Abstract
The different mechanical properties of the materials from which the tailpieces are made have a noticeable effect on the acoustic performance of the violin. These elements are made today from ebony, rosewood, boxwood, aluminium, or plastic. The aim of this study was to check the exact impact of tailpieces made of different materials on the frequency response function (FRF) of a violin’s bridge and the timbre of the instrument’s sound. For this purpose, the bridge FRF measurement was carried out, and a psychoacoustic test was conducted. The material from which the tailpiece is made to the greatest extent affects the modal frequencies in the range 530–610 Hz (mode B1+), which mainly manifested itself in a change in the instrument’s timbre in terms of the brightness factor. The study showed that the lighter the tailpiece, the darker the sound of the violin. It was also revealed that the selection of accessories affects factors such as openness, thickness, and overall quality of the sound.Keywords:
tailpiece, violin, acoustical properties, exotic materials, violin-making, luthieryReferences
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2. Borman T., Stoppani G. (nd), Modal Animations. Borman Violins, www.bormanviolins.com/modalanalysis.html (access: 8.01.2023).
3. Boutin H., Besnainou C. (2008), Physical parameters of the violin bridge changed by active control, Acoustics’08, Paris.
4. Bucur V. (2006), Acoustics of Wood, 2nd ed., Springer Berlin, Heidelberg.
5. Bucur V. (2016), Handbook of Materials for String Musical Instruments, Springer Cham.
6. Folland D. (2010), How Tailpiece Can Affect Sound and Playability. David Folland Violins, www.follandviolins.com/articles/tailpiece/ (access: 8.01.2023).
7. Fouilhé E., Goli G., Houssay A., Stoppani G. (2009), Preliminary Study on the Vibrational Behaviour of Tailpieces in Stringed Instruments – COSTIE0601 STSM Results, www.researchgate.net/publication/267560695_Preliminary_study_on_the_vibrational_behaviour_of_tailpieces_in_stringed_instruments_-_COSTIE0601_STSM_results (access: 8.01.2023).
8. Fouilhé E., Goli G., Houssay A., Stoppani G. (2010), The cello tailpiece: How it affects the sound and response of the instrument, Proceedings of the Second Vienna Talk, pp. 63–67.
9. Fouilhé E., Goli G., Houssay A., Stoppani G. (2011), Vibration modes of the cello tailpiece, Archives of Acoustics, 36(4): 713–726, https://doi.org/10.2478/v10168-011-0048-2.
10. Fouilhé E., Houssay A. (2013), String “after-length” and the cello tailpiece: Acoustics and perception, [in:] Proceedings of the Stockholm Music Acoustics Conference 2013, SMAC 2013, pp. 60–65.
11. Gourc E., Vergez C., Mattei P.-O., Missoum S. (2022), Nonlinear dynamics of the wolf tone production, Journal of Sound and Vibration, 516: 116463, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsv.2021.116463.
12. Houssay A. (2014), The string “after-length” of the cello tailpiece: History, acoustics and performance techniques, [in:] Proceedings of the International Symposium on Musical Acoustics, pp. 207–213.
13. Hutchins C.M. (1983), A history of violin research, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 73(5): 1421–1440, https://doi.org/10.1121/1.389430.
14. Hutchins C.M. (1993), The effect of relating the tailpiece frequency to that of other violin modes, Catgut Acoustical Society Journal, 2(3): 5–8.
15. Jansson E.V. (1997), Admittance measurements of 25 high quality violins, Acustica – Acta Acustica, 83: 337–341.
16. Jansson E.V. (2004), Violin frequency response – bridge mobility and bridge feet distance, Applied Acoustics, 65: 1197–1205, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apacoust.2004.04.007.
17. King A., Nelken I. (2009), Unraveling the principles of auditory cortical processing: can we learn from the visual system?, Nature Neuroscience, 12: 698–701, https://doi.org/10.1038/nn.2308.
18. Leung J. (2016), Resonant effects of the violin tailpiece, Msc. Thesis, McGill University.
19. Loebach J.L., Conway C.M., Pisoni D.B. (2010), Audition: cognitive influences, [in:] Encyclopedia of Perception, Goldstein B. [Ed.], pp. 138–141, SAGE Publications, Inc.
20. Mania P., Fabisiak E., Skrodzka E. (2015), Differences in the modal and structural parameters of resonance and non-resonance wood of spruce (Picea abies L.), Acta Physica Polonica A, 127(1): 110–113, https://doi.org/10.12693/APhysPolA.127.110.
21. Mania P., Fabisiak E., Skrodzka E. (2017), Investigation of modal behaviour of resonance spruce wood samples (Picea abies L.), Archives of Acoustics, 42(1): 23–28, https://doi.org/10.1515/aoa-2017-0003.
22. Mania P., Skrodzka E. (2020), Modal parameters of resonant spruce wood (Picea abies L.) after thermal treatment, Journal of King Saud University – Science, 32(1): 1152–1156, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jksus.2019.11.007.
23. Minnaert M.G.J., Vlam C.C. (1937), The vibrations of the violin bridge, Physica, 4(5): 361–372, https://doi.org/10.1016/S0031-8914(37)80138-X.
24. Pollens S. (2009), Some misconceptions about the Baroque violin, Performance Practice Review, 14(1): 6, https://doi.org/10.5642/perfpr.200914.01.06.
25. Skrodzka E., Linde B.B.J, Krupa A. (2014), Effect of bass bar tension on modal parameters of violin’s top plate, Archives of Acoustics, 39(1): 145–149, https://doi.org/10.2478/aoa-2014-0015.
26. Skrodzka E.B., Linde B.B.J., Krupa A. (2013), Modal parameters of two violins with different varnish layers and subjective evaluation of their sound quality, Archives of Acoustics, 38(1): 75–81, https://doi.org/10.2478/aoa-2013-0009.
27. Stoppani G., Zygmuntowicz S., Bissinger G. (nd), The Signatures Modes, www.strad3d.org/st_4.html (access: 8.01.2023).
28. Stough B. (1996), The lower violin tailpiece resonances, Catgut Acoustical Society Journal, 3(1): 17–24.
29. Torres J.A., Soto C.A., Torres-Torres D. (2020), Exploring design variations of the Titian Stradivari violin using a finite element model, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 148(3): 1496–1506, https://doi.org/10.1121/10.0001952.
30. Zhang A., Woodhouse J. (2018), Playability of the wolf note of bowed string instruments, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 144(5): 2852–2858, https://doi.org/10.1121/1.5079317.
