While playing the violin you burn 170 calories an hour!

The modern Violin contains over 70 separate pieces of wood. [according to Etienne Vatelot in a foreward to Menuhin's "The Violin"]

The smallest violin measures just under 2" or about 50 millimeters 

An old Italian term for the violin is "kit".

If a violinist is placed into an MRI machine, we can see that a much larger area of the brain - the right primary motor cortex - is devoted to his or her left fingers when compared with a non-violinist. Two or three times as large, in fact. Violinists also have more connections between the two sides of the brainwhich account for the better co-ordination they have between each hand compared with a non-violin player. Yay us!

Joseph Merlin of Huy, Belgium invented the roller skates. To introduce his invention he entered the ballroom-playing violin in 1759. Unfortunately he did not know how to stop and crashed into a full-length mirror, breaking his violin.

The violin is the most popular instrument for children, it is also the most indemand instrument at the professional level.