Music Sound

The Violin family of instruments was developed in Italy in the 17th Century. It comprises three instruments: the violin, viola and the cello. Although usually associated with the violin family, the double bass's origins are generally believed to be of the viol family, as may be seen by its sloping shoulders compared to the violin.

Violin

Viola

Cello

Bass (in viol family)

All string instruments share similar form, parts, construction, and function, and the viols bear a particularly close resemblance to the violin family. However, instruments in the violin family are set apart by similarities in shape, in tuning practice, and in history. They have four strings each, are tuned in fifths (the bass is tuned in fourths), are not fretted, and have four rounded bouts.

Violin, viola, and cello bow frogs (top to bottom)

French (top) and German (bottom) double bass bows

Along with the double bass, they are the most used bowed string instruments in the world today. Although all share a place in classical music, they are also used (less often) in jazz, rock, and other types of popular music, where they are often amplified, or simply created to be used as electric instruments. The violin is also used extensively in fiddle music, country music, and folk music.

One of the most popular and standardized groupings in classical chamber music, the string quartet, is composed entirely of instruments from the violin family. This similarity in the manner of sound production allows string quartets to blend their tone colour and timbre more easily than less homogeneous groups. This is particularly notable in comparison to the standard wind quintet, which, although composed entirely of wind instruments, comprises four fundamentally different ways of producing musical pitch.

See also

• violin octet, an experiment in part to create an even more homogeneous blend of instruments related to the violin.
• string instrument
• string orchestra
• list of string instruments