Useful Measurements for Violin Makers: A Reference For Shop Use - Softcover

Strobel, Henry A.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0962067326 ISBN 13: 9780962067327

Publisher: Henry a Strobel, 1989

Synopsis

This classic handbook is a standard reference for violin, viola, bass, and bows, all sizes. Size and adjustment. Tables, text, diagrams. Concise, objective explanations. Bridge templates. Illustrated, with select bibliography. Cross reference of 200 violin terms in four languages. For anyone working with bowed instruments. The Strobel books for violin makers are professional, concise, and convenient, reflecting traditional, conservative, and artistic work. Some forty thousand sold, they are used internationally by student, amateur and professional makers in shops and schools, and referred to by manufacturers, sellers, users, and lovers of bowed instruments. High quality 8.5 by 11 in. paperbacks made to lie flat and last on your workbench.

About this title

About the Author

Henry Strobel is the author-publisher of seven books on violin, viola, and cello making, repair, and adjustment, which are used worldwide. He recently published a video Watch Me Make a Cello, Step by Step. Born in Indiana in 1936, he had a first career as an electronic design engineer, and was one of the founders of Digital Telephone Systems, Inc. in California, which manufactured transmission and switching equipment. He served in the US Air Force service in Scotland as a communications officer. He studied violin as a schoolboy, made his first over thirty years ago, and has had his own violin business for twenty years, fifteen at his current full service violin shop in Oregon, where, with his wife and sons, he also makes violins, violas, and cellos, and writes books.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Preface to the Fifth Edition

This little book has found a place in the violin world far beyond anyone's expectations. Tens of thousands are used worldwide in violin shops, schools, music stores, etc. Changes to this edition have been very small, as they were in the numerous printings of the second, third and fourth editions. While the book hasn't changed much since the second edition, I have grown older, and I learn more everyday from my colleagues, my reading, and my work in our violin shop. But the violin hasn't really changed much, and I have kept these books to the basics, the essentials for all workers with bowed instruments, to keep them above all usable and reliable rather than adding details and new procedures, materials and theories, many of which are subjective or short-lived. (I did add, inside the back cover, some basic old-fashioned notes on Care of String Instruments that you may wish to point out to students.)

One change in the violin world has been a shift to the East, first the growth of the Suzuki sizes, later the emergence of China as the "Modern Mirecourt." On the whole, I think there has been a trend recently to standardize on the "traditional" sizes as presented here. This leads to fewer surprises when the student gets a new violin - or a new case for it. See the new typical tables added on page 47.

The intention of this book is after all to help us work with all sizes of bowed instruments, not to prescribe precise measurements to makers or manufacturers. To the extent that it can serve as a common ground of communication I am honored and gratified.

Edition details

• Publisher: Henry a Strobel
• Publication date: 1989
• ISBN 10: 0962067326
• ISBN 13: 9780962067327
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 5
• Number of pages: 46