I just finished construction of an electric violin. I installed the strings and tuned it tonight. I don't play bowed instruments, just ukulele, so I tuned it to GCEA. This affords me the capacity to reinforce my growing knowledge of ukulele note positions, and will, I hope, permit me to play ukulele tablature on the violin. I began with a rowsing (though barely audible) rendition of "Aloha Oe" strummed on the violin. (My bow has yet to arrive via post.)

I have some questions. I would very much appreciate your insights into these matters:

1. Do I need to take the tension off the strings in between practice? Should I let the bridge fall down?

2. Should I remove the bridge when placing the instrument in a case (which I have yet to construct), or leave the bridge in place when it is being stored?

3. Is it possible to play four string chords (common with the ukulele) with a modern bow? (I've heard that baroque bows employed slack horsehair and thumb controlled tension, which enabled four string chords.)

4. Is there a basic bow techniqe that can be described in the context of a response to this inquiry?

5. How does one go about supporting the neck of the instrument in the standard approach to playing it?

6. This is more out of the norm for a forum such as this, but I will hazard the potential for some to be put off by this type of question in the hope of a response from an experienced luthier/player. Once the polyurethane is entirely dry on the neck of my instrument (my choice of sealing compounds), do I need to do more (polish, buff, etc.)?

I certainly hope that I don't irritate any instructors by asking these questions on-line. My goal is to find a comfortable way to play the instrument given very stiff wrists that have induced me to construct my own violin in part to seek to find a way to design one that will permit me to play it.

Thanks in advance to all who respond to this series of questions.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year !

Making your own violin and case sounds like determination to me!

I've only just started to learn on an ordinary violin, but from what I've learnt so far I'd say the answeres to some of your questions are:

Question 1 and 2: I think definitely not. I don't know about electric violins but I understand that if you let the bridge down on an acoustic violin bits inside can come loose. Maybe an electric doesn't have these, but you'd have to re-tune the thing every time you wanted to play it.

Question 5: My understanding is that you don't support the neck. The violin is held entirely between the chin and shoulder. You may need to use a shoulder rest.

Good luck with it.

3 and 4. I don't think so. You can split the chord into 2 groups of 2 and then play the 2 lowest strings followed by the higher 2, or you could separate the whole chord and play each note by moving the bow quickly across each string, in order. It's quite hard to explain without demonstrating though, so hopefully someone else will have a clearer idea.

1. and 2. : no need to slacken string tension or lower bridge. Quite apart from the inconvenience of retuning all the time, you would reduce the life of the strings.

3. and 4. : it is easy to play 2 note chords, of course, and you can play short, loud 3 note chords on adjacent strings by whacking the bow down hard, but gentler ones, and 4 note chords, have to be split into two parts, as Miss Ross describes, so that it comes out 'gu-DAAH', if you see what I mean.

A baroque bow also has to split such chords as they are not nearly slack or curved enough to play 4 strings at once. You are thinking of some modern designs attempted for playing Bach. While I normally regard these as something of a red herring, you should maybe experiment as you are wanting to play such different music (Why don't you just put a pick-up on the ukelele? ) Here is a site to get you started, and you will get lots of hits if you google 'bach bow'. In principle it would not be difficult to make such a bow - beech is really good for this. Or you could get one from the Early Music Shop, or make a really simple one like this.

5. As JonS says, you support the violin with chin and shoulder - you will need a chin rest and maybe a shoulder rest too. However, if you have stiff wrists you may find it difficult fingering some chords - it is really a very unnatural position! Since you are re-inventing it anyway, why not instead hold it vertically on your lap (a piece of chamois will stop it slipping) and play it like treble viol, but with an overhand grip on your curved bow? I think you would find it easier. You could even tie frets on it, like your ukelele -- that site shows you how.

6. For normal violin playing the back of the neck needs to be absolutely smooth, without a hint of stickiness, so that you can shift position easily, and so is sealed with something but doesn't have any visible varnish. Sand it down with very fine grit and then burnish with some smooth rounded metal such as the back of a gouge, or large screwdriver, so long as it doesn't have any scratches.

HTH - I look forward to seeing/hearing the finished result!

You can indeed play four note chords by slamming the bow really hard on the middle two strings. All four will vibrate. It's rarely used, very loud and rather raucous, and not recommended for a novice player. I had to do it for a diploma piece years ago.

Liz

Fortunately I have never had to try . I do sometimes have to do 3-note ones like this in orchestral playing, though usually we divide at the desk. But it is nice for a special effect.

Thank you for all the helpful replies!

I am not particularly interested in the "electric" aspect of the instrument. The 'ukuleles I've built for myself have large sound boxes, and are perfectly adequate for my needs. Besides, it's easy to mike an 'uku. I declare this to be an "electric violin" merely because I anticipate that my wooden base will not be sufficient to provide much volume when bowed. That suggests a need for a microphone or pick-up. If the volume is reasonable for practice, I may not purchase the microphone pick-up, and simply anticipate the presence of a standing microphone if I ever needed it for a real performance (or a small, quiet room).

I built the electric violin because my great-grandfather (a German farmer here in the midwest in the early years of the 20th century) played the violin. (That side of the families fondness for music, and Germany's affinity for the flute, historically, is also why I am seeking to develop some ability with a primitive flute.) I'm not musically oriented, so I need to stay focused on one tuning for stringed instruments. Finding the notes wasn't that difficult with 'uku ('ooh-koo from 'ooh-koo-leh-leh) tuning, because this 4/4 scale violin is very similar in terms of fingerboard length to a soprano ukulele. I plan to "electrify" it only because I did not want to spend the time and money constructing a box from tonewood. The design I employ, while sacrificing volume, eliminates the problem associated with the bow hitting the body of a poorly placed/designed resonant chamber. My background in electrical engineering also gave me pause to think:

"Why should I construct a resonant chamber that transfers sound to the walls via a sound post, when I can transfer sound to an expertly crafted resonant chamber (speaker or amplifier) via a wire and modify the result to my hearts content, producing an infinite variety of tonal nuances, while adding tonal duration via a device in the effects loop of an amplifier?"

You are quite right about the possibility of playing the instrument in the vertical mode from the seated position, as with a Chinese bowed instrument that is similar to a violin. I keep reading about nerve damage and neck problems among violinists, so I am going to keep this option open. I attempted it on the first day that the instrument was finished and it seems feasible.

I find the prospect of adding frets, or one of the fretted, nylon covers for the fingerboard quite tempting. At the same time, I need to develop my grasp of ukulele note positions, which is moving forward. I found it reasonably simple to find the finger positions to strum simple chords on this violin, so that wasn't a problem.

It appears, based upon the feedback I've received, that the violin isn't designed for full, chord based playing. I'll just live with that. I prefer fingerstyle playing on the ukulele, and the individual note approach is consistent with the mode of playing that one employs on a tin whistle or simple, transverse flute. I simply want to establish realistic goals. I've used a lot of partial chords on the ukulele in pieces I've written to simplify otherwise complex fingering and speed transitions, so this seems perfectly reasonable.

I think I'll use some tablature generating software to produce a version of "I Saw Three Ships", which is supposedly from the British isles or Ireland, and see if I can find the notes on the fingerboard. (I'm just waiting for my bow to arrive in the post. If it doesn't get here soon, I may look into the link on how to construct one.)

Thank you so very much!

All the best!

Bow technique, you say?

A steady aim
Even exhalation
Properly secured arrow
Focus on the target


Does this help?

Well, there's only one way I'm going to be able to play this thing: seated with the violin resting on one knee.

I put together a baroque bow this evening. It would have been trivial, but the hardware store didn't sell horse hair...

I purchased some twine made of nylon/polyester/polypropylene (i.e., something synthetic) and unwound four lengths to produce sixteen, individual strands. I mounted it on my bow and proceeded to try to play a chord based version of "Aloha Oe". The result was something less than a rousing rendition of the Hawaiian classic. There was absolutely NO volume. Far less even than when I pluck or strum the instrument.

I seem to have produced a "whisper" bow, or I need to rosin the "twine" members of the bow strings. (The music shop was closed by the time I'd figured out which bits and pieces I required to cobble together the bow.)

Will rosin make that much difference in volume? There is hardly any friction right now, and I have not added an electronic pick-up or amplifier, so the results described are purely acoustic.

I am inclined to believe that if I can get this bow to work it is going to justify the time I've spent constructing the violin. Being able to draw this bow across all four strings truly does produce a neat effect, even at whisper level, by permitting chord based playing. (Just like playing a nice ukulele, but with a bow... )

Do I need some rosin? Any comments on synthetic bow string material? (It's all of $4.00 at the music shop. It's that, or I go for the real thing, either via the music shop or a late night raid on my sister-in-law's stable. I suspect that she'd frown upon the effect on one of her Arabians with the major shows this time of year. I might not be invited to Christmas dinner next year... )

Even a conventional bow won't produce a sound without rosin, so it's not surprising that yours doesn't. I don't know whether yours will work if you do put rosin on it, but rosin is cheap so it must be worth a try. Good luck!

Also a conventional bow has about 100 hairs in it. I don't know how thick your strands are but you should try experimenting with more than 16.

As for rosin, you will need a lot at first - even real bow hair needs a lot the first few times you play. I think your synthetic stuff may need even more, as it may be too smooth to hold the rosin dust. Horse hair has tiny scales on the surface which help to give it grip.

Thanks again!

I read last night after I posted here that top quality bows have around 150 hairs. This twine approach is meant to permit me to confirm that my rather crude bow will even begin to work. The $4.00 for the synthetic bow material seems reasonable if the twine doesn't work. I can make a bowstring with more strands. This one is approximately one centimeter wide as it is presently mounted.

Before I spend a lot of time untwining the threads of this string, I want to make sure I can even get a sound out of the bow. I'm also interested in how much the friction caused by adding rosin will affect the extent to which the bow is deformed, and how well it holds together, before I increase the number of strands, and the corresponding surface area in contact with the strings with correlating frictional force on the bow member parts.

Does synthetic bow string material work well? I'd hate to find that my twine bow is as good as the synthetic stuff. (It takes less time to untwine the string than to travel to and from the music shop.)

Thank you very kindly for all of your insights!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

P.S. Interesting comment about the horse hair. I wonder if those spurs are meant to trap material from the environment and camouflage the horse's scent as a means of creating a "stealth" effect relative to scent that might be detected by predators? Perhaps that's why horses seem so fond of rolling in dust.

As a horse owner and rider of many years I feel fairly confident in answering this.

The barbs on the hair are similar to those on our own hair. If you look at a human hair under a microscope you will fine that the shaft is covered in what look like scales. On the hair from a horse tail these scales are thicker and resemble barbs. The tail of a horse is used as protection for their back end, from both flies and biting insects (which spread infection), and extremes of climate. They use their tails and manes as 'fly switches' and as protection from the weather - hence native pony breeds (which would have once bred in the wild), have a profuse amount of mane and tail to offer maximum shielding from insects, hot sunshine and the cold winter.

Horses roll in dust and mud to protect themselves from both the weather and flies. In the winter a coating of mud helps seal the coat down and protects the skin from wind and rain. In the summer, dust puts the flies off from settling and biting and offers a sort of sun-screen. Rolling also gets rid of any loose hair in the coat and is simpy a way of scratching those inaccesible places on their back. (What human hasn't used a door frame to scratch a bit of their back they can't reach?!)

Okay, but humans descended from chimpanzees, branching off at least twice from that species according to some recent theories, and eliminating scent that would attract predators would have been important for any species spending much time on the ground. If the spurs trap dust, they must trap scent as well, but we don't think much about the need to avoid predators in relatively safe stable settings. (Just speculation.)

Having eyes on the front of our face makes us a predator. Those who are predated by others have eyes are the side of their head, so that their vision is almost 360 degrees. I do not know of any ape that has eyes on the side of its head.

All animals leave scent as they walk along the ground, there is simply no way to hide it. Covering a few hairs on your body with another aroma would not be sufficient to hide yourself from those who have a sense of smell 200 times better than our own.