Violin Forum/Message Board

[John Cadd]

If you look at a violin body as two separate volumes (top and bottom ) separated by the sound hole centre is there a reaction between the two parts. Does the volume relationship define what Stradivarius was working to perfect? Just a question.

[John Cadd]

This question follows the general pattern of violin making.All over "the violin" there is a rule of building in an off centre rocking motion.
The external appearance is very strongly in favour of symmetry visually but the operation to produce a rich sound comes from the offcentre aspects which are harder to spot. Most obvious are soundpost and bass bar. The post is slightly away from the foot of the bridge.The bassbar centre is just away from the bridge.Every way to produce another kind of rocking or wobbling is used.
Nothing profound or staggering as a if it was a theory ,but it may guide the new makers along a better way to make their first instrument.
When you make the back, the thicknessing creates an offcentre effect. Lots of makers , in the past ,went wrong with that.
Maybe we need a list

[John Cadd]

Just to add another to the collection,The ankles of the bridge legs affect the highest frequencies so there must be a tiny amount of flexing of the feet.The sound post is generally not dead in line with the foot centre.