Page 6 - Info magazine Strings Class nr 1 january 2021

Now everyone can easily experience these famous instruments

The Cremona violins are vastly superior in quality, but
these famous instruments are extremely expensive,
and so very few people can actually play one. However,
through advances in technology, we can easily obtain
instruments that are very similar to these famous in-
struments. Yamaha used the latest technology to per-
form a painstaking analysis of the violins of Antonio
Stradivari and Guarneri del Gesu, and using this data,
they have combined technology that reproduces the
hand-finished results of the past with an artisans skill
to produce high quality, reasonably priced violins. The-
se are the Artida models S and G.
The S model has rigid shoulders, and the f-holes run
just about parallel with the line of the body, while the G
model has sloping shoulders, and the f-holes are more
slanted. Each has its own characteristic tone.

Artida S (left) and G (right)

Bows in the age of environmental awareness

The preferred material for the stick of the violin bow has been pernambuco wood, which only
grows in the Amazon delta region in South America. Originally, it was exported to Germany for
use in creating dyes, but because of its unusual hardness, it began to be used to make bows. Ho-
wever, in recent years, this natural resource has began to become depleted. Tree farms were also
created, but it takes 30 years for this tree to attain full growth.
The carbon bow shown in the figure below uses carbon instead of wood. Developed to protect the
global environment while ensuring that the seeds of music continue to germinate, carbon bows
have has good gripping characteristics and are long lasting.

Carbon bow