Your (Violin) Neck Used To Be Shorter

By Andy Fein, luthier at Fein Violins
 and Martha McDermott

Have you ever experienced this phenomena?- You or an orchestra friend gets some new string that's just hit the market, or a shoulder rest, or some other doodad AND it makes that violin sound GREAT! Next thing you know, every violinist in the orchestra has one! In the early nineteenth century there were huge changes going on in the violin world. First Paganini made some changes and it made his violin sound GREAT! Then next thing you knew, EVERYONE needed those changes.

It's hard to imagine an instrument as staid as the violin going through any evolutionary changes. Most of our modern violins are so standardized that if the string length is off by just a couple of millimeters, an experienced player will notice it. But early violins were not made to such standardized measurements. And one huge change that happened in the early 1800s is that the length of neck (and thus the string length) became longer! Almost no violins made before about 1830 retain their original necks. That includes Stradivaris, Guarneris, and Amatis.

Violino Piccolo in its Original Set Up by Girolamo Amati, Cremona, 1613 at the National Music Museum in Vermillion, South Dakota

Why a Frog? Why Are There Frogs on Bows?

Written by Matt Lammers of Fein Violins

It's one of those curiosities that disappeared with age and experience, one of those elephants in the room you asked about as a beginner, and your teacher shrugged it off with a puzzled expression telling you it wasn't worth losing sleep over. It became a part of your vocabulary and was never given a second thought, but in the back of your head you've always wondered: "Why on earth do we call this the frog?" Here at Fein Violins we embrace and resurrect our own childish curiosity and hope to relax the furled brows of confused, [used-to-be] young musicians everywhere.

The frog of a bow is a simple, yet intricate thing

Archetier, or in England-Bowmaker

Written by: Andy Fein, luthier at Fein Violins

Predecessor to Cramer and Tourte Bows

The English have as old a love for stringed instruments as anyone else in Europe. English musicians have patronized and cultivated some of the finest violin and bow makers the world has seen. We previously looked at Early English Violin Makers. But without bows, these fine stringed instruments would just be plucked!

c.1800 School of Dodd Ivory Mounted Cello Bow