Violin

The violin, sometimes known as a fiddle, is a wooden string instrument in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and highest-pitched instrument in the family in regular use. Smaller violin-type instruments exist, including the violino piccolo and the kit violin, but these are virtually unused. The violin typically has four strings, usually tuned in perfect fifths with notes G3, D4, A4, E5, and is most commonly played by drawing a bow across its strings, though it can also be played by plucking the strings with the fingers (pizzicato) and by striking the strings with the wooden side of the bow (col legno). Violins are important instruments in a wide variety of musical genres. They are most prominent in the Western classical tradition, both in ensembles (from chamber music to orchestras) and as solo instruments and in many varieties of folk music, including country music, bluegrass music and in jazz. Electric violins with solid bodies and piezoelectric pickups are used in some forms of rock music and jazz fusion, with the pickups plugged into instrument amplifiers and speakers to produce sound. Further, the violin has come to be played in many non-Western music cultures, including Indian music and Iranian music. The name fiddle is often used regardless of the type of music played on it. The violin was first known in 16th-century Italy, with some further modifications occurring in the 18th and 19th centuries to give the instrument a more powerful sound and projection. In Europe, it served as the basis for the development of other stringed instruments used in Western classical music, such as the viola. Violinists and collectors particularly prize the fine historical instruments made by the Stradivari, Guarneri, Guadagnini and Amati families from the 16th to the 18th century in Brescia and Cremona (Italy) and by Jacob Stainer in Austria. According to their reputation, the quality of their sound has defied attempts to explain or equal it, though this belief is disputed. Great numbers of instruments have come from the hands of less famous makers, as well as still greater numbers of mass-produced commercial 'trade violins' coming from cottage industries in places such as Saxony, Bohemia, and Mirecourt. Many of these trade instruments were formerly sold by Sears, Roebuck and Co. and other mass merchandisers. The parts of a violin are usually made from different types of wood. Violins can be strung with gut, Perlon or other synthetic, or steel strings. A person who makes or repairs violins is called a luthier or violinmaker. One who makes or repairs bows is called an archetier or bowmaker. The word 'violin' was first used in English in the 1570s. The word 'violin' comes from 'Italian violino, diminutive of viola'. The term 'viola' comes from the expression for 'tenor violin' in 1797, from Italian viola, from Old Provençal viola, Medieval Latin vitula' as a term which means 'stringed instrument,' perhaps from Vitula, Roman goddess of joy..., or from related Latin verb vitulari, 'to exult, be joyful.' The related term 'Viola da gamba' means 'bass viol' (1724) is from Italian, literally 'a viola for the leg' (i.e. to hold between the legs).' A violin is the 'modern form of the smaller, medieval viola da braccio.' ('arm viola') The violin is often called a fiddle, either when used in a folk music context, or even in Classical music scenes, as an informal nickname for the instrument. The word 'fiddle' was first used in English in the late 14th century. The word 'fiddle' comes from 'fedele, fydyll, fidel, earlier fithele, from Old English fiðele 'fiddle,' which is related to Old Norse fiðla, Middle Dutch vedele, Dutch vedel, Old High German fidula, German Fiedel, 'a fiddle;' all of uncertain origin.' As to the origin of the word 'fiddle', the '...usual suggestion, based on resemblance in sound and sense, is that it is from Medieval Latin vitula.' The earliest stringed instruments were mostly plucked (for example, the Greek lyre). Two-stringed, bowed instruments, played upright and strung and bowed with horsehair, may have originated in the nomadic equestrian cultures of Central Asia, in forms closely resembling the modern-day Mongolian Morin huur and the Kazakh Kobyz. Similar and variant types were probably disseminated along East-West trading routes from Asia into the Middle East, and the Byzantine Empire.