About the Bridge of the Violin & How It's Made

Video Transcript

"Hi! I’m David Kaynor for expertvillage.com. Violin bridges, they’re most commonly made of maple and they vary in price between just a few dollars and quite a lot of dollars, it depends on the quality of the maple, how old it is, it’s thought that older maple will be more stable, it won’t have to go through changes relative to moisture loss and changes in the structure in the fibers of the wood. And this is what is known in the trade as a blank, the rough outline of the bridge including the feet and the kidney’s and the heart have all been cut, and the violin technician then individualizes the bridge to work best with an individual instrument. That involves removing the wood and shaping the arch so that it’s more comfortable for the player, involves shaping the feet so that they conform to the top with no spaces or gaps and the reducing of wood strategically, so as to maximize the transfer of vibration from the strings to the top. So the bridge is both an acoustic, well the bridge is both a coupler between the strings and the top, and it’s also to some extent of filter depending on how much wood is removed from what part of the bridge. The bridge can dampen some vibrations or some frequencies of vibration while maximizing the transmission of other. Now this bridge hasn’t been fitted and if I were to put string tension on it, it would be too tall for the violin, the feet wouldn’t contact the top well and that would at least in theory compromise the transmitting of vibrations."