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Former good article nomineeViolin was a good articles nominee, but did not meet the good article criteria at the time. There may be suggestions below for improving the article. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.
Article milestones
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June 1, 2006Peer reviewReviewed
August 13, 2006Good article nomineeNot listed
February 3, 2007Good article nomineeNot listed
Current status: Former good article nominee

Conflicting statements about the violin's origins

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An unsourced sentence apparently speculating about a direct central Asian predecessor to the violin, through the Silk Road, is followed by a sourced sentence stating instruments from the Middle East and Byzantium as its direct predecessors. Obviously, this mention of a Silk Road connection to north Italy in light of the sourced statement that follows it is either irrelevant (statement about economic trade links in general?), unsourced (claim of an additional direct influence to the violin?) or untrue (claim of an exclusive central Asian origin to the violin?), depending on how you interpret its meaning.

The violin in its present form emerged in early 16th-Century Northern Italy, where the port towns of Venice and Genoa maintained extensive ties to central Asia through the trade routes of the silk road.

The modern European violin evolved from various bowed stringed instruments from the Middle East[4] and the Byzantine Empire.[5][6]

Abvgd (talk) 12:59, 27 March 2011 (UTC)Reply

I do not see a conflict here. The silk road reached Europe through the Middle East and Byzantium. Casual looking around in Wikipedia shows Central Asian fiddles dating at least as far back as the seventh through tenth centuries. The routes of cultural diffusion are relevant, and of course sourcing will be appropriate. Please point out the "claim of an exclusive central Asian origin to the violin" since I do not see that here. Reading the article and following the links, it looks more like a continuous process of geographical diffusion and technical development, reaching the stage we call "violin" around "early 16th-Century Northern Italy." __ Just plain Bill (talk) 16:21, 27 March 2011 (UTC)Reply


Just to make the discussion more interesting: Polish Wikipedia entry for violin pl:skrzypce claims that the instrument possibly descends from a gusle (pl:gęśle) used in Polish lands in the 11th century. Tsf (talk) 18:32, 16 June 2011 (UTC)Reply

Actually this wouldn’t surprise me at all. There seems to be quite a history of various narrow type lyres of similar style stretching back deep into the Middle Ages and further back throughout Northern, Western and Eastern Europe. Not to mention some cultural and genetic continuity, continually after the initial late Neolithic and Bronze Age, between Western Europe and Central Asia, which encompasses Eastern Europe. I’ve also read accounts of the possible use of bowing in Germanic regions as well as Wales as early as the 7th century AD. 2601:646:8980:3AA0:54C4:3E12:D44F:D079 (talk) 09:03, 8 January 2025 (UTC)Reply

Klotz

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diff Discuss... Just plain Bill (talk) 19:00, 18 June 2017 (UTC)Reply

I do not see the Klotz violin mentioned in the wiki Violin article. I posted a historic reference that the Klotz violin is AMONG the greatest of violin makers and it was deleted. After review and discussion, I agree that my edit was probably in the wrong area, But I believe that the Wiki article lacks credibility by omission of the Klotz family of violin makers. I do not know if this is done out of prejudice or incompetence but someone needs to update the article to reflect reality. Naturally, people believe that I have a conflict of interest having the same last name, but I am not related to the Klotzs of Mittenwald. I only learned about the Mittenwald Klotzs through research of my genealogy where their name appeared as violin makers.Vklotz (talk) 20:14, 18 June 2017 (UTC)Reply

It appears to me that the "history" section could be expanded. As it is, it only includes the major Italian makers up through about the middle of the 18th century. Needs mention of the German schools, Mittenwald etc. with a mention of Klotz carefully given the appropriate weight, along the the French makers such as Vuillaume, with some information on the characteristics of each. That can of course be extended to modern times, with American makers, Chinese makers, style copies, non-traditional materials and forms, etc. There's probably some easily available references for this. Note that some of this appears in history of the violin but even that could be expanded. Antandrus (talk) 14:10, 19 June 2017 (UTC)Reply

Merge tag

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Soon it will be a week since the tag was applied suggesting a merge with the fiddle article... so far nobody has commented. I do not favor a merge, for the same reason a lot of content was split out into child articles sometime around 2005 or 2006: the parent "Violin" article had grown larger than the recommended limit for Wikipedia articles. Today it is 88KB, big enough that adding large blocks of content is probably not a good idea. Just plain Bill (talk) 14:43, 7 August 2017 (UTC)¥Reply

I think it's a good idea to keep them separate -- the other article is well developed and makes the distinctions clear. Agree that merge would make the violin article too large. Antandrus (talk) 17:55, 7 August 2017 (UTC)Reply
Also, there are other bowed instruments that may be considered "fiddles" (such as a nyckelharpa or crwth - I'm not an expert, just saying) - so any mention of these instruments could be expanded on in the Fiddle article. LovelyLillith (talk) 22:02, 11 August 2017 (UTC)Reply

I have removed the tag. Two weeks have passed without a supporting comment. Just plain Bill (talk) 13:32, 17 August 2017 (UTC)Reply

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Art music before folk?

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The article now says:

Following a stage of intensive development in the late Renaissance, largely in Italy, the violin had improved (in volume, tone, and agility), to the point that it not only became a very important instrument in art music, but proved highly appealing to folk musicians as well..

This has a cart-before-horse feel to it, running counter to the notion that the violin started out with a name for being a vulgar street instrument, as opposed to the genteel refined viol. As that story goes, only later did the violin gain entry to the world of art music. I don't know how accurate that is, and welcome comment. Just plain Bill (talk) 16:38, 10 February 2018 (UTC)Reply

Double stops and posture.

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I've edited two sections: Double stops and posture.

Double stops: I've never seen the "non divisi" indication, but I've seen "divisi". This means that when you see a double stop in an orchestal part, and there's no indication, you are supposed to play the double stop. Also, triple-stopping in Baroque music sounds good when done well.

Posture: I've added hunching and pain in the left hand, always a bad sign.

190.173.181.208 (talk) 20:23, 2 May 2018 (UTC) EzequielReply

Various edits

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These are the edits I made:

Pitch range: I've never seen music that demanded the G string to be a D string. If evidence is presented, then this entry may stay. Notes up to C8 can be played stopping the string.

Vibrato: the real reason why vibrato is interesting, it's because it plays a microtone. Think about it. Rocking back and forth allows a distance shorter than a semitone to sound. That's the refreshing effect of vibrato. Now, all that explanation about overtones and sound projection, well, I'm not sure about it, but at least both arguments could cohabitate in the article. Besides, the source for the projection argument has vanished. (I mean, this URL http://www.schleske.de/en/our-research/handbook-violinacoustics/vibrato-of-the-musician.html no longer discusses vibrato).

Open strings: Bach wrote for the open E string, easy enought to check. And drones aren't the exclusive heritage of folk music, so the comparison with bagpipes is off. 190.173.137.18 (talk) 18:52, 25 May 2018 (UTC) EzequielReply

I don't like completely replacing the formerly sourced material with unsourced material. You sound like you know what you're talking about, though. You should sign in or make an account, so that others could approach you to talk about changes like these. Could you find a source to go with your new material?Jacqke (talk) 20:25, 25 May 2018 (UTC)Reply
¡Hola, Ezequiel! A traditional piece, "Bonaparte's Retreat", Old-time Kentucky Fiddle Tunes, by Jeff Todd Titon, University Press of Kentucky, 2001 uses the DDAD tuning, where the E string is tuned down one step, and the G string is tuned down a fourth.
I have played this piece in this tuning; as may be seen in this transcription, the lowest string is used only as an open drone.
A reference for how violin vibrato affects timbre, dynamics, and the way the sound "points" at different parts of the room may be found in this PDF: "Directional tone color" by Gabriel Weinreich, Randall Laboratory of Physics, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan.
"The effect can be visualized in terms of a number of highly directional sound beacons, all of which the vibrato causes to undulate back and forth in a coherent and highly organized fashion. It is obvious that such a phenomenon will help immensely in fusing sounds of the differently directed partials into a single auditory stream; one may even speculate that it is a reason why vibrato is used so universally by violinists—as compared to wind players, from the sound of whose instruments directional tone color is generally absent."
See various entries for "musette" in List of bagpipes. For example, Haydn's String Quartet in A Major, Op. 20 No 6 "evokes musette drones".
I hope this is enough sourcing for the removed material. Just plain Bill (talk) 21:03, 25 May 2018 (UTC)Reply
I'm OK with the 4th string D.
The bit about Bach writing for the open E string goes back in, but I'm not deleting the bagpipes.
Notes up to C8 can be played by stopping the string. The way it's worded now makes it look as if harmonics were the only way to play them, but that's wrong. Hence my edit.
I've also written about half-semitones being sounded in vibrato. 190.173.184.141 (talk) 21:48, 26 May 2018 (UTC) EzequielReply
It all looks good to me, with the exception of the bit about microtones in vibrato. It would be splendid to see a source for that. I suspect that unless a player has listened extensively to microtonal music, or better still, had formal training in a tradition making use of such intervals, if vibrato is microtonal, it is only by accident.
Is there a scholarly analysis to be found, of vibrato in Western diatonic art music using explicit microtonal intervals for melodic effect? I would not be surprised to find that microtonal traditions from India or the Middle East rely more on aural transmission than on written texts, but that is not something to which I have reliable access. I have heard violin players render what I thought was convincing microtonal ornamentation consistent with some raga or maqam, but anecdotes like that cannot support excyclopedic content. Regards, Just plain Bill (talk) 03:35, 27 May 2018 (UTC)Reply
I think it's self-evident. Vibrato makes the pitch vary, which this very same article claims. Now, the variation is not wide enough to reach a semitone. Ergo, the variation in pitch produced by vibrato is a microtone. Maybe the "micro" prefix makes us think in infinitesimal fractions. That's why I used the alternate name "half semitone".
Your questions seems to ask if there is evidence that some music teacher has ever asked their students to play microtones. And no, nobody does that. But teachers do ask to play vibrato, and vibrato is effectively a techinque that allows half semitones to sound. 190.173.175.155 (talk) 16:19, 27 May 2018 (UTC) EzequielReply
There is a difference between playing particular microtones by intent, and artistic choice regarding vibrato width. Without evidence that vibrato is used deliberately to introduce specific microtones, the statement "Vibrato allows microtones, or half-semitones, to be played, in a context in which only semitones are written, which produces a renewing effect." is not supported. For one thing, microtonal schemes as practised around the world do not rely exclusively on half-semitones or quarter tones.
Calling something "self-evident" amounts to original research, and is not a criterion for inclusion in this encyclopedia. See Wikipedia's policy on verifiability. Credible experts have written about the ways vibrato makes for an interesting sound, but I have not (yet) seen anything saying that microtones play a significant role in that. Just plain Bill (talk) 18:13, 27 May 2018 (UTC)Reply
A few thoughts on this:
Bach and the E string. I don't think saying that the Partita in E evokes an organ is helpful - I agree there is a passing similarity but who is to say that Bach didn't write his organ music to evoke string bariolage not vice versa? Further it's far too specific an example for this article. We have the later sentence about how you use open E in rapid scale and arpeggio figures, in my view that covers this situation just fine.
High C. I've changed it back once more because while it might strictly be possible it's hardly ever done (though I don't feel strongly about this one)
Vibrato.... I have managed to read a great deal about violin performance and not encountered anything about microtones. I mean, obviously, doing vibrato does create microtonal variations in pitch, by definition. But the note is heard as its central value and the vibrato is an inflection or effect. "Renewing effect" or "differentially directed partials" strikes me as a fringe view at best, given that I have seen number of sources on the subject that don't mention anything of the sort. I would need to see a fair weight of sources to be convinced otherwise.
Thanks, The Land (talk) 19:13, 27 May 2018 (UTC)Reply
Regarding directivity of partials, The Strad published an article by Joseph Curtin about Weinteich's "directional tone color" and the Acoustical Society of America accepted a paper by Weinreich on the subject. Those may hardly be called fringe sources.
It is pretty well accepted that vibrato adds something interesting to a violin's sound. Many listeners may experience that enhancement without being aware of the acoustical details. Others, especially those in the business of acoustic treatment of performance spaces, may have a hard time ignoring those same details when there is a solo violinist playing in the room.
I first became aware of Martin Schleske's writing from favorable mention on Maestronet by well-regarded Chicago violin maker Michael Darnton, if memory serves. Schleske's piece, linked as one of the references in this article, describes how an instrument's resonance peaks, specifically the number of them clustering around any given pitch, make the kind of difference to how vibrato affects the sound which allows a soloist's violin to be heard in the back of the hall over an orchestra.
I believe this is encyclopedic content, interesting to many readers, and not occupying so much space on the page that it gets in the way of those not interested in it. Regards, Just plain Bill (talk) 14:48, 28 May 2018 (UTC)Reply
Bach and the E string "who is to say that Bach didn't write his organ music to evoke string bariolage?": I am. And the proof is that drones on the organ can be played as such because organs have pedals that sustain the drone note. In a violin you can't sustain three note chords as long as that, so Bach used the sound of the open string like a drone. "Further it's far too specific an example for this article": As are the examples about violins imitating bagpipes, or the example about tuning the violin in DDAD.
High C Well.. those notes are hardly ever played, either stopping the string or with harmonics. I propose that both ways go into the article.
Vibrato: please, don't tell me that it's "original research", I'm just being logical. Nowhere did I claim that violin teachers ask their students to play quarter tones. I'm asserting that vibrato allows quarter tones to sound, and it's fact. "For one thing, microtonal schemes as practised around the world do not rely exclusively on half-semitones or quarter tones.": it doesn't matter. Even if microtones aren't part of pedagogy, even if they aren't specifically mentioned, they are there when we use vibrato. 190.173.190.64 (talk) 15:21, 28 May 2018 (UTC) EzequielReply
In the context of editing a Wikipedia article, "original research" is a term of art, whose meaning includes "just being logical" without a reliable source to support your assertion. Also see Wikipedia:Verifiability, not truth.
Vibrato in Western music is a decoration applied around notes which belong to a diatonic or chromatic scheme. It does not make those notes microtonal. If you wish to claim otherwise, the burden of showing a source is yours. Just plain Bill (talk) 16:27, 28 May 2018 (UTC)Reply
I'm tired. I'll just add this: a soloist can be heard over the orchestra because the soloist's part has higher and faster notes. I can assure you that when the soloist plays the same as the orchestra (tutti), he is indistinguishable. EzequielBelaus (talk) 15:01, 1 June 2018 (UTC) EzequielReply

@Just plain Bill: I'm wondering.. when I wrote about hunching and pain in the left hand, you didn't say anything. You didn't contest those. And I'm sure you read them. Why didn't you ask for sources then? EzequielBelaus (talk) 15:21, 27 June 2018 (UTC) HIV/AIDS is a fake diseaseReply

Editing wikipedia is a collaborative volunteer effort, for the most part without deadlines to meet. There are plenty of eyes on this article; I do not own it, nor does any other editor. Uncontroversial content does not, in many cases, need a source. I saw no need to demand one for those assertions. Even though I know them to be true from personal experience, it might be nice to have a link to some further reading on the subject, but that is not high on my list of priorities at the moment. Just plain Bill (talk) 22:32, 27 June 2018 (UTC)Reply
So, is it controversial to say that vibrato plays microtones? It only seems that you don't want it to be in the article. EzequielBelaus (talk) 18:20, 28 June 2018 (UTC) HIV/AIDS is a lie.Reply
It is more inane than controversial. It would also be silly to claim that just intonation is microtonal when compared to equal temperament, although a tenuous case could be made for that based on a superficial reading of Wikipedia's article on microtonal music. If you want to continue this discussion, it will not be fruitful to speculate about my motives. Bring a reliable source saying that vibrato is used with the aim of producing traditional microtones, and we can talk. Just plain Bill (talk) 19:54, 28 June 2018 (UTC)Reply
From the source you gave: "However, many editors misunderstand the citation policy, seeing it as a tool to enforce, reinforce, or cast doubt upon a particular point of view in a content dispute, rather than as a means to verify Wikipedia's information. This can lead to several mild forms of disruptive editing which are better avoided. Ideally, common sense would always be applied but Wiki-history shows this is unrealistic." "Sometimes editors will insist on citations for material simply because they dislike it or prefer some other material, not because the material in any way needs verification. (...) While there are cases where this kind of pedantic insistence is useful and necessary, often it is simply disruptive, and can be countered simply by pointing out that there is no need to verify statements that are patently obvious." EzequielBelaus (talk) 18:24, 28 June 2018 (UTC) HIV doesn't exist. It's a hoax.Reply
Oh, but I never said that vibrato is used with that aim. I stated that vibrato makes microtones. You are twisting my words. Obviously you have a problem with the fact that vibrato sounds microtones and don't want to see it written in the article. Perhaps, in your mind, Western and Easter music are two worlds apart. Microtones are a tenet of the East, so they have no business in the West. The fact that you are invoking the "sources" guideline and that you ask for a source that says that vibrato is taught in order to sound microtones, when I never said that, shows the bias that this "encyclopedia" has. Well, good luck to you, I hope you enjoy being a gatekeeper in a website. EzequielBelaus (talk) 20:56, 28 June 2018 (UTC) HIV/AIDS is a lie and a fraud and anybody who believes in it is guillible.Reply
OK, then, find any reliable source connecting vibrato and microtones, and we can discuss it reasonably. Personal attacks do not advance your case. Blue notes are used in some genres of Western music, so microtonality is not just a tenet of the East. Just plain Bill (talk) 21:16, 28 June 2018 (UTC)Reply
"Blue notes are used in some genres of Western music" Do you have a source for that? EzequielBelaus (talk) 17:01, 29 June 2018 (UTC) HIV is a fraud.Reply
Since you have presented no source for that claim, I deleted it. Just like you did to mine. EzequielBelaus (talk) 14:04, 30 June 2018 (UTC) HIV is a science-fiction tale that has no meaning in real life.Reply

Request for Semi Protection

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AdrianWikiEditor (talk) 23:24, 1 December 2018 (UTC)Reply

@AdrianWikiEditor:  Not done: requests for increases to the page protection level should be made at Wikipedia:Requests for page protection. RudolfRed (talk) 23:52, 1 December 2018 (UTC)Reply

Semi-protected edit request on 21 October 2021

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I am a violinist and i would love to add important things that were forgoten.

thanks, Luke Effuheufh (talk) 16:39, 21 October 2021 (UTC)Reply

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. Cannolis (talk) 17:09, 21 October 2021 (UTC)Reply
@Effuheufh:  Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate.  Not done: this is not the right page to request additional user rights. You may reopen this request with the specific changes to be made and someone will add them for you, or if you have an account, you can wait until you are autoconfirmed and edit the page yourself. Signed, I Am Chaos (talk) 17:09, 21 October 2021 (UTC)Reply

"Fiddle" and "violin"

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Presently the article suggests the terms violin and fiddle are used as synonyms. I would hazard to say that in the term fiddle is used only amusingly, jocosely, or very very casually. They are not the same word and aren't used in the same way. They refer to completely different situations. Pbhressays (talk) 22:14, 7 March 2022 (UTC)Reply

"FiddleandViolin" listed at Redirects for discussion

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An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect FiddleandViolin and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 May 8#FiddleandViolin until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Steel1943 (talk) 07:49, 8 May 2022 (UTC)Reply

Range

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Vienna symphonic library and Violin Inspriation both said the highest note possible is A7, could someone explain to me why this article says it's B7? 2601:647:4C00:D260:A925:EF1:15B3:6515 (talk) 21:42, 31 July 2022 (UTC)Reply

"Yet higher notes (up to C8) can be sounded by stopping the string, reaching the limit of the fingerboard, and/or by using artificial harmonics." Ok, it's seems like not a big deal now. 2601:647:4C00:D260:A925:EF1:15B3:6515 (talk) 21:48, 31 July 2022 (UTC)Reply

Up bow and down bow

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The section on Playing never mentions up bow versus down bow, which seems a basic aspect. I've noted a similar omission in the article on the cello and presumably in articles about other bowed instruments. The natural place to insert this information is the beginning of the section on Bowing techniques, but as a non-violinist I'm hesitant to write anything. Ishboyfay (talk) 04:01, 12 September 2022 (UTC)Reply

Semi-protected edit request on 19 December 2022

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The reference to the violin (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violin) as "the basis for the development of other stringed instruments used in Western classical music, such as the viola" is incorrect. The following passage (from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violin_family) is correct: "Instrument names in the violin family are all derived from the root viola, which is a derivative of the Medieval Latin word vitula (meaning "stringed instrument")." 2A06:4944:18EA:FE00:0:0:0:4EA3 (talk) 11:58, 19 December 2022 (UTC)Reply

We don't use other Wikipedia articles as sources; the development of the instrument is not identical with the etymology of its name. That said, we should really not be using etymonline as a source in either article. It's based (to what extent I don't know) on the OED and other dictionaries but it's also Douglas R. Harper's website - he's a historian, not an acknowleged linguistics expert. His site is highly commended by many but some of his sources seem rather old.Haploidavey (talk) 12:04, 19 December 2022 (UTC)Reply
 Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{Edit semi-protected}} template. casualdejekyll 17:39, 19 December 2022 (UTC)Reply

Bowed string instruments

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Proposing that list of string instruments or bowed string instruments be added to the "see also" section or somewhere in the article. Vyeh3 (talk) 14:19, 12 September 2024 (UTC)Reply

More citations in the "Playing" section?

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Hi all,

Prefacing my comment with a general "congratulations" and thanks to the community for an overall great article covering pretty much everything I can think of myself. I'm a violin player and I edited the article in French years ago as Mutatis mutandis. It's such a broad topic...

I have some regrets about the Playing section. I tend to agree, so to speak, with most of what is said - how to do this and that, what is easy and hard. But when I find myself disagreeing, it reminds me that there is a large lack of sources.

Examples of comments:

  • [end of paragraph "While teachers point out the vital importance of good posture"]: "This, like any other unwarranted tension, would limit freedom of motion, and increase the risk of injury." Or increase tiredness? Or worsen sound quality? Or something else? There are many things my teachers would emphasize about posture recommendations. In some instances, e.g. the risk of tendinitis. But they did not give sources, of course, and the article doesn't either. By analogy: in an article about contact sports, the risk of concussion gets some attention and some sources. What seems like common sense about danger, injury likelihood, prevalence, etc cannot be assumed.
  • "Beginners sometimes rely on tapes placed on the fingerboard for proper left hand finger placement, but usually abandon the tapes quickly as they advance. Another commonly used marking technique uses dots of white-out on the fingerboard, which wear off in a few weeks of regular practice. This practice, unfortunately, is used sometimes in lieu of adequate ear-training, guiding the placement of fingers by eye and not by ear." I've underlined what I think deserves citations. I've seen very widespread use of tape. But that may be very dependent on schooling style- I was taught in France, not in the US or Japan or India... I've never seen anyone using white-out! It doesn't prove it doesn't happen, but "commonly used" may be a big stretch, for all I know. Then, regular playing makes muscle memory happen. It would be strange to say about piano players that there's a risk associated with watching their fingers to never learn how to position their hands: we know from experience that muscle memory develops with practice... oopsie, no reference!
  • "Vibrato does little, if anything, to disguise an out-of-tune note; in other words, misapplied vibrato is a poor substitute for good intonation." Mmh, I disagree, but that's because this is an opinion without a source. Vibrato is bound to disguise intonation to an extent, because it's harder to hear the note it's centered around - there is no evidence that our ear would be able to take an average by integration. Moreover, some of my teachers had contradictory opinions about the apparent resulting tone. I remember at least one saying that vibrato may make the center note sound at a higher pitch than it was because we'd focus on the peaks of pitch. And another saying that a vibrato of reasonable amplitude has no such effect. These are subtle questions of psychoacoustics. This deserves more sources.
  • "The harmonic finger can also touch at a major third above the pressed note (the fifth harmonic), or a fifth higher (a third harmonic). These harmonics are less commonly used; in the case of the major third, both the stopped note and touched note must be played slightly sharp otherwise the harmonic does not speak as readily. In the case of the fifth, the stretch is greater than is comfortable for many violinists." A few examples of pieces using these harmonics would be welcome; the comment on rarity is not absolutely necessary if not sourced; an instruction manual / teaching method would explain the finer details of production (if absolutely necessary, too, but maybe it's getting in the weeds, given the rarity...)
  • "When strings are worn, dirty and old, the harmonics may no longer be accurate in pitch. For this reason, violinists change their strings regularly." For my teachers and me, a tell-tale that strings are worn (and the reason to change them at this time at the latest) is the difficulty to tune them in perfect fifths and play a perfect fifth in double stops [opinion!]. But you can play adequately for longer [opinion!], until the string fails in two ways [or more?]: 1) with corrosion from sweat and friction [personal experience!] the metal wounding breaks somewhere and it unwraps; 2) catastrophic failure, the string snaps, and you get viral videos of soloists who swapped violins with the concertmaster in a second, and kept playing seemingly unperturbed :D

I'm sorry as this likely comes across as sniping left and right... I know from experience, having needed to do it myself, how annoying it can be to source, after the fact, what practitioners may consider well-known insider information. But I hope my examples show reasonably that this section could benefit from more sources (or at times, avoid practical advice if it's both very specialized and hard to back up on top).

Pierre [Mutatis mutandis][I can't recover my username with my email address for reasons unknown! Dang it.] 72.215.133.32 (talk) 14:55, 8 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

The image of the instrument playing range might be incorrect

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Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that the image of the instrument playing range has a mistake and should be changed to how it was at 14:30 on 7 December 2008. At 17:40 on 4 September 2011, the user Florianwicher changed the image to show a B7 instead of an A7. His reasoning for changing the previous image was the following: "Changed the a2 to a b2 (can be played with the 4th finger on the E-String in 1st position)”. If I’m not mistaken, it's not an A2, but an A7. The image is meant to show the range of the violin: on the left it shows the four open strings of the instrument (G3-D4-A4-E5); on the right, the highest note that can be played on the fingerboard (A7), as well as the highest possible with harmonics (D8). On top of these last notes that appear written as A5 and D6, there's a fifteenth, which indicates that this part must be played two octaves higher than notated (so A7 and D8). I already reverted the image to how it was previously. However, it still appears incorrectly on the article. Thank you. Mr. Encarta (talk) 09:42, 16 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

Try refreshing the page or purging the cache. The edited image should appear. intforce (talk) 13:32, 16 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

Already done Looks correct to me as well. PianoDan (talk) 16:22, 16 April 2025 (UTC)Reply