ONE THE INSTRUMENTS OF T ORCHESTRA,CHAPTER ONE me STRINGED INST UMENTS sand were al to any but y greater dynamic fore expressive capacity. The wind instruments of the st tionsin tl Ac the same 0 ing different kinds of sc group is f differ As string tone is rich in ¢ manner of close and open spacing is practical. One does not tire of hear: ing string tone as s \e tires of wind asizable literature of compositions written for string orch wind inseruments. The string section of a typical symphony orchestra u of sixteen first violins, fourteen second violoncel may be found, reflecting the predilections of individual conductors, or perhaps determined by some such circumstance as the size of the con- cert stage. ne; in fact, there exists ra without ins, twelve ,INSTRUMENTS TUNING ese instruments are tuned as follow The four strings of e: viol ile ello Inthe case the written ressed in terms of the ince, the upper string as a frequency ing can be varied 8 ng the « Stringed instruments are tuned by turning the tuning pegs t the strings are attached. Tightening a string increases the freq of its vibration; hence raises its pitch. The weight of the string has an important infl f its vibration. Thus the four strings on the same identical in length, but may differ wide made to differ in weight. Furthermore, by 1 the strings can be heir various pit ions. The lower-} of this princ Variation in the length of the string produces prop in pitch, A longer string vibrates more slowly than a shorter one, other conditions being equal. It is found, for example, ¢ ing the string ength doubles the frequency and raises the pitch an octave, FINGERING The action of the left-hand fingers stopping the string firmly against the fingerboard shortens the sounding length of the string, thereby raising the pitch. STRINGED INSTRUMENTS 5 ogeepoora Fig. 2. Violin diagram, note that the sounding length of the string, to be set ion by the bow, is that between the stopping finger and the se be silent. Wing the string length raises the pitch an octav bridge. The remainder of the string will of co Since he point cd to sound the octave above its open, or un- ly one-half the distance from nut to bridge. If we wish to raise the pitch another octave we will find the point of stopping one-half the distance from this middle point to the bridge, or three-fourths the total string length from the nut. ope ing Fig. 3 a major second above an open string means a distance of about 1%4 inches, whereas the terval in a very high position measures less than % inch. A major second above an open string on the violin meas- tures about 1%4 inches, on the ’cello about 23% inches, and on the bass about 4% inches. Another characteristic of string fingering is that when the hand is in a given position on one string the fingers can readily stop tones on any of the four strings, without the necessity of moving the hand. Each