voice parts in vocal music, the violin was considered an instrument of low social status. In the early 1600s, however, the violin gained prestige through its use in operas such as Orfeo (1607), by the Italian composer Claudio Monteverdi, and through the French king Louis XIII's band of musicians, the 24 violons du roi ("the king's 24 violins," formed in 1626). This growth in stature continued throughout the baroque period (circa 1600-c. 1750) in the works of many notable composer-performers, including Arcangelo Corelli, Antonio Vivaldi, and Giuseppe Tartini in Italy and Heinrich Biber, Georg Philipp Telemann, and Johann Sebastian Bach in Germany. The violin became the principal force in the instrumental genres then current—the solo concerto, concerto grosso, sonata, trio sonata, and suite—as well as in opera. By the mid-18th century the violin was one of the most popular solo instruments in European music. Violins also formed the leading section of the orchestra, the most important instrumental ensemble to emerge in both the baroque and classical (circa 1750-c. 1820) eras; and in the modern orchestra—still the most important instrumental ensemble in Western music—the violin family continues to account for more than half the players. The predominant chamber-music ensemble, the string quartet, consists of two violins, viola, and cello.
Viola
Alto member of the violin family, having four strings tuned c g d1 a1 (c = C below middle C; a1 = A above middle C). About 2 to 7 cm (1 to 3.5 in) longer than the violin, and tuned a fifth lower, the viola varies more in size than do the violin and cello. Most violas are resonant and mellow in the lower range and have rich, full sounds in the middle and upper ranges. The earliest surviving examples are two fairly large violas by the Italian builder Gasparo da Salò (1540-1609). Used prominently in such early works as the opera Orfeo (1607) by the Italian composer Claudio Monteverdi, the viola in the late 17th and 18th centuries took a secondary role, and smaller models prevailed. With the viola's resurgence in compositions such as the symphonic poem Harold in Italy (1834) by the French composer Hector Berlioz, and works by the German composers Johannes Brahms and Robert Schumann, large violas again predominated.
Viol
Bowed stringed instrument popular from about 1500 to about 1750 and revived in the 20th century for early music. The viol rests vertically on the player's knees, hence its Italian name viola da gamba (leg viol). The bow is held palm outward and is slightly convex (in contrast to the concave violin bow). Made in three principal sizes (treble, tenor, and bass), the viol has a deep body and sloped shoulders; a back that angles back sharply near the neck; a violinlike bridge; C-shaped sound holes; and tied-on gut frets that contribute to its clear, penetrating sound. The six gut strings are tuned (in the tenor) G c f a d1 g1 (c = C below middle C; d1 = D above middle C), a tuning shared by the viol's relative, the lute. The treble tuning has the same pattern starting on d; the bass, starting on D. Less common was the double bass, tuned an octave lower; it was one ancestor of the modern double bass. In the 1500s and 1600s a consort, or ensemble, of viols was a favorite medium for chamber music by such composers as Purcell. With the rise of the orchestra in the 1700s the violin drove the treble and tenor viols from prominence. The bass viol persisted, its most famous virtuoso being the French player Marin Marais. Music for bass viol includes the Brandenburg Concerto no. 6 by J. S. Bach.
Violoncello
Large, low-pitched musical instrument of the violin family, held between the performer's knees. It has four strings tuned C G d a (C = two C's below middle C; a = the A below middle C). Its range extends over more than four octaves. The earliest surviving cellos are two from the 1560s by the Italian violinmaker Andrea Amati. Until the late 18th century the cello was primarily a supporting instrument, playing bass lines and adding fullness to musical textures. During the baroque era unaccompanied cello suites were composed (1720?) by Bach, as were cello concertos by Vivaldi and Boccherini. In the 19th century, works for the cello included concertos by Brahms and the Dvorák. In the 20th century, composers such as the Prokofiev and Shostakovich further explored its solo capabilities. The most prominent 20th-century cellists include Pablo Casals, Yo-Yo Ma, Gregor Piatigorsky and Mstislav Rostropovich.
Contrabass
Largest and lowest-pitched member of the violin family. Also known as the contrabass, the double bass is usually about 1.8 m (about 6 ft) high and has four strings tuned to sound EE AA D G (EE = third E below middle C; G = second G below middle C) and notated an octave higher. A low fifth string is sometimes added, tuned to the C below the E string. On some instruments the E string is extended at the head and fitted with a mechanism that clamps off the extra length; releasing the mechanism allows the string to sound the low notes down to C. Three-stringed basses were common in the 18th and 19th centuries (often tuned A D G) and survive in Eastern European folk music. Early basses of the 16th and 17th centuries had four or five (or, rarely, six) strings. Modern dance-band basses occasionally add a high fifth string tuned to the C above the G string. Until the 19th century, bass players used bows with the stick out-curved in relation to the bow hair—long after the in-curved bow was standard for the violin, viola, and violoncello. The out-curved bass bow continues in use alongside two in-curved models developed in the 19th century. Virtuosos on the double bass have included Domenico Dragonetti, conductor Serge Koussevitzky, and the jazz bassist Charlie Mingus.
Harp
Musical instrument in which strings, sounded by plucking, run between a neck and a sound box (also called the body or resonator). The strings run perpendicular to the sound box (instead of parallel, as on a guitar).
Types
Harps are made in three basic shapes: arched harps, in which the neck and body form a bowlike curve; angular harps, in which neck and body form at least a right angle; and frame harps, in which a third piece, the forepillar, is placed opposite the angle between the neck and body, forming a triangle, to brace them against the tension of the strings. The modern orchestral harp is a large frame harp having 46 strings (six and one-half octaves, with 7 strings per octave); the bass strings made of covered wire and the treble strings of gut or nylon. To produce accidentals (sharped or flatted notes) lying outside the harp's seven-note scale, the instrument has a system of seven double-action pedals, each pedal controlling one string in every octave. The harp is tuned to the C-flat scale; when a pedal is depressed one notch, each string it controls is raised by a half step, as from C flat to C natural; when it is depressed two notches, each is raised a whole step, as from C flat to C sharp.
Early History
Arched harps, the most ancient of all harps, were known in Sumer and Egypt between about 3000 and 2000 BC, and angular harps appeared somewhat later. Arched harps survive today in Myanmar (formerly known as Burma), in parts of Africa, in a few areas of Siberia, and in an isolated part of Afghanistan. Angular harps were prominent in medieval Arabic and Persian music and were played as late as the 19th century in Persia. Frame harps, almost exclusively European, appeared by the 9th century and developed in two versions, one used in Ireland and Scotland, and one on the Continent. The Irish harp, like its Scottish counterpart, was a powerful instrument with a broad, deep sound box hewn from one block of wood; a thick, strong neck; and a heavy, curved forepillar. Strung with 30 to 50 brass strings that were plucked by the player's long fingernails to produce a brilliant, ringing sound, it survived in Irish aristocratic circles until about 1800. Medieval harps in other parts of Europe were smaller and lighter, with about 7 to 25 strings, apparently of metal, and narrower, shallower sound boxes. By about 1500, gut strings came into use, and a taller form developed, having a straight forepillar that could support more string tension than a light, curved forepillar. This Gothic harp is the ancestor of the folk harps of Latin America and of the modern Irish and orchestral harps.
Later Developments
As music in the 16th to 18th centuries gradually demanded more notes lying outside the seven notes of the European harp's scale, attempts were made to enable the harp to produce the additional notes. These included adding a second row of strings tuned to the sharps and flats (chromatic harps), setting small hooks on the neck that could be turned to catch a string and raise its pitch a half step, and providing pedals to which the hooks (or later, rotating disks) were connected by levers and wires set inside the forepillar. Devised in 1720, the first single-action pedal harp could raise the pitch of the selected strings by a half step, allowing the harp to play in many, although not all, keys; this was achieved with the double-action harp developed in 1810 by Sébastien Érard in Paris.