Ah, the romance of the violin. Over the centuries, through the good times and even more the cataclysms that have shaken the world, a violin (provided it survives intact) gathers a past, accruing stories—some even true—until it acquires an almost semi-mystical glow. A lot of that is due to hard use and polishing, of course, but over time the violin comes alive, with a character and voice all its own. It takes craft to play it, and craft to make it, but beyond all that lies the art of the violin.

Nothing exemplifies that leap from craft to art more than the bass bar, because it goes to the very heart of the sound of your instrument. It takes the highest level of skill and training to fit it properly, but when it comes to shaping it, there are no numbers or templates to go by; it’s all in the fingertips.

It’s nearly invisible—except for a slight glimpse of it through the bass f-hole—and without the bass bar the top would collapse. A violin top is less than three millimeters thick; a cello top, not much more. And yet when the strings are brought up to their full pitch, the bridge exerts more than 35 pounds of pressure straight down on the center of the top (and more than twice that for a cello).

History of the Bass Bar

Under the treble foot of the bridge, the soundpost supports the top, transferring the weight to the back. Under the other foot, the bass bar carries the weight, distributing it along the length of the top. The bass bars I fit and shape are significantly more robust than those found in violins from the Baroque period and earlier. Those were shorter and lower; the plain gut strings in use at the time had significantly lower tension, resulting in much less pressure on the top.♣

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