Scores Violin Grade 5 to 8
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The violin is a wooden stringed instrument in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and highest-pitched instrument in the family. There are smaller instruments, including the piccolo, but they are virtually unused. The violin typically has four strings tuned in perfect fifths, and is most often played using a bow on its strings, but it can also be played by plucking the strings with the fingers (pizzicato) and striking the strings with the wooden side of the bow (col legno).
Violins are important instruments in a wide variety of musical genres. They feature prominently in the Western classical tradition, both in ensembles (from chamber music to orchestras) and as solo instruments, and in many varieties of popular music, including country, bluegrass and jazz. Solid-body electric violins with piezoelectric pickups are used in some forms of rock and jazz fusion music, with the pickups plugged into instrument amplifiers and speakers to produce sound. In addition, the violin has come to be played in many non-Western musical cultures, including Indian and Iranian music.
The violin was first known in Italy in the sixteenth century, with further modifications in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to give the instrument a more powerful sound and projection. In Europe, it served as the basis for the development of other string instruments used in Western classical music, such as the viola.
Violinists and collectors are particularly fond of the fine historic instruments made by the Stradivari, Guarneri, Guadagnini and Amati families between the 16th and 18th centuries in Brescia and Cremona (Italy) and by Jacob Stainer in Austria. According to their reputations, the quality of their sound defied all attempts to explain or match it, although this belief is disputed. A large number of instruments came from the hands of lesser-known makers, as well as an even larger number of mass-produced 'commercial violins' from cottage industries in places like Saxony, Bohemia or Mirecourt. Many of these commercial instruments were previously sold by Sears, Roebuck and Co. and other mass merchants.
The parts of a violin are generally made from different types of wood (although electric violins are not made from wood at all, as their sound does not necessarily have specific acoustic characteristics).The parts of a violin are usually made from different types of wood (although electric violins are not made from wood at all, as their sound does not necessarily derive from the specific acoustic characteristics of the instrument's construction, but rather from an electronic pickup, amplifier and speaker). Violins can use gut strings or other synthetic or steel strings. A person who makes or repairs violins is called a luthier.
