The Top or Sound Board of the Violin & Its Functions

Series Summary

Featured largely in classical music, the violin is a four-string instrument tuned in perfect fifths. It is related to the double bass, cello, and viola in construction and sound, though it produces the highest in pitch of that family. The violin traces its roots back to the early 1500s in Italy. There was a time when violin makers, called “luthiers,” introduced a number of quality instruments to the market. Some noted manufacturers from that period, like Stradivarius, are still recognized today as representing the highest level of violin craftsmanship.

In this series of free video clips you’ll learn how to identify the parts of the violin and how those components function to generate the instrument’s distinct sound. Expert David Kaynor shows you the soundboard, ribs, tail piece, finger board, peg box and tuners, chin and shoulder rests, and f-holes, and explains how these parts affect the playing of the instrument. The ability to correctly identify all of the components of your instruments is an essential step to mastering your instrument.

This series is an Equilibrio Films production.

Video Transcript

" Hi! I’m David Kaynor for expervillage.com and I’m going to give a brief overall introduction to the parts of the violin. Here we have a violin that I play a lot, and it’s really totally together; but here I have a violin which comes apart, and I thought I’d just give a quick overview of the parts. Here in my hands is the violin’s top, which is sometimes referred to as the sound board, and this is a piece, this is actually two joined pieces of carved spruce. Now on the inside we can see now—we can’t really see that it’s two pieces, but there’s a seam right down the center here where the two pieces are joined together. And this side, this is the base bar which is, I’m not able to give a scientific description of the base bar’s function, but I can say that it adds structural strength and effects the characteristics of the vibration of the top; and the base bar is made of spruce. You can see a penciled name here which may be the name of either the maker of the violin or a person that did some repairs on it, this violin has had a hard life; it’s had many repairs, we have patches of spruce, another wood which are attempts to stabilize some cracks which developed. And we have copious quantities of glue which are probably the result of several different attempts to repair it. That’s the top."