The Lira Da Braccio
The Lira Da Braccio

Author: Sterling Scott Jones

Publisher: Indiana University Press

Published: 1995-05-22

Total Pages: 154

ISBN-13: 9780253209115

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The very lack of concrete knowledge about the lira da braccio and its technical difficulties challenged Sterling Scott Jones to discover more about this sixteenth-century string instrument, which may be the missing link between the medieval fiddle and the modern violin.

The Viola d’Amore
The Viola d’Amore

Author: Rachael Durkin

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2020-07-23

Total Pages: 188

ISBN-13: 0429783655

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This book provides the first scholarly history of the viola d’amore, a popular bowed string instrument of the Baroque era, with a unique tone produced by a set of metal sympathetic strings. Composers like Bach made use of the viola d’amore for its particular sound, but the instrument subsequently fell out of fashion amid orchestral standardisation, only to see a revival as interest in early music and historical performance grew. Drawing on literary accounts, iconography, and surviving instruments, this study examines the origins and development of this eye-catching string instrument in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It explores the rich variation of designs displayed in extant viola d’amore specimens, both as originally constructed and as a result of conversion and repair. The viola d’amore is then set into the wider context of Elizabethan England’s development of instruments with wire strings, and its legacy in the form of the baryton which emerged in the early seventeenth century, followed by a look at the viola d’amore’s own nomenclatorial and organological influence. The book closes with a discussion of the viola d’amore’s revival, and its use and manufacture today. Offering insights for organological research and historical performance practice, this study enhances our knowledge of both the viola d’amore and its wider family of instruments.

The Science of String Instruments
The Science of String Instruments

Author: Thomas D. Rossing

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2010-12-15

Total Pages: 469

ISBN-13: 1441971106

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Thomas D. Rossing String instruments are found in almost all musical cultures. Bowed string instruments form the backbone of symphony orchestras, and they are used widely as solo inst- ments and in chamber music as well. Guitars are used universally in pop music as well as in classical music. The piano is probably the most versatile of all musical inst- ments, used widely not only in ensemble with other musical instruments but also as a solo instrument and to accompany solo instruments and the human voice. In this book, various authors will discuss the science of plucked, bowed, and hammered string instruments as well as their electronic counterparts. We have tried to tell the fascinating story of scienti?c research with a minimum of mathematics to maximize the usefulness of the book to performers and instrument builders as well as to students and researchers in musical acoustics. Sometimes, however, it is dif?cult to “translate” ideas from the exact mathematical language of science into words alone, so we include some basic mathematical equations to express these ideas. It is impossible to discuss all families of string instruments. Some instruments have been researched much more than others. Hopefully, the discussions in this book will help to encourage further scienti?c research by both musicians and scientists alike. 1.1 A Brief History of the Science of String Instruments Quite a number of good histories of acoustics have been written (Lindsay 1966, 1973; Hunt 1992; Beyer 1999), and these histories include musical acoustics.