Violin

choi

(1) Michael Cooper, After 35 Years, Stolen Stradivarius Is Home (Don’t Call the Mob). New York Times, Aug 7, 2015.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/0 ... after-35-years.html

Note:
(a) sound hole
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_hole

Quote: “Though the purpose of sound holes is to help acoustic instruments project their sound more efficiently, the sound does not emanate solely (nor even mostly) from the location of the sound hole. The majority of sound emanates from the surface area of both sounding boards, with sound holes playing a part by allowing the sounding boards to vibrate more freely, and by allowing some of the vibrations which have been set in motion inside the instrument to travel outside the instrument.

(i) References 2 and 1, respectively, of the Wiki page are
(A) Nicholas C Makris led, The Evolution of Air Resonance Power Efficiency in the Violin and Its Ancestors. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, 471: _ (online publication: Feb 11, 2015)
rspa.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/471/2175/20140905
(B) Jennifer Chu, Power Efficiency in the Violin; New study identifies key design features that boost violins’ acoustic power. MIT News
, Feb 9, 2015.
newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/violin-acoustic-power-0210

The piece in MIT News is still too long, too complicated for laypersons like me. There is no need to read the text. However, do view the graphic at the top.
(ii) For the best summary of (a)(i)(A), go to the next posting.


(b) "The Stradivarius at issue] — which was made in 1734 by Antonio Stradivari and is known as the Ames Stradivarius — disappeared after it was stolen in 1980 from the violin virtuoso Roman Totenberg."
(i) Antonio Stradivari
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonio_Stradivari
(1644 – 1737; Italian; The Latinized form of his surname, Stradivarius, as well as the colloquial "Strad" are terms often used to refer to his instruments)
(ii) Roman Totenberg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Totenberg
(1911 – 2012; a Polish-American violinist)

(c) "The violin was stolen in May 1980 from Mr Totenberg’s office at the Longy School of Music in Cambridge, Mass, where he was then the director."

Longy School of Music of Bard College
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lo ... sic_of_Bard_College
(founded in Boston in 1915 by Georges Longy)

choi

(2) Technological evolution | Making Sweet Music; Artefacts, as well as organisms, can evolve by natural selection. Economist, Feb 14, 2015
http://www.economist.com/news/sc ... ection-making-sweet

Quote:

“holes’ sound-amplification properties depend not on their areas but on the lengths of their peripheries.

“As is also the case with living organisms, mutation and selection seem to have arrived at an optimal result.

Note:
(a) "The instrument [violin] arrived at its modern form between the 16th and the 18th centuries, in the workshops of Cremona, a city in northern Italy that produced the Amati, Guarneri and Stradivari dynasties of luthiers."   
(i) Cremona
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cremona
(ii) luthier (n)
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/luthier

(b) "The violin’s oldest European ancestors date from the tenth century. They were called 'fitheles,' a word derived from vitula, the Latin for heifer, the source of the gut for the strings. (The Latin word also eventually gave rise to 'violin'; 'fitheles,' meanwhile, became 'fiddle' in a process of linguistic speciation also akin to the biological sort.)"
(i)
(A) Latin English dictionary
vitula (noun feminine):
"1: a stringed musical instrument
2: calf, young cow"
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/vitula
(B) All English dictionaries tell you that violin is derived from viola. But only the following dictionary goes beyond.

viola (n): “ ‘tenor violin,’ 1797, from Italian viola, from Old Provençal viola, from Medieval Latin vitula ‘stringed instrument,’ perhaps from Vitula, Roman goddess of joy (see fiddle), or from related Latin verb vitulari ‘to exult, be joyful.’ Viola da gamba ‘bass viol’ (1724) is from Italian, literally ‘a viola for the leg’ (ie to hold between the legs).”
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=viola
(ii) fiddle (n; etymology): "VIOLIN"
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fiddle

(c) "Intriguingly, intentional attempts in the 19th century to fiddle further with the f-holes’ designs actually served to make things worse, and did not endure."

fiddle (v):
"1 [NO OBJECT] Touch or fidget with something in a restless or nervous way <Lena fiddled with her cup>
1.1 Tinker with something in an attempt to make minor adjustments or improvements <he fiddled with the blind, trying to prevent the sun from shining in her eyes>"
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/fiddle