It's Easy To Make Music, page 86

It's Easy To Make Music, page 86

The Anatomy of a Violin

The Violin

The Scroll is a beautiful carving at the end of the neck.Traditionally violin scrolls are in the shape of a rolled up sheet of parchment, but some artists prefer something a little different.

The pegs is use to tune the violin.  The four pegs, one for each string, are located between the scroll and the nut.  They are inserted into the violin so that they extend through the peg box and just barely come out the other side.  Each peg has a peg hole.  A string is inserted through the hole, runs through the nut, over the fingerboard, across the bridge and is attached to the tailpiece.  If we turn the pegs, we tighten or loosen the strings.  The tighter we make a string, the higher the note.  The looser we make the string the deeper the note.Pegs are traditionally made of ebony, but they can be made of either boxwood or rosewood.  They can be plain or they can have ornaments or inlays on their heads. Some violins are a little easier to tune because they have a fine tuner on the tailpiece for the E String, or a tailpiece with fine tuners already installed for all the strings.This means that if you get the string close to in tune using the pegs, you can make minor adjustments with the fine tuner to make the string perfect.


The fingerboard is traditionally made of ebony.  Ebony is a hard, dark wood from the tropics.  It is usually black, although streaked ebony does exist.  For this reason even an ebony fingerboard may be stained so that it appears uniformly black.  The stain does not affect the performance of the fingerboard.The fingerboard is the black thing that runs from the scroll down toward the bridge.  You put your fingers down on it to make the notes.The fingerboard is glued to the neck of the violin.  It extends from a point just below the nut (a block of ebony right below the pegbox that holds the strings in place and keeps them from rubbing against the fingerboard), to a point about a third of the way down the body of the violin and slightly above it. It does not actually touch the body of the violin, but passes above the belly of the instrument.


The bridge supports the strings above the fingerboard from the nut, over the bridge to the tailpiece.Bridges are usually made of maple.  This is a good wood in that it is strong enough to withstand the pressure tightening the strings will bring.  It is also a good material to carry the vibrations from the strings to the belly of the violin. Some bridges have an insert of ebony where the E-string will go to prevent its digging into the bridge.Usually about 75% of the wood in the bridge is their for strength.  The other 25% of the wood actually dampens the sound, but provides a portion of the tone the violin produces.A bridge needs to be fitted to the violin by carving its feet to match the curvature of the violin belly.  It also needs to be adjusted so that it is the proper height for the violin, and it needs to be placed in the right place on the violin.The best guideline I can give is to place a bridge even with the slash in the f-holes.  The feet of the bridge should be placed over the sound post and the bass bar.A violin bridge you will see that one side is flat, the other is slightly tapered.  As you place the bridge on a violin, the tapered side will face the tailpiece.  The flat side will face the scroll.  The flat side should form a right angle with the violin's belly.


The front body of a violin is usually made of spruce.  Other parts of the body are usually of maple.One thing that you will notice is the holes in the front of the violin. They are usually referred to as f-holes due to their shape. As described on other pages, the violinist draws the bow across the string.  The vibrating string moves the bridge.  The bridge transfers the vibration to the belly of the violin.  This starts the process of sound production.  It is the vibration of the entire body of the instrument that will produce the sound.

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